Here it is at last – from Princeton and Northwestern Universities, statistical proof that the United States is not a democracy:

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics – which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism – offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented. A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

I admit, I didn’t dig in and try to thoroughly understand all the statistics. They took a large data set where people have stated their preferences on various issues over long periods of time. The data set also has information on the incomes of the people responding, so they can do regressions of what various segments of society prefer. Then they look at actual laws that have been passed and compare the two. The results unfortunately but not too surprisingly, show that the preferences of the elite drive actual policy.

Their definition of “elite” was an income of “only” $146,000 a year. Sure, a lot of us would love to have an income of “only” that much. But the point is that is a household of two white collar professionals, not exactly the corporate jet set. So you could say policy seems to represent the preferences of the moderately affluent, upper middle class, or whatever you want to call it. But certainly not the preferences of the median household, the majority, or any sense of broad consensus. I think there is an important distinction to be made between the latter two – the truest democracy, I think, would not be one where 51% of people get their first choice of policy even if the policy is unacceptable to the other 49%. It would be one where the policies chosen are ones almost everyone can accept, even if they are the preferred by almost no one. So it would be a vision of the ideal democracy as diverse people living together in only mildly pissed off tolerance and harmony.