Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?
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Oligarchy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy take your pick.
Pretty sure it crossed that line decades ago.
Late 19th century. There was some pushback, some anti-trust laws with teeth, and then decades of bloody union battles to secure rights workers and their elected officials have thrown away for 50 years.
The concentration of wealth and influence of 10-16 people trumps that of hundreds of millions and is as bad or worse than it was during the robber baron era.
Political representatives are bought and paid for which means the poor have no voice against the wealthy.
We have a justice system that is incapable of prosecuting the wealthy and powerful, when it isn’t being stocked by ideologues.
Meritocracy is dead; Birth has much greater correlation to wealth and power.
Media is fully captured by the wealthy; they own the vast majority of media consumed: TV, film, news, social junk.
Nice country you got here.
Remember when unions thought they were so Irreplaceable and important. That they would withhold Support for a second term from a Democrat, they didn’t think did enough for them. One of the biggest miscalculations and blunders of the post World War II era. Because first they came for the unions and labor power.
I’d say around the beginning of the 1900s is when we truly lost the plot. While we, the workers, were given a few breadcrumbs over the years to appease us, the Owner class was strip mining the wealth at every level imaginable, there’s a reason people like Rockefeller and Carnegie were richer than heaven at this time in history.
I say this in nearly complete seriousness:
Always has been
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Literally founded by slave owners
Only landowning or capitalist white men could vote and participate in politics…
It has been an oligarchy for a long time. This has been studied and proven.
There was a study from Princeton showing that no major policy has aligned with public opinion since the civil rights era.
There is no measurable way that our government has reflected the will of the majority in over 50 years.
Someone also did the other side where they tied policy- and law-making to benefiting the ultra rich. I do not recall source so I can’t provide that, but I did read the paper at one time a few years ago. It was legit.
Link
Thank you!
proven
Please explain. I don’t disagree with the conclusion, but this supporting statement doesn’t ring true to me.
By demonstrating the facts which make the system meet the definition. Look it up there’s plenty of articles citing studies. Someone else linked a major one here.
“Look it up” is never a good argument. With that said, I understand what you mean now; Thank you.
“Look it up” is not an argument, it’s a suggested course of action. I explained my point and then suggested you look it up in order to see it more elaborated and supported.
I wasn’t aware there was an argument taking place; certainly not one involving me.
Sorry, I just assumed that you were being hostile for some reason.
Nope, just informative to the extent I could be.
Well in 2015 Jimmy Carter said that the United States is "just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. "
That same year The Economist’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States to a “flawed democracy” and it has continued to trend downwards since then.
If you’re looking for something more recent, Bernie Sanders is saying the same thing: “We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, have so much wealth and so much power”.
So between the massive (and growing) income inequality in the country, and rulings like Citizen’s United it’s hard not to believe it’s not at least on the trajectory towards an oligarchy. Now throw in the blatantly corrupt picks of the Trump administration, where cabinet positions are favors to rich friends, or being given to billionaires with a direct interest in killing the government agency they are running - not to mention all the things he’s routinely done / will do to enrich himself / friends with tax payer dollars and it certainly seems like an oligarchy to me.
And just on a personal vibes level, living here, it feels like legislation to help normal people or solve normal people’s problems is almost non-existent. And when it does happen, it also conveniently throws a ton of money at the rich at the same time (see recent tax cuts, pandemic relief funds, etc.). Even something like the Affordable Care Act, which did a ton of net good things for this country, enriched a whole lot of private healthcare companies along the way rather than creating an actual public option with negotiated prices to keep government costs down.
Turned? Have you ever heard of the Rockefeller and Morgan families?
Koch brothers…
the US is run by billionaires and corporations.
you can live in peace as long as you don’t inconvenience them too much, and keep paying them
Stop dancing to their tune and you quickly discover how much freedom you really got
The only solution is to quit being
boomerpoor lolEdit: Interesting auto correct
Always has been. They’re simply not hiding it any more.
