[spoiler]The cartoon has three panels. Each panel shows a crowd of milling citizens, who vary in sex, race, and age, yelling up to a giant white man wearing a suit and tie. The giant’s head is far distant from the citizens, and he gives no sign of hearing what they’re saying.
PANEL 1
GIANT: I’m PROUD I’ve been elected to represent the great people of this region!
CROWD1: I’ve been unemployed for six months!
CROWD2: How come the banks get help…
PANEL 2
From offpanel, a giant hand hands the giant white man a giant bundle of cash.
GIANT: I promise I’ll — Pardon me a moment. THANKS, Eric.
CROWD1: Medical costs keep going up…
CROWD2: In jail for a joint…
Panel 3
The giant resumes speaking while he pockets the bundle of cash.
GIANT: I PROMISE I’ll ALWAYS listen to the voices of ORDINARY CITIZENS!
CROWD1: Tuition has doubled…
CROWD2: Unemployed for ten months…
CAPTION (Running across the strip, under all three panels): HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS[/spoiler]
Quoting a paper by Martin Gilens (pdf link):
Using an original data set of almost 2,000 survey questions on proposed policy changes between 1981 and 2002, I find a moderately strong relationship between what the public wants and what the government does, albeit with a strong bias toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear little relationship to the preferences of poor or middle income Americans.
In the table above, the dark line represents the opinions of the highest-earning 10% of Americans. The further to the right the dark line goes, the more that top 10% wants a policy change to happen. And the further towards the top the dark line goes, the more likely it is that politicians will make the desired policy change happen. As you can see, the more the top 10% want a change, the more likely it is to happen.
The gray line represents the opinions of the lowest-earning 10% of Americans. As you can see, it’s completely irrelevant what they (er, we?) think. Politicians couldn’t care less. Gilens also has a similar graph showing that politicians barely listen any more to middle-class Americans than they do to poor Americans.
(See also, this essay by political scientist Larry Bartels.)
What if the same differential in whether the representatives listen was found between people in the 10th and 90th percentile of IQ, or life experience, or political awareness/commitment? Would it be problematic then?
(The paper did look at education as well as income, and found no particular correlation, which is why I don’t have “education” in my list of things-which-could-conceivably-show-some-correlation.)
I like how the paper isn’t quite done and many of the figures are labeled “Figure X goes about here”. Classic. But it does seem like a very interesting piece of research, and I want to know how things come out for other percentile-assessable items. Although the author says that the 90th and 99th percentile of income had basically the same preferences, I am pretty willing to believe that – regardless of whether or the extent to which democratic politicians kick the ass of the rich – the 90th percentile of income earners are better thinkers about policy than the 10th percentile, on balance. But I could be wrong!
(The 90th percentile for household income in the US is about $120k. The 10th percentile is about $10k. Someone making $120k is not a billionaire living off a trust fund; they’re probably someone with a really good job (or two decent jobs for a married couple). Such people tend to be reasonably well informed. Whereas, $10k is sub-minimum wage. People who can’t even hold down a minimum wage job are either disabled or otherwise messed up (which may or may not mean they’re poorly/well-informed; naturally. Or they are, well, fairly subfunctional in terms of the economy. N Now, they could be a political science grad student, after all, or a retired genius who doesn’t need cash income. But more likely it’s Joe who works part-time at McDonalds. Which does not, of course, mean that they must not know anything…but that’s the way I’d bet.
I also found it interesting that the affluent people did not have conservative views across the board. On foreign policy and social issues, the affluent tended to be liberal; on economic policy the affluent tended to be conservative. I suppose that’s pretty obvious when you think about it (“do you think people just like you should pay lots more taxes?”) but I also notice that the differentials between the percentiles are fairly small, usually just a few percentage points. (Which I presume means that affluent people want conservative economic policy by a 55-45 margin, or something like that.)
Apologies for babbling on. My car got towed and I’m in a bit of a tizzy. (Affluent people believe that municipal towing should be more draconian, while the poor believe that the tow company should cut a guy a break…tonight, I go with the poor.)
Interesting that in no case does the policy preference go to (never mind above) 50%.
I remind you, too, that this is not a democracy. It’s a democratic republic. We elect representatives, who can vote as they will despite the will of their constituents until their term ends and they come up for re-election. Which is significant because if there are so many more people who are less affluent than there are people who are more affluent, and if their representatives go against the wishes of the less affluent most of the time, how is it that they are continuously re-elected? The involuntary turnover of Representatives is famously low (I’m excluding those who fail re-election due to death, retirement, etc.). Is it because those who are less affluent pay less attention to issues and vote for those who make promises but fail to keep them?
If the majority of people favor changes and those changes don’t get put into effect by their representatives, why aren’t those representatives voted out?
Yes, this is a problem, and not a hypothetical one, either. People with intellectual disabilities* deserve to be listened to by government representatives!
*Not that being in the tenth percentile for IQ means that one has an intellectual disability. Insomuch as IQ actually means anything anyway, which is up for debate.
People with intellectual disabilities* deserve to be listened to by government representatives!
Everyone should be able to speak and be heard in a democracy. But policies should not be set to please the stupidest members of the society.
Robert, in addition to making the assumption that people with money are smarter, you’re assuming that they’re civic-minded. That is, what they want is what benefits the country, not what benefits them personally. I think both of those are pretty big leaps of faith.
I am not equating intelligence with income; I think it likely that people earning a good living are in fact smart, but I don’t think it’s a 1:1 correlation.
By Robert’s numbers I guess we’re up in the stratosphere for income if the 90th percentile for household income in the US is about $120k. If we only made $120K one year I’d think the sky had fallen. But for a lot of reasons, yes, I do think people who make the kind of money we make should pay lots more taxes.
Most of these reasons are selfish.
I am well acquainted with two foreign countries, as in, I’ve spent a LOT of time there and have family there. One is Scotland, the other, the Netherlands.
The income and wealth spread in Scotland is quite wide. A few very very rich; a lot very very poor. In Holland, not so much. A lot fewer very very rich; a lot fewer very very poor. Not none in either case, fewer. And a lot more bunching in the middle.
So, where would I rather live? Where would I rather take the bus to go to the grocery store to buy a bunch of bananas? Hands down Holland. It’s a much more pleasant place. As the US might be if we evened things out a little.
I have no idea how Holland does it. I know nothing about their tax structure, and my knowledge of the language is imperfect. I’m just sayin’ it’s a nicer place to be.