Has the USA turned into an oligarchy?
Has the USA turned into an oligarchy?
Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?
Yes.
Really and truly, yes.
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.
When Eisenhower warned of Military Industrial complex, US was already an oligarchy, and the warning was the declaration of defeat.
JFK assassination was deep state stuff, followed by more pandering to oligarchy with Regan. Media was always in charge of who won elections. That the veil of pretense for liberalism is removed doesn't change the nature of US empire, and its autocracy over meaningful rulership. Trump simultaneously threatens the US empire's covert colonization of world, while threatening to subjugate world even harder. Naked Oligarchy, and explicit anti-liberalism as treason, is a hallmark of incoming rulership through.
Agreeing with this individual. The US has been an oligarchy for a while and late President Carter said it himself “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s 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. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.”
True. We've had J. Paul Getty, JP Morgan, Wm. Randolph Hearst, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Aristotle Onassis up to George Soros and Elon Musk. Since long before Citizen Kane and actually since the founding of the nation, it has been wealthy families, companies and individuals wielding the actual power in the nation and, honestly, across the world. It's not like millionaires from billionaire families have never been elected senator or president before.
The people that are called "oligarchs" in the news and across the internet, though, are amateurs, puppets or patsies. Especially, the new Russian, Chinese oligarchs. The real powers don't hold office and they try to keep their names out of the news.
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
Always has been. They're simply not hiding it any more.
Yes.
We've been an oligarchy since the Reagan years.
Astronaut Pistol Astronaut.
Can someone explain this comment? I can ask dumb questions here right?
"Wait, it's an oligarchy?"
"Always has been."
The usa Is a fascist regime. Plutocracy and oligarchy are normal Components of fascism.
Lol this post made me appreciate Lemmy so much.
There was a question on dead-it asking something about why the American middle class seemed to suffer so much since the mid20th century and it was full of obvious bots pointing to the positive but temporary effects of WW2. It took quite some scrolling before I saw any mention of the stagnation of real wages since then.
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.
According to Jimmy Carter it has beensince 2015:
Also the subesquent SpeechNow decision that pulled out the stops AND created precedent by citing Citizens United.
https://ballotpedia.org/SpeechNOW.org_v._Federal_Election_Commission
The USA has always and forever represented the will of the Bourgeoisie. The issue we are seeing now is further and further separation between the Proletariat and a smaller and smaller concentration of the Bourgeoisie due to Capitalism's centralizing nature. The silver lining is that this same centralizing process makes Socialism even easier to implement once the Proletariat siezes control, as these large intricate networks have already developed their own infrastructure for planning that can be folded into the Public Sector, the hard part is getting over that threshold of power.
Oligarchy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy take your pick.
LoL! Just because the Richest Man on Earth bought Our Presidency and anytime you kill a Rich Person it's considered an Act of Terrorism DOESNT make us an OLIGARCHY!
Wut. When was the US not an oligarchy? Give me a year.
1200 BCE
Technically correct
1908 and 1940.
During this time populist policies that disrupted the owners were implemented and being implemented. As such, it is clear they weren't in control of the country. Thus, it was not an oligarchy.
These are the easiest examples. Anyone who thinks it was always an oligarchy is simplifying history. Anyone who disputes that is a liar or an idiot.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Oh, HELL yes.Americans foundation was built as an oligarchy.
The land of the free enslaved it's inhabitants.
Yes, it has
The people saying "always has been" have really short memories or've forgotten about the Roosevelt administrations.
There is a decent argument to be made that the USA is a de-facto oligarchy. However, it's a de-jure liberal democracy and Constitutional Republic for the time being.
Sure you can. Until January 6th.
It's at least a Soft Oligarchy yes. There's no legally or extra legally enforced class system. If you can make it into the upper classes, by guile, luck, or sheer bastardry they'll accept you and let you run some things, maybe even political offices. See J.D. Vance, a millennial from Appalachia who has risen to the Vice Presidency via guile and sheer bastardry.
But it's a Soft Oligarchy because opportunities are far from equal. Before anyone starts screeching, equality of outcome isn't an expectation here, merely equality of opportunity. In the large majority of cases your zip code can predict your future socioeconomic level. And not because rural areas are cheaper, that just means middle and upper class start at lower numbers there. Those classes are still not being obtained. Along with this are several studies over the last couple decades telling us that socioeconomic mobility is all but dead, both individually, and more recently, intergenerational mobility.
So while you aren't going to be killed or imprisoned for earning too much or asking for stuff above your station, it is very rare to access those levels without being born to them. Thus the "soft" in Soft Oligarchy.
There's no legally or extra legally enforced class system.
Lol wat?
US has a strict class system. There is owner class and working class, they get treated differently under the law.
For example, look at how owners get taxed v how regular people get taxed. That's legally enforced class.
.D. Vance, a millennial from Appalachia who has risen to the Vice Presidency via guile and sheer bastardry.
Regime propaganda relies on these stories to justify the class system. Every generation gets a few of this class traitors so pedons can be told... You see loser, if you worked harder, daddy would reward you too! Now back on the planstation, start making daddy some mother fucking money.
The tax system doesn't care where you came from. In a Hard Oligrachy it would. You would never escape the working class tax system or justice system and those systems would be designed to prevent you from changing classes, to the point of destroying anyone with the pretensions to try. The fact that you can access that other standard of treatment means the class system isn't enforced. If you want to say it's highly encouraged I would agree with you, but this isn't some conspiracy to have a couple winners that get highly propagandized, and there's no law against socioeconomic mobility.
