This news bite isn't so surprising or at least should not be surprising, if you don't live under a rock & actually think a little bit how the world actually works in real life.
As I have blogged several times in the past & as this news bite confirms it that democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world, except, maybe, in very small countries with quite a bit of homogenous population in terms of race, ethnicity, & religious beliefs.
So, as this study concludes that public policy is heavily, or rather, completely, influenced by wealthy elites & the special interest / lobbying groups. The common man, or a woman, doesn't have any power in influencing public policies, even the ones directly & adversely affecting him / her.
Now, I know that correlation doesn't imply causation but you do have to wonder how come most, if not all, policies coming out of the government end up favouring the wealthy much more than the poor public. Be it the taxation debate or jobs discussion, or the minimum wage or homelessness, or any number of social & public problems, the rich & wealthy always win out, while the poor left holding the empty bag.
Democracy in the world, especially in the West, only exists superficially. The mass public thinks that since they are voting, their voice matters. Nope it doesn't. Take Canada, for instance. Majority of public is against Syrian refugees making Canada their new home or Canada supplying $15 billions of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. But did the government listen to the public to actually not welcome Syrian refugees, especially when government is cutting funding to help reduce urban homelessness or rising unemployment through financial injections in the economy. Please keep in mind here that we are not discussing the morality of these issues. That's a whole different discussion in itself.
We can also take US public opinion when George Bush's approval ratings before winning his second term was the lowest of any American president before him but he still won a second term. Or how a majority of German public is against Merkel's insistence on keep welcoming more & more refugees & migrants? Once again, not discussing morality of such issues as refugee crisis. Or Japan where a majority of public was against Abe's decision to turn the country towards more militarism than pacifism. Or is it really democratic of all those dozens of nations involved in TTP (TransPacific Trade Partnership) without any input, whatsoever, from the general public, who will be taking the brunt of all the adverse effects of this trade partnership, while the rich elites make a fine buck out of this trade partnership?
Remember, democracy is not about voting in general elections, but actually about having an actual influence in how the country is run.
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ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: A new study titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, & Average Citizens (PDF) says what we've all long felt to be true: the rich & powerful have much greater influence than the rest of us. Political scientist Martin Gilens of Princeton University & Benjamin Page of Northwestern looked at about 1,800 survey questions of public opinion between 1981 & 2002, & they concluded "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
So, Benjamin, tell us how you came to this conclusion. Tell us about the data that you looked at. And give us some concrete statistics to show that democracy gap between the public & the economic elites.
BENJAMIN PAGE, FULCHER PROF. OF DECISION MAKING, NORTHWESTERN UNIV.: Well, Marty Gilens & his people worked for about 10 years to do this. It's a very difficult study. ... . It involved gathering a lot of information about public opinion, about what affluent people think, & about what interest groups stand for. And we then looked at how public policy came out on these 1,800 cases. And it turns out, if you wanted to predict it, the average citizen simply appeared to have no influence whatsoever, no measurable influence, but organized groups had quite a bit, & affluent citizens even more.
WORONCZUK: So you looked at about two decades' worth of surveys of public opinion. Do you see a change in influence of economic elites over that time? Or is it relatively constant? And also, do you see a change in the kinds of elites that have influence over policy?
PAGE: Well, there appears to be some change over time. As economic inequality has increased & there's more money among the most wealthy people, they seem to use more of it for politics & have more influence. And, of course, the study data ended some time ago. This was before the Supreme Court decisions that increased the power of money still far further.
WORONCZUK: And so what kind of issues do we see the wealthy having a greater influence over? What kind of policy choices do they seek that differs from that of the desires of the public?
PAGE: Well, there are certain kinds of issues on which wealthy Americans tend to disagree quite a bit with the average. One of the biggest is Social Security, where the average American really likes the program, wants to increase it, & wealthy Americans tend to want to cut it to reduce budget deficits. Then there are a lot of policies that have to do with jobs & incomes where you get the same kind of situation--the wealthy people, of course, don't particularly get anything from those, & I think they may underappreciate their importance to average people. There are also disagreements about economic regulation. The average American's much more keen on regulating big corporations, for example. And there are difference about tax policy. The average American would like to close loopholes & have high-income people pay a substantially larger share, whereas upper income people are less enthusiastic about that.
WORONCZUK: Do you see any policy desires of the public or the economic elite that tend to converge?
PAGE: Yes. There are many of them, and particularly in this study. ... in many cases, the average person agrees & they get what they want, but apparently it's only because the affluent want it.
What we suspect but don't really have evidence for is that much wealthier people may be exerting most of that political influence. And they tend to have much more different policy preferences from the average person.
WORONCZUK: Okay. So judging this democracy gap that exists between the public & the economic elite, let's say that Obama called you tomorrow & put you on economic reform task force. What recommendations would you make to him?
PAGE: ... what I would suggest is that we really work hard to reduce the role of money in politics. The Supreme Court's made it a little harder, but there's still things you can do--full disclosure of all kinds of political donations, for example; limiting lobbying; & probably public financing of campaigns. Most people don't want to give a bunch of tax money to politicians, but the alternative is to have them rely on private money, & public funding would probably help quite a bit reduce that reliance.
