An oligarchy they don’t trust anymore

Specialists and scholars have rediscovered and exposed the U.S.’s oligarchical nature and much-trumpeted display of democracy, a fact equally concluded by John Q. Public not in theory but on the basis of their daily life in a wary police state long sided with the super-rich.

Juana Carrasco Martín /
juana@juventudrebelde.cu /
May 10, 2014

A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.


United States is no democracy, but an oligarchy where money talks... and democracy is dying, overwhelmed by its own bloated weight because it is profoundly corrupt. (Photo: Democracy Chronicles)

“The defining challenge of our time”, Barack Obama said; “the root of social evil”, Pope Francis declared. Both world-famous personalities were talking about inequality.

That the topic ranks high on the religious leader’s agenda goes without saying: he must look after his flock of sheep –dissimilar and scattered all over the world– be they living in rich or poor countries, in luxury or poverty.

Now, that the ruler of the most powerful country in the world admits to be worried about it gives food for thought: by his own admission, the gaps he's yet to bridge in a society held be the perfect democracy are getting wider by the day.

Is the U.S. by any chance the republic endowed with the most precious values and virtues people could ask for? Everything seems to indicate otherwise, an assertion not only founded on the empirical knowledge of those who live there and question their alleged democracy, but also on scientific research.

One of such studies, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, states in no uncertain terms that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy where money speaks… and democracy is dying under its own crushing burden, because it’s profoundly corrupt. That is how authors Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page answer the study’s opening questions, “Who governs?” and “Who really rules?”

Of course, they emphasize the current widespread control that the super-rich –a.k.a. bi-millionaires– have over the U.S., those that the Occupy Wall Street Movement identified as the 1% opposite the 99% allocated to the rest of the population in a social system considered markedly unequal and equidistant regarding the distribution of wealth.

Nothing has changed since Ancient Greece coined the term "oligarchy” to describe aristocracy’s degenerate and unappealing ways. It’s still the system in which supreme power is exercised by an elite, a minority among the powerful that is virtually eternalized because they dominate the economy, own land, banks, industries and all kinds of consortia, and hold enormous sway over the political leadership, sometimes even directly, without any of the mediating politicians they use as pawns to manipulate and shepherd everyone else.

The topic has gained a foothold in academic circles: in his new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty points out that modern capitalist has placed the world “on the road not just to a highly unequal society, but to a society of an oligarchy –a society of inherited wealth”.

In an interview given to journalist Bill Moyers, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said that not even those who are now employing the rhetoric of the “1% vs. 99%” fully appreciate the disaster that global wealth inequality is causing.

The debate has echoed around social networks and forums –ah, the wonders of a more massive and therefore democratized Internet– and, needless to say, some put it plain and simple and describe oligarchy as the dictatorship of capitalism or a government that follows capital’s dictates, whereas others recall what Marx studied and explained in the 19th century.

A look from the surveys

Pulse Opinion Research, LLC., the renowned American pollster that issues the daily Rasmussen Reports –on people’s mood about a wide assortment of political, economic or social problems of their concern– reveals public opinion through percentage points.

For instance, an April 24 survey found that 53% think that neither party in Congress represents the American people –which is up six points from the 47% level of distrust found in June 2012 during the last national election cycle, while 28% disagree and 19% were not as sure as to consider themselves either disillusioned about or out-and-out believer in their political system.

To make things worse, the younger the polled voters are, the greater the disenchantment.

And if the party still carry clout among those who cast their vote every two or four years in the midterm or the presidential elections, Congress –the national legislative body supposed to represent Americans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives– is looking increasingly bad in the public eye: just 6% of voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job, while 72% say it would be better for the country if most incumbents (those hoping to keep their seats, which account for the great majority) were defeated this November…

Along the same lines, 66% say they get reelected because elections are rigged to benefit them.

Disappointment has reached such limits that an unheard-of percentage (70%) of citizens think that, no matter how bad things are, Congress can always find a way to make them worse. Truth is, very few voters believe that Congress members ever pay heed to their interests or demands.

Supporting such skepticism are further data closely related to the gaps and iniquities underlying the U.S.’s description as an oligarchic state.

Congress members are paid $174,000 per year, and 63% of people think they are overpaid.

The above feelings notwithstanding, retired Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va), was recently complaining that it was a low salary, a view diametrically opposed to that of the vast majority who know about budget cuts in services as essential as health or education as an attempt to balance the federal budget, despite the growing amounts of money spent in items such as the sums allocated to the Pentagon or to security agencies ever more intent on violating people’s civil rights in their self-proclaimed democratic society.

Lay another stone on the road to hell: as said by Rasmussen Reports, 61% hold that their Representative or Senator sold their vote. Simply put, Congress is for sale, and payment is made in hard cash or through contributions to election campaigns. Hence that no legislation is ever passed in the U.S. which bounds the power of the few, because behind them are the great donors, corporations and financial institutions from many different fields –oil companies, pharmaceutical industries or Pentagon contractors– that give so much money to Democrats and Republicans alike.

Large fortunes

Beyond salaries and donations, however, more and more American politicians are making it to the list of millionaires or bi-millionaires, and quite a few of them are also heirs to large fortunes or already creating their own dynasties, thus setting U.S. oligarchy in cement.

It’s an obvious, if seldom rejected, conflict of interests, much as many Americans grumble about their politicians’ riches, and rightly so: put together, the fortunes of the 50 wealthiest members of Congress adds up to 1.6 billion dollars. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is said to have the fattest bank account: 355 million dollars.

A 2012 Random Celebrity article has it that a Representative’s average capital was close to a million –913,000 dollars, to be precise– but also that the figure was much higher when it came to all politicians, governors, senators, presidents, mayors, etc.

Some examples: Michael Bloomberg, who was New York mayor three times as of 2001, has a personal fortune of 19.5 billion; another well-known former governor, who made the “ethical” decision to give up his salary of 175,000 dollars when he took office in California, is 400-million-dollar Arnold Schwarzenegger; Texan congressman Michael McCaul is held to own 305 million; former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s fortune amounts to 294 million; current Secretary of State John Kerry has amassed 194 million; and, together, Bill and Hillary Clinton have 101.5 million.

Many of them have even outdone a few traditional oligarchical clans long embedded in politics like Jay Rockefeller (86 million) and Richard Blumenthal (53 million). President Obama has a “modest” bundle of 11.8 million…

Therefore, so much skepticism is justified, as are the concerns about the direction taken by an oligarchical state whose imperial power is at once perceived and scorned all over the world.

The conclusion is made by another Rasmussen survey referred to what President Obama remarked in a February 7, 2011 speech to the Chamber of Commerce: “Government and big business can and must work together”, which public opinion has translated into the following fact: 63% say that those with the best political connections land the best Government contracts, while 68% believe that “government and big business work together against the rest of us”.

Things have changed for the worse ever since President Eisenhower nominated Charles E. Wilson, one of General Motors Company’s top stockholders, to be Secretary of Defense more than six decades ago. In his confirmation hearings, Wilson pronounced one of the system's alpha-and-omega sentences: “What’s good for General Motors is good for America”.