Examples of Hard oligarchies are countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia. In Russia you will go out a window because someone powerful didn't like your competition and you have no protections; and in Saudi Arabia you will be arrested for pissing off the Royals.
The US is bad enough without exaggerating shit to make it seem like the worst. That leaves us unable to see what we might want to keep. Like the way the justice and healthcare systems treat rich people, we should all have that.
if money = power then liberal (democracy) = oligarchy
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The closest thing we have to democracy is our ability to begin democracy by fighting against first-past-the-post voting systems
The government controls all media. If they do not control one and it get big, it gets 'regulated' like TikTok or even banned. The general public will vote for the oligarchy as instructed.
it's very close to turning into one.
It's not quite there, but trump is definitely not one to shy away from it, so it mostly depends on who he appoints and interacts with. And how corrupt he will be.
No, we will never be an oligarchy. A plutocracy, yes, but I think money is the deciding factor here.
A Plutocracy is merely an Oligarchy by virtue of wealth. It's not as if you or I could ever earn enough money legitimately to move up to the ruling class. That makes it functionality indistinguishable from an Oligarchy that is hand picked by arbitrary factors.
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.
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
The US has been an oligarchy for some time. Act accordingly.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
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.
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
The rich were behind the mutiny in the first place, so, always has been
I'll take merchants over nobles, but that doesn't mean they both don't deserve a guillotine.
But the nobles were the good guys, don't you see? It was all in the name, "noble". How could bad guys possibly be so noble?
citizens united is where I would draw the line and no I don't think we are an oligarchy but a plutocracy. Honestly Im not even sure if that is the right word because the money itself has the effect and the various wealthy people spending it. I don't think they even really understand what they are doing. So its more like being ruled by money rather than the wealthy per se and honestly the ones calling the shots are the financial entities so corporations. Part of it may just be their relative power and active global decision making bend. News articles talk about musk possibly being the first trillionaire but mean while corps have based a trillion as early as 2008 and now many multi trillion dollar companies are around and the top add up to tens of trillions. So corptocracy. We had enough of that to begin with but now its out of control. Someone recently posted the international agreement that allows corps to sue countries and that finished up in the 90's so it not only started before but is also not just a us thing.
A plutocracy is a type of oligarchy
Yeah. I prefer to say plutocracy though, because its clear that the power is obtained by money specifically
Oil company with an army...
Looks like you are a few years behind events.
200?
I mean, no country truely had 10/10 democracy.
The US literally started out from people in chains, but eventually free the enslaved people (with the prison exemption), then black men could vote, then women.
Segregation was legal, then it it was outlawed.
Civil Right Act was passed
The level of racism began to deminish, not completely gone, but deminishing
I would say the US was at 1/10 democracy at the beginning, it was at 5/10 before trump, then it was at 4/10 right after Jan-6, now its at 4.25/10 (because some judicial appointments were made by biden as a counterbalance to republican judges).
Is it an oligarchy? Not really. I would say it's a democracy in which rich people have an advantage in money and influence. So I guess you could call it a semi-oligarchy. Because in a real oligarchy, the media would've been censored, and you wouldn't be seeing my comment, you wouldn't be able to ask such question, there'd be no free(ish) internet access. There's be no somewhat protected union activity. There's be no somewhat protected protests. There are often violations to those rights, but back then, it was way worse.
We never really had a true 10/10 democracy, but as time goes on, it tends to trend toward becoming more democratic. (We'll see what happens with Project 2025. Could be just another period of recession as it has happened many times throughout US history, or it could be Weimar 1933, only time will tell)
I'm here hoping to any god that is watching that Project 2025 becomes something like a dog catching the car situation. The Republicans are the dogs and now they are arguing amongst themselves what to do with the car.
I'm planning as if Project 2025 goes forward. If civil war is in my lifetime, the shots will start with the alt-right.
There is a quote that's been ringing through my head ever since the CEO murder: "Those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
The Republicans have made any meaningful reform impossible through half-assed negotiations, bad faith arguments, and "fEeLiNgS pOlItIcS" over the last 50 years.
Democrats like AOC and politicians like Bernie are the acute minority. The DNC has moved more toward the right and given workers the middle finger.
Almost every regulatory body has been captured. The overturn of the Chevron doctrine made the rest completely powerless. We now have a fucking lunatic whispering into Trump's ear to remove accident reporting requirements for his shitty cars. We will have an anti-vaxer running the CDC, a supplement pushing hack running Medicare, and a man who overpaid for Twitter running the fucking "Department of Government Efficacy."
This is the tip of the iceberg. They aren't even in office yet and they are already stirring shit.
Agree. Though the felt level of democracy and freedom seems pretty low. A lot of people feel disadvantaged. People are getting ripped off for example with healthcare payments by the (rich) establishment. I hear a lot of complaints here for example you absolutely need a VPN because all internet service providers spy on you. There seems always to be a choice, but a fake one. In the end, it's all the same and you can't really choosse anything but the label that gets slapped on. Same for the politicians. You have like 2 candidates to vote for. Probably neither of those does you any good. And they're both part of the oligarchy and they put in quite some effort to not offer you any third option.
A while ago
I'm no fool, they never convinced me of that lie.
50 is divided, not united...
How does one unite that which is already whole?
Ever tried having health insurance from a particular provider in one state, and having a health issue in another state?
You Luigi it.
There ain't a goddamn thing united about these fucking states, except they let you temporarily cross the borders for a few days or couple weeks or so. God forbid you have any issues out of your registered home state though, you're basically fucked.
