Is the U.S. Actually a Democracy?
With the US election taking place tomorrow (11/3/20) and one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen occupying the highest office, I keep hearing a similar battle cry:
“VOTE NOW TO SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY!”
My sincere hope is that this message is possible and that US democracy still does exist, even if it’s just hanging by a thread. Still, as we head into the election, I have an anxious reply on repeat in my head: You can’t save something that doesn’t exist.
Does US democracy still exist? Or is it actually dead? Some of the world’s leading economics and foremost political scientists have reason to believe that US Democracy may not be as “alive and well” as many of us want to believe, and that in fact, it may not have been an effective democracy for a while now.
Let’s unpack this to form our own opinion.
What is a democracy?
In order to question whether US democracy exists today, we first have to understand what a democracy is. I don’t believe in completely reinventing the wheel, so I’m going to rely on our good friends over at dictionary.com:
noun, plural de·moc·ra·cies.
government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
a state having such a form of government
a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
political or social equality; democratic spirit.
the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.
Despite the language of our “founding fathers,” there are a few aspects within this definition that no longer sound like the modern-day U.S.:
- A “government by the people . . . in which the supreme power is vested in the people”
- A “state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.”
- ” . . . social equality“
- “The common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class . . .”
Let’s take a further look at these conflicts to see why this standard definition of a democracy doesn’t quite fit the America we know today.
A government “by the people”
First of all, perhaps the most widely accepted expectation of a truly democratic government is that the common people’s opinions and interests are what influence and ultimately form legislation. This is what’s meant by that first bullet up above — “a government by the people.”
Yet, it is also a well-researched and known fact that this is not the case in the United States. For instance, a study conducted in 2014 by two political scientists at Princeton and Northwestern Universities found that the economic elites have the most influence over U.S. government policy, while the average citizen has “little to no independent influence.”
According to an article from represent.us (the same article the above chart came from):
“The chart here shows how much political influence different groups have in America today. Not only do the wealthy have the most influence; ordinary voters have basically none.
To have “political influence” in this case means that Congress responds to you by passing the laws and policies you like. Low influence means you’re ignored — Congress passes laws that have no relationship to what you want.”
bulletin.represent.us
I personally don’t think one needs to be a political scientist to understand this phenomenon though — every day “we the people” ask for things (policies, justice, resources, protections) from our government that seem to fall on deaf ears.
For instance, I touched on this briefly in a previous post about environmental justice and how the EPA, a governmental department created to protect citizens from environmental harm and minimize the impact we as a country make on the planet, has done next-to-nothing to help those in harm’s way.
Other examples of this are shown through the mass Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and growing movement demanding justice and equality for Black people in America who have been neglected and harmed by the state for hundreds of years, as well as the obvious failure of our government to rise to the occasion and offer valid support and protection for all members of society (and businesses) during COVID-19.
In other words: “We the people” are screaming and dying trying to have our voices heard, yet our government continues to prioritize the rich, the White, and the corporate interest, instead of actually listening and implementing some of the changes that “we the people” are asking for (demanding).
So, according to the above definition of democracy, the “supreme power” does not seem to be “vested in the people.”
Is the US a democracy?
We still have 3 more points to the aforementioned definition of democracy though: equality of rights and privileges, social equality, and that the country be governed by the “common people” who are not represented by a privileged class. How do these hold up? Could the US still be a democracy by these standards?
Well, numerous studies have shown that the US is really ruled “for the 1% by the 1%.” In fact we see this in the highest levels of our government and justice system. I believe this excerpt from a 2019 article published in The Guardian sums it up nicely (bold text is my own, added for emphasis):
As Jamelle Bouie points out, the Senate has “an affluent membership composed mostly of white men, who are about 30% of the population but hold 71 of the seats” out of 100. Though popular opinion may overwhelmingly favor universal healthcare and more progressive taxation, these policies are said to be “politically impossible” because the millionaires who populate Congress do not favor them.
