The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy by Peter TeminMy rating: 0 of 5 stars
After the war, women got the vote, and the franchise opened up somewhat. African Americans, however, still were denied the ability to vote until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. With that stimulus, the United States came close to being a democracy for half a century until the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013. Inequality increased between those dates, and the Investment Theory of Politics teaches us that the effectiveness of the ordinary voters decreased as rich people and large businesses began to influence elections. It may not be misleading to say that the effectiveness of democracy has been decreasing over time since the initiation of the American dual economy in 1971, and democracy has now given way to a new oligarchy or, to be more specific, a plutocracy.
...the very rich who have been allowed to dominate government policies by a succession of legislative and court decisions. The democracy that aspired to guarantee the right to vote for every person has been undermined in the last generation by a political structure where income matters more than demography. Income matters in varied ways, and campaign spending affects both votes and who can vote.
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