The Doom Loop of Oligarchy

[ksen]

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/11/5581272/doom-loop-oligarchy

In the year's scariest economics book, Thomas Piketty argues that capitalism, left unchecked, subverts democracy by always and everywhere concentrating wealth at the tippy-top. That creates a class with so much economic power that they begin wielding tremendous political power, too. And then they use that political power to further increase their wealth, and then they use that wealth to further increase their political power, and so on.

You might call this the Doom Loop of Oligarchy: wealth buys power, which buys more wealth. You can see it playing out over the last two weeks in American politics.

I'm sure there's nothing to see here or be worried about.

 

[arkirk]

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/11/5581272/doom-loop-oligarchy



I'm sure there's nothing to see here or be worried about.

Is that why you posted it?

 

[ksen]

Yes, that is why I posted it.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

 

[blastula]

Nothing to see.

The US is an oligarchy, study concludes - Telegraph

The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded.

The report, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, used extensive policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the US political system.

After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.