How We’ve Been Played

The penny just dropped for me on how the ruling class get away with maintaining the illusion of democracy.  If you’re not familiar with the Princeton Study (Gilens & Page, 2014) , this short video explains how the wishes of billionaires are reflected in public policy, while the wishes of the average voter have “NEAR ZERO” influence on the actions of our elected representatives.

The probability of any particular bill becoming a law is 30%, whether the average voter is opposed to it or supports it. You would think that being ignored 70% of the time would piss people off enough that they would take action, but you’d be wrong. Professor Jordan Peterson explains why in this lecture about how rats play (skip to 3:30). Adolescent rats like to wrestle, and Panksepp discovered that if a rat is at least 10% bigger, it will trounce a smaller rat every time.

If the big rat doesn’t let the little rat win 30% of the time, the little rat won’t play. If the little rat doesn’t play, the big rat can’t have fun. When I heard that “30%” the light went on over my head. The big rats known as the “economic elite” whose wishes are reflected in public policy let the voters ‘win’ 30% of the time so that the illusion of democracy can be maintained.  They give the little people the absolute minimum that they can get away with and still maintain the illusion of “democracy.”  Clearly, the ruling class are big rats, and the rest of us have been played.