Opinion: The United States As An Oligarchy - How A Study Questions If America Is Truly A Democracy

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People like to brag about the freedom in the United States and how much of a 'free' country we currently have. So why do so many people, including many citizens of the US, complain about the lack of freedom we have and say that we, as a people, need to change the trajectory of the country? Are these people just being cynical and complaining for no reason? Well according to a study from Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page, these are not unjustified complaints. According to said study, the United States is not really a democracy lately, it is a civil oligarchy.

A civil oligarchy is a term that was used by Jeffrey A. Winters to describe a place where policies are decided by the wealthiest elites meaning only the rich really have any kind of political say but this control is indirect enough to convince the average person in the United States only gets what they want if business interest groups and wealthy Americans also get what they want. Otherwise, the will of the average person is ignored and the people who have the most money always get what they desire. If this study and works like Oligarchy by Jeffrey A. Winters can be considered to be true, then America's days of calling itself a democracy are either going to be over very soon or potentially become a very inaccurate descriptor. Even worldpopulationreview.com says that the United States is arguably an oligarchy and this argument will continue as corporations as well as wealthy-elites gain more power at the expense of the lower classes in the United States having any kind of say.

This idea of the United States becoming an oligarchy is not even a recent idea. In his 1956 book The power elite, sociologist C Wright Mills stated that if the people of the United States were not too careful, the leaders of various corporations could form a 'power elite' that would control the United States. According to most of the sources I mentioned earlier in this article, it is possible that this bleak prediction has become reality in recent times...