As I have blogged several times in the past & as this news bite confirms it that democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world, except, maybe, in very small countries with quite a bit of homogenous population in terms of race, ethnicity, & religious beliefs.
So, as this study concludes that public policy is heavily, or rather, completely, influenced by wealthy elites & the special interest / lobbying groups. The common man, or a woman, doesn't have any power in influencing public policies, even the ones directly & adversely affecting him / her.
Now, I know that correlation doesn't imply causation but you do have to wonder how come most, if not all, policies coming out of the government end up favouring the wealthy much more than the poor public. Be it the taxation debate or jobs discussion, or the minimum wage or homelessness, or any number of social & public problems, the rich & wealthy always win out, while the poor left holding the empty bag.
Democracy in the world, especially in the West, only exists superficially. The mass public thinks that since they are voting, their voice matters. Nope it doesn't. Take Canada, for instance. Majority of public is against Syrian refugees making Canada their new home or Canada supplying $15 billions of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. But did the government listen to the public to actually not welcome Syrian refugees, especially when government is cutting funding to help reduce urban homelessness or rising unemployment through financial injections in the economy. Please keep in mind here that we are not discussing the morality of these issues. That's a whole different discussion in itself.
We can also take US public opinion when George Bush's approval ratings before winning his second term was the lowest of any American president before him but he still won a second term. Or how a majority of German public is against Merkel's insistence on keep welcoming more & more refugees & migrants? Once again, not discussing morality of such issues as refugee crisis. Or Japan where a majority of public was against Abe's decision to turn the country towards more militarism than pacifism. Or is it really democratic of all those dozens of nations involved in TTP (TransPacific Trade Partnership) without any input, whatsoever, from the general public, who will be taking the brunt of all the adverse effects of this trade partnership, while the rich elites make a fine buck out of this trade partnership?
Remember, democracy is not about voting in general elections, but actually about having an actual influence in how the country is run.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: A new study titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, & Average Citizens (PDF) says what we've all long felt to be true: the rich & powerful have much greater influence than the rest of us. Political scientist Martin Gilens of Princeton University & Benjamin Page of Northwestern looked at about 1,800 survey questions of public opinion between 1981 & 2002, & they concluded "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
So, Benjamin, tell us how you came to this conclusion. Tell us about the data that you looked at. And give us some concrete statistics to show that democracy gap between the public & the economic elites.
BENJAMIN PAGE, FULCHER PROF. OF DECISION MAKING, NORTHWESTERN UNIV.: Well, Marty Gilens & his people worked for about 10 years to do this. It's a very difficult study. ... . It involved gathering a lot of information about public opinion, about what affluent people think, & about what interest groups stand for. And we then looked at how public policy came out on these 1,800 cases. And it turns out, if you wanted to predict it, the average citizen simply appeared to have no influence whatsoever, no measurable influence, but organized groups had quite a bit, & affluent citizens even more.
WORONCZUK: So you looked at about two decades' worth of surveys of public opinion. Do you see a change in influence of economic elites over that time? Or is it relatively constant? And also, do you see a change in the kinds of elites that have influence over policy?
PAGE: Well, there appears to be some change over time. As economic inequality has increased & there's more money among the most wealthy people, they seem to use more of it for politics & have more influence. And, of course, the study data ended some time ago. This was before the Supreme Court decisions that increased the power of money still far further.
WORONCZUK: And so what kind of issues do we see the wealthy having a greater influence over? What kind of policy choices do they seek that differs from that of the desires of the public?
PAGE: Well, there are certain kinds of issues on which wealthy Americans tend to disagree quite a bit with the average. One of the biggest is Social Security, where the average American really likes the program, wants to increase it, & wealthy Americans tend to want to cut it to reduce budget deficits. Then there are a lot of policies that have to do with jobs & incomes where you get the same kind of situation--the wealthy people, of course, don't particularly get anything from those, & I think they may underappreciate their importance to average people. There are also disagreements about economic regulation. The average American's much more keen on regulating big corporations, for example. And there are difference about tax policy. The average American would like to close loopholes & have high-income people pay a substantially larger share, whereas upper income people are less enthusiastic about that.
WORONCZUK: Do you see any policy desires of the public or the economic elite that tend to converge?
PAGE: Yes. There are many of them, and particularly in this study. ... in many cases, the average person agrees & they get what they want, but apparently it's only because the affluent want it.
What we suspect but don't really have evidence for is that much wealthier people may be exerting most of that political influence. And they tend to have much more different policy preferences from the average person.
WORONCZUK: Okay. So judging this democracy gap that exists between the public & the economic elite, let's say that Obama called you tomorrow & put you on economic reform task force. What recommendations would you make to him?
PAGE: ... what I would suggest is that we really work hard to reduce the role of money in politics. The Supreme Court's made it a little harder, but there's still things you can do--full disclosure of all kinds of political donations, for example; limiting lobbying; & probably public financing of campaigns. Most people don't want to give a bunch of tax money to politicians, but the alternative is to have them rely on private money, & public funding would probably help quite a bit reduce that reliance.
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