Our Oligarchy

Reading this post from Matt Yglesias in turn brought this post to my attention. There Alexander C. Furnas and Timothy M. LaPira present the results of a study illustrating the degree of separation between elites and rank-and-file voters, broken down by Democrats, Republicans, and independents. This is their definition of “elites”:

For the purposes of this survey, we defined political elites as those who hold significant authoritative roles in government, or those outside government whose occupations position them to influence those inside government as a significant part of their job. This elite population includes thousands of unelected bureaucrats, judges, media pundits, campaign consultants, lobbyists, think tankers, commissioned military officers, lawyers, scientists, and business and nongovernmental organization leaders. These political elites are important to democratic responsiveness in their own right because they influence the policy agenda, craft and implement policy, and frame the rhetoric that reelection-motivated politicians use to justify the policy positions they take.

The conclusion the authors draw from their findings is that political elites are more supportive of progressive policies than likely voters. Here are their observations:

Ultimately it is clear that political elites’ policy preferences are, in fact, distinct from those of their copartisan likely voters. While majorities of both Democratic elites and likely voters favor the progressive policies we tested, the elites are more unified in their support of these policies across the board, and elites tend to be further to the left on our measure of ideology. The picture among Republicans is a bit more nuanced; on issues of healthcare and taxes, Republican elites are consistently more conservative than likely voters, but on climate and immigration Republican elites are more divided than their likely voter counterparts.

while they believe that there is less discord within the Democratic Party than is commonly believed:

We find that Democratic elites are neither out-of-touch leftists — they have the backing of the overwhelming majority of their co-partisan voters on 9 out of 10 issues we polled — nor are they milquetoast centrists afraid to take progressive policy positions. They tend to be slightly more ideologically extreme than likely voters, but are a relatively heterogeneous group. Despite this ideological diversity, they are consistent supporters of progressive policies with widespread Democratic support.

To some degree I think those findings are “baked into” the study—they picked the issues. For the findings to be robust a much broader selection of issues would need to be considered.

I think their findings go a long way to explaining the discrepancy between what we see around us in the real world and what is happening in Washington. I don’t believe the divisions among us are quite as bitter as would appear from the workings of the Congress or what we see on the nightly news. But the wide separation between Democratic elites and Republican elites does reflect what’s happening in Washington. Here’s what I see in their findings.

• There’s quite a bit of separation between Democratic elites and Democratic voters, a point I have made here repeatedly.
• There’s quite a bit of separation between Republican elites and Republican voters.
• The separation between Democratic elites and Republican elites leaves little room for compromise. That’s what we see in Washington.
• The separation between Democratic and Republican voters is not nearly so great. That’s what we see in everyday life.

The Congress isn’t representing us—it’s representing the elites and the separation and acrimony between left and right elites are getting more pronounced with time. It isn’t as simple as “the rich”. The sample went well beyond the top .1%, well into the top 1% of earners.