\n\nGilens compiles a massive data set of public opinion surveys and subsequent policy outcomes, and reaches a shocking conclusion: Democracy has a strong tendency to simply supply the policies favored by the rich.\u00c2\u00a0 When the poor, the middle class, and the rich disagree, American democracy largely ignores the poor and the middle class.\u00c2\u00a0
\nTo avoid misinterpretation, this does not mean that American democracy has a strong tendency to supply the policies that most materially benefit the rich.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn't.\u00c2\u00a0 Gilens, like all well-informed political scientists, knows that self-interest has little effect on public opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither does this mean that Americans strongly object to the policy status quo.\u00c2\u00a0 They don't, because poor, middle class, and rich tend to agree.\u00c2\u00a0 Gilens' key conclusion is simply that when rich and poor happen to disagree, the rich generally get their way.
\n...
\nBoth left and right are likely to misread Gilens.\u00c2\u00a0 The left will probably imagine that he's saying that American democracy is a vast conspiracy to promote the material interests of the rich.\u00c2\u00a0 To repeat, Gilens explicitly disavows this conclusion: His claim is not that American democracy primarily **benefits** the rich, but that it primarily **listens** to the rich.\u00c2\u00a0
\nThe right, on the other hand, will angrily reject Gilens' findings as rehashed Marxism in statistical garb.\u00c2\u00a0 (To quote The Communist Manifesto, \"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.\")\u00c2\u00a0 If you read the whole book, though, you'll be amazed by how many leftist oxen he gores.\u00c2\u00a0 Most shockingly: Gilens concludes that the president most responsive to all Americans regardless of income was... George W. Bush!
\n...
\nI find Gilens' results not only intellectually satisfying, but hopeful.\u00c2\u00a0 If his results hold up, we know another important reason why policy is less statist than expected: Democracies listen to the relatively libertarian rich far more than they listen to the absolutely statist non-rich.\u00c2\u00a0 And since I think that statist policy preferences rest on a long list of empirical and normative mistakes, my sincere reaction is to say, \"Thank goodness.\"\u00c2\u00a0 Democracy as we know it is bad enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Democracy that really listened to all the people would be an authoritarian nightmare.
\n
Emphasis mine. Read the whole thing. Via Why Is Democracy Tolerable? Evidence from Affluence and Influence, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.
\n" }