“When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.
-- Martin Giles and Benjamin I. Page

To many people, this may come as a shocking revelation; in reality, however, legal corruption has been a problem for a long time, particularly after Citizen’s United. This court case altered American corruption in an adverse way, ending with the repeal of a law that prevented corporations from expressing their opinion in political matters. This essentially gave more leeway for companies to influence politics, which was already an issue in our government. After this court case, a study was written by Princeton professors about the state of corruption in America, and the results proved quite surprising, to the contrary of what America is typically depicted as. 

The study was conducted by Martin Giles and Benjamin Page on testing different theories on American politics. They extensively researched the four main theories of how the US government is right now, which are majoritarian electoral democracy, economic elite domination, majoritarian pluralism, and biased pluralism.

Majoritarian electoral democracy is the more positive view on America’s democracy. This theory attributes “U.S. government policies chiefly to the collective will of average citizens, who are seen as empowered by democratic elections” (Gilens 565). Economic elite domination is a quite different theory which argues that “U.S. policy making is dominated by individuals who have substantial economic resources” (Gilens 566). Majoritarian pluralism is a theory that believes “struggles among the diverse factions that would be found in an extensive republic would lead to policies more or less representative of the needs and interests of the citizenry as a whole” (Gilens 566). Finally, biased pluralism is quite similar to the other theories, and it argues that “both the thrust of interest-group conflict and the public policies that result tend to tilt toward the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations” (Gilens 567). The conclusions of this study was that American politics was a combination of economic elite domination and biased pluralism.

How is this possible? What is the country like? Many people ask themselves this after reading this study. America has changed much since its first creation, and one main thing that the study stated that is proved by other studies is that Citizens United had an adverse impact. This court case let people spend large amounts of money on campaigns and influence the outcome. This quote from an article about Citizens United accurately describes the consequences: “In the wake of Citizens United, the voice of the ordinary citizen has all but disappeared from Capitol Hill. It doesn't matter whether the donors are Democrats or Republicans; money becomes a political interest on its own.” (Hiltzik 1) Although the court case still banned giving money directly to candidates, it gave more leeway for corporations to have a say in elections and “gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates.”(Dunbar 1)

Another characteristic of America’s current government proven by other studies that there is a bad correlation between money and electoral success. Right now, “A new study by the public policy think tank Demos and the public interest group U.S. PIRG calculates that U.S. Senate candidates will have to raise an average $3,300 every day for six years to match the campaign chests of the median 2014 winner.” (Hiltzik 1), and “The average senator has to pull in more than $14,000 dollars every single day, just to stay in office.”(Dunbar 1)  This is an insane amount, and the amount of cash required to stay in office is more than most people make a month. In addition, “ Candidates who out-fundraised their opponents were nine times more likely to win elections in 2012.” (Lowery 1), and 91% of the time, the wealthier candidate wins (Lowery 1). This proves how the more money a candidate has, the better chance they have of winning.

A final point proven by other studies about American politics is the problem of lobbyists. According to a study and interview from Representative Walter Jones, “In the year leading up to Congress’ vote on what eventually became a 1,000-plus page bill, the pharmaceutical industry filled legislators’ bank accounts with campaign contributions. Lobbyists seeking to influence the bill outnumbered members of Congress two to one.”(Us 1) This shows the drastic influence lobbyists have on our government. Even as lobbyists, there are loopholes for them to take advantage of. “Thanks to loopholes in how federal law defines lobbyists, many elected officials go on to take what are effectively revolving door lobbying jobs without ever having to officially register as lobbyists.” (Us 2) There are such a great amount of loopholes in our policies on corruption that lobbyists take advantage of everyday.

All of the studies, including the Princeton Study and many, many more, all lead to one conclusion about American politics: the average American has little to no impact on public policy in the face of richer citizens and companies, and those wealthier elites have a substantially larger effect on the government and practically dominates it. This is already spiralling out of control, and so many facts have shown the effect of being richer. If something is not done soon, our entire government will be controlled and ruled by economic elites, and the ideas of freedom, opportunity, and justice the country was built on will be destroyed. People have to stand up against corruption, because it is the enemy of what America stands for.

Works Cited

Dincer, Oguzhan, and Michael Johnston. "Measuring Illegal and Legal Corruption in American States: Some Results from the Corruption in America Survey." Harvard University, Center for Ethics, 1 Dec. 2014, Accessed 12 Dec. 2016.

Giles, Martin, and Benjamin I. Page. "Testing Theories of American Politics." Scholar Princeton, Sept. 2014, Accessed 12 Dec. 2016.

Hiltzik, Michael. "Five Years after Citizens United Ruling, Big Money Reigns." Los Angeles Times, 24 Jan. 2015, Accessed 12 Dec. 2016.

Lowery, Wesley. "91% of the Time the Better Financed Candidate Wins." The Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2014, Accessed 12 Dec. 2016.