The US is an oligarchy, study concludes.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ludes.html



Plutarchy fits the description a lot better.

Proof that subliminal advertising works. All the money the 1% spends during election cycles on flooding the airwaves and billboards with propaganda to convince people to vote for their puppets and not SCOTUS has reaffirmed what this study shows. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Now the squeaky wheel is pimping the voter restriction that are happening all over America. The puppets still have to win elections and at least they recognize they can not win a majority vote legally, so now they are stealing peoples right to vote so they can win elections dishonorably.

Yes, the country is rapidly turning into an oligarchy. The good news is, maybe it's not yet too late to reverse this great evil from happening to America. But that would mean we commoners must stop letting ourselves be divided by the powers that be as we have for all this time, and make common cause for our own collective and personal interests.

Maybe it's because I grew up in Chicago where the ineffectiveness of the ordinary citizen and dependence on big government was a given and corruption hardly hidden, but I've been aware of the political "bow" to corporations for at least 60 years. And it wasn't only in Chicago politics. Businesses everywhere were always looking for "angles"; remember Prohibition? Corruption? Everyone did it. I think bush's granddad even got caught selling to the Nazis, building the corporate business, during the war.

All I see is business as usual....hardly enough to waste the effort at honesty, as the news/reporting media are in it up to their eyeballs. Just more finger pointing at the other party.

denny

As compared to where? (as opposed possibly to Iceland with its population of 320,137)

The good news is that the United States has been here before and recovered from it. The Gilded Age was just as much a plutocracy as today.

Hopefully it won't take two world wars and a depression to effect a paradigm shift, but if history teaches us anything it is that unsustainable systems inevitably fail. So the 1% have two choices: make the current system sustainable, or watch it come crashing down around their ears.

That's the acid test.

We really can't abolish a capitalistic system. Without limitless cheap energy and resources, we can't ensure global prosperity for all. To get, you must give, and those in a position to control the resources come out on top.

Still, the uber-elite want to control the world. They've worked long and hard to make it happen, but such control would only be possible when the singularity arrives and people could be controlled like drones. We're not there yet, and the system they're building is crumbling about as fast as they are building it. People are waking up, seeing the corruption for what it is, and taking steps to be prepared for it.

They are likely going to be undone by their own conceit and arrogance. The mechanisms to enslave the world have been going on for probably over 200 years in a slow progression...each generation knowing they may never see it come to pass in their lifetime. Now, there seems to be a generation of uber-elite who see the goal so much in reach that they want it to happen in their lifetime, and they are taking risks that is exposing their system for what it is. If they were willing to take it slow and accept it would be their great-grandchildren who inherent their legacy, they'd probably still be working completely in the shadows.

^^^
Your mentioning of the slow eroding of freedoms over the last two hundred years reminds me of how during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in northern Europe, people unconsciously were gradually transformed from free tribesmen and warriors to a population of serfs.

The real power is exercised by the Few. Oligarchy for sure.

Aristotle said there were three main types of government

Democracy (which turns into mob rule)
Tyranny (which is power exercised irresponsibly by the one)
Oligarchy.

He pointed out in his book Politics that Democracy gets out of control and produces Tyranny and that Oligarchy can become Tyranny. Oligarchy exercised by responsible moderate people is probably the best.

ruveyn

Unconsciously?

Flame and sword passed through this region, east to west, north to south, etc. century after century, native populations subdued and mixed over and over. Any time spent without war must have been like heaven. Depending on a strong, hopefully benevolent, protector to guard, and in turn tax, them doesn't seem too unsetteling.

What am I missing?

denny

That was definitely a big part of it. Still, probably no one foresaw the diminishing influence of the popular assembly of free men giving way to the power of warlords with their private retinues of professional warriors. Or that more and more common land owners would lose their property to become tenants sharing part of their crops with said warlords.