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Is the US still a republic, or has it turned into an oligarchy?
in Politics
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The rich have no formal "hard" power over their society. Their power comes in their disproportionate ability to effect soft power. That is a worrying characteristic and a something that needs to be handled but it does not detract from the nature of politics being fundamentally democratic.
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As long as politicians have to beg or make promises for donations, they will be influenced by the biggest donors.
For example. If a factory dumps toxic chemicals into the water supply of a city, the law would only permit this, if the politicians do not live in that city and get heavy funding from that factory.
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Oligarchy in my eyes is the situation where the power has been usurped by the elite, and where your political power is based not on your credibility or wealth, but on your connections in the higher circles. Something similar to what takes place in Russia nowadays, where the dictator and his closest friends have incredible amount of control over the politics, and while the dictator formally is elected by people, those elections are a farce, and a lot of people controlling the politics simply happen to be the dictator's acquaitances, rather than having been granted eligibility by the common people.
In the Roman Republic, that coined the term "republic", the seats in the senate were legally bought: one had to pay a hefty sum of money to be able to work as a senator, which assured that only the rich could dictate how the political system evolves. The idea was that the rich control a lot of resources and incidentally are very well informed of how the economy and society function, hence they should be the ones holding public offices - and Founding Fathers in the US had a similar idea in mind, albeit more refined and including a two-stage election process, as well as three independent branches of power.
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