Why the rich will always rule the world

It is hardly news that the rich have more political power than the poor, even in democratic countries where everyone gets a single vote in elections.

But two political scientists, Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, have recently produced some stark findings for the United States that have dramatic implications for the functioning of democracy.

The authors’ research builds on prior work by Gilens, who painstakingly collected public opinion polls on nearly 2,000 policy questions from 1981 to 2002.

When viewed in isolation, the preferences of the “average” voter — that is, a voter in the middle of the income distribution — seem to have a strongly positive influence on the government’s ultimate response. A policy that the average voter would like is significantly more likely to be enacted.

But, as the researchers note, this gives a misleadingly upbeat impression of the representativeness of government decisions.

The preferences of the average voter, and of economic elites, are not very different on most policy matters. A better test would be to examine what the government does when the two groups have divergent views.

To carry out that test, Gilens and Page ran a horse-race between the preferences of average voters and those of economic elites to see which voters exert greater influence. They found that the effect of the average voter drops to insignificant levels, while that of economic elites remains substantial.

The implication is clear: when the elites’ interests differ from those of the rest of society, it is their views that count — almost exclusively.

POLITICIANS

These disheartening results raise an important question: How do politicians who are unresponsive to the interests of the vast majority of their constituents get elected and, more important, re-elected, while doing the bidding mostly of the wealthiest individuals?

But another, more pernicious, part of the answer may lie in the strategies to which political leaders resort to get elected. A politician who represents the interests of economic elites has to find other means of appealing to the masses.

Such an alternative is provided by the politics of nationalism, sectarianism, and identity — a politics based on cultural values and symbolism rather than bread-and-butter interests. When politics is waged on these grounds, elections are won by those who are most successful at “priming” our latent cultural and psychological markers.

As a result, conservatives have been able to retain power despite their pursuit of economic and social policies that are inimical to the interests of the middle and lower classes.

Identity politics is malignant because it tends to draw boundaries around a privileged in-group and requires the exclusion of outsiders — those of other countries, values, religions, or ethnicities.

To solidify their electoral base, leaders in these countries appeal heavily to national, cultural, and religious symbols. In doing so, they typically inflame passions against religious and ethnic minorities.

For regimes that represent economic elites (and are often corrupt to the core), it is a ploy that pays off handsomely at the polls.

Prof Rodrik teaches Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. (c): Project Syndicate, 2014.(www.project-syndicate.org)