We hear a lot about how the electoral college, the US supreme court and gerrymandered districts are undermining democratic rule. But it’s worth reflecting on just how deep the disenfranchisement really is. The supreme court is the highest branch of government, in that it can overturn the decisions of the other two branches. It consists of just nine people, all of whom went to Harvard or Yale and two-thirds of whom are men.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/20/rich-white-men-rule-america-minority-rule
Here we are reminded that the highest decisions made in our country are not made “by the people” or even “for the people” — but instead are made by millionaires, Ivy Leaguers, and a disproportionate number of White men.
It is also well-documented that:
- Public policy in the United States is heavily influenced by lobbying in which the country’s most wealthy contribute money to influence policy and politics. This creates a dynamic where public policy doesn’t reflect the preferences of the majority of Americans (please see the next section of this post for more information on why this is).
- The law doesn’t always apply equally to all people within this country in that it disproportionately penalizes Black Americans (learn more about the history of policing in our country), undocumented immigrants, and other BIPOC.
- The United States has one of the widest wealth gaps in the world, which reduces the political influence of those who are below the poverty line and even those in America’s dwindling “middle class” whose voices are often overshadowed by capitalist interest.
- The political party / candidate that raises the most money (which is often hundreds of millions of dollars; Hilary Clinton even raised $1.4B for her campaign in 2016) is the one who gets the vote and is elected. This is particularly true in high-stakes elections like the run for Senate or the President. This obviously favors the wealthy and those with ties to corporate donors, and makes it nearly impossible for more “grassroots” candidates who may represent the majority of Americans to get airtime or be serious contenders.
And thus, we can see that the United States does not actually meet the criteria for a democracy, which again, is:
- A “government by the people . . . in which the supreme power is vested in the people”
- A “state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.”
- ” . . . social equality”
- “The common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class . . .”
Therefore, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman once said: “It is a “democracy in name only.”
So if the US isn’t a democracy . . . what is it? Read on to further explore.
America is an Oligarchy
Many award-winning and respected researchers, political scientists, economists and politicians (such as former US presidents) have said that today, the United States is actually an oligarchy.
An oligarchy can be defined as a form of government where the power rests with a few number of people who may be distinguished by wealth, education level, corporate or political affiliation. Aristotle first coined the term oligarchy to mean literally, “ruled by the rich.” In other words, this is a form of government in which the economic elite get what they want, and the average citizen does not truly have a voice.
In 2014, political scientists from Princeton University and Northwestern University released a study showing just this, and suggested that the US is a “civil oligarchy” in which “average citizens only get what they want if wealthy Americans and business-oriented interest groups also want it; and that when a policy favored by the majority of the American public is implemented, it is usually because the economic elites did not oppose it.”
This isn’t surprising. According to German Sociologist Robert Michels, the “Iron law of oligarchy” dictates that any large, complex democratic organization will inevitably turn into an oligarchy run by a “leadership class” made up of the organization’s elite.
So maybe we were always meant to devolve back into the oligarchy which our founders tried to escape. Or maybe we never really left. After all, as Alexis de Tocquieville said in his seminal work, “Democracy in America” —
One might put it this way. The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.”
Tocqueville, p. 49 Democracy in America (1835)
One thing’s for sure though: The 2020 election will prove to be either the nail in the democratic coffin, or the silver lining that gives us all hope. Regardless of the outcome though, it’s clear that we still have a lot of work ahead of us.
I believe that the wisest thing we could do as a nation is to acknowledge the truth of where we’re at as a country and stop pretending that we are the perfect democracy that we’re meant to believe in. Then, after acknowledging the problem, maybe then we can start fresh and truly build the noble form of government that the classic definition of democracy promises.
As they say: The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_United_States#Concerns_about_oligarchy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/20/rich-white-men-rule-america-minority-rule
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/capitalism-freedom-subjugation
https://jacobinmag.com/2016/04/democracy-capitalism-freedom-friedman-wright-socialism
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/
