Some terms…

Plutocracy – government in which the wealthy class rules.

Aristocracy – rule by elite or privileged  upper class.

Oligarchy – government by the few.

We all like to think the US is a flag ship of democracy, however, it just isn’t so. While the people seem to have a say in who governs, this does beg the question of who the candidates are that the people get to choose from? It is well known that only the extremely well heeled wealthy can afford to run in election campaigns. The average Joe and Jane on the street won’t even contemplate trying, they know it’s rigged against them. So, are the poor represented in government? No. And they know it, therefore expecting nothing from their betters. Are the middle class represented in government? No. They like to think so and the wealthy promulgate this thought as much as possible as the wealthy knows the middle class aspire to be wealthy and so think more like them than not. This is the crux of the manipulation of the middle class by the wealthy. So, it’s the wealthy that run for office and the super wealthy for the highest offices. Based on wealth then, the majority of people who are not deemed wealthy are choosing who to rule over them from a minority that are. If this is democratic, it is a very skewed form much like the original democracy of Ancient Greece where only the privileged could vote. Demos-cratia, the people-rule, but who are ‘the people’? Indeed, who are “We the People…”? Was it the poor farmer or labourer, the slave, or women who conceived and wrote the Constitution? No, it certainly wasn’t. Did the thinkers and writers of the Constitution try to be as all encompassing in their idea of who ‘the people’ were? The optimist says ‘of course’, but the emphasis would, and should, naturally be on who and what the thinkers and writers actually were  – and they were indeed the privileged. Did they give one man one vote, including the poor and the middle class? Yes, they did, but to hedge their bets against a lower class populist winning an election, who then might jeopardize their privilege, the writers of the Constitution also created the Electoral College, at the last, to ensure against this happening. Democratic?