The US has been an oligarchy for some time. Act accordingly.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
There are political cartoons from over a century ago where they’re talking about how much of an oligarchy it is. Look at this one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/The_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg/1920px-The_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg
It’s been an open oligarchy since Citizen’s United. Seems like a lot of people are just now seeing the effects of what that decision allowed. Our Supreme Court was already corrupt, but because they at least maintained an air of dignity, people just looked past the death of our democracy.
You’re thinking of Kleptocracy, where politicians are mainly worried about extracting wealth from the country. Oligarchy has to do with class mobility and who is allowed to run for office. (Namely a financial and political class of “elites”) Citizen’s United kick started another era of politicians working to grab as much money as possible for their donors.
I would argue that Citizen’s United effectively made it impossible for non-elites to meaningfully effect the US political process, forcing us down a road where only those who can raise the most money are considered eligible for political office.
That was already the case though. I’m not arguing we aren’t living under some sort of Oligrachy, I’m arguing that Citizens United was a logical symptom of that Oligarchy, not the start of it.
Tbh I think the most recent election and its implications makes the facts abundantly clear.
I would say corporatocracy. Ever since Citizens United, corporations have been making more and more policy and political decisions, placing in power who they believe will advance their agendas of unlimited and never ending profit.
Corporations are fiction of law.
Owners are a few very wealthy individuals who abuse this fiction and the state against the pedon class.
It is a class war and always has been.
in war, both sides are aware they’re fighting. they’re both willing to fight. they’re both armed.
Well then we got a generational genocide of the indigenous working populations
The owners would rather bring in immigrants than create a country where people feel comfortable having families
I think it’s worse. I think we have noble houses fighting for the throne again. The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama… In what sane democracy does the family member or wife of the last elected leader make sense as being the best option? Forget oligarchy, we have a straight up monarchy brewing with a nice democratic paint job.
The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama
That’s how an oligarchy works though. A few powerful people, usually dynastic families, decide how the country should be run. You’re giving an example of oligarchs picking an oligarch. How is that evidence of monarchy rather than oligarchy?
Speaking of the nice paint job, it’s a good job you guys made that Eagle thing official. That makes it nice and clear that you’re not at risk of transitioning from democracy to dictatorship.
Blood descendants are a foundation of monarchy though
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It always was
I sorta disagree in the context of having a middle class. We did and still do have our oligarchs, we had our Gilded Age which I would definitely call an oligarchy that lasted into the early 1900s with the Rail, Steel, and Oil barons to name a few. But the middle class exploded in the post-war years, unions became powerful, corporations and the rich were brought somewhat to heel with consumer and worker protections, along with high taxes that kept the rich from taking an even bigger chunk of the pie. Yeah, the rich still did rich people stuff, but they tended to do it more on the DL.
Now? We’re literally at the point where people are so absurdly rich they can have private space programs, dump hundreds of thousands into political campaigns, crush unions, invite themselves into the government, and have fuck you money. Literally, Musk telling people to fuck themselves.
So IMO yeah, the US is an full-on oligarchy again after a brief semi-respite in the middle to later parts of the 20th century, and it’s a shameless and open one.
the US is an full-on oligarchy again after a brief semi-respite in the middle to later parts of the 20th century
It went from oligarchy that provided a certain minimum quality of life to workers into one that is intentionally as extractive as possible. Once women entered the work force and effectively doubled the labor pool, capitalists had a lot more leverage.
Spot on! Especially the “shameless” bit. Yeah, the rich were rich, but Jesus, it was distasteful and immoral to flaunt it.
I guess Teddy Roosevelt and FDR never existed.
We didn’t have a democracy then either. How many parties were at the debates? And how much wealth did the candidates have compared to the rest of the US?
Yep, all oligarchs.
I need you to define the word “oligarchy” and then show me that it applies using that specific definition.
Edit: the point is that if you actually define the term as “a polity that’s controlled by a small number of people” (that is, the definition) it’s easy to show the above comment is just a lie.
