BOOK REVIEW
Affluence and Influence:
Economic Inequality and
Political Power in America
by Martin Gilens
Princeton University Press Hardcover, 2012
348 pp., $17.91 (paperback)
Reviewed by Rick Hubbard, Esq.
Anyone concerned about the integrity of
our American system of government should
be concerned. We declared our independence from Great Britain and fought a war,
largely over the issue of improper representation.
In establishing the Constitution, our
founding fathers worked hard to make
their new experiment with democracy effective in properly representing the broad
public interests of a majority of Americans.
Our founders hoped that by establishing
three separate but equal branches of government and providing for frequent citizen
elections of our representatives, our political system would minimize the problem of
improper representation. But our founders
did worry: what if future generations find
our federal political system no longer properly provides such representation? As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote
decades ago, “We can have democracy in
this country, or we can have great wealth
concentrated in the hands of the few, but
we cannot have both” (quoted by Gilens,
p. 1).
Recent research by Princeton professor
Martin Gilens delivers powerful evidence
this time has come. But be forewarned—
while very important, this difficult book
reads much like a research paper write-up.
An understanding of Gilens’ methodology
underlying his conclusions requires good
comprehension of advanced statistical analysis.
Gilens conducted research to examine the relationship (by income percentile
groups) between the earnings of individual
Americans and their political power, seeking
to understand the extent to which contemporary America confirms Justice Brandeis’s
“grim assertion” (p. 60). He looked at 1,779
www.vtbar.org
policy questions in his primary dataset (covering the past four decades), across dozens
of different policy areas, and the degree of
support for each among poor, middle class,
and the richest Americans. He then examined the correlation with resulting policy
outcomes to see which income groups benefitted most and least. While he finds some
variation across policy areas, it doesn’t
change his most startling, and damning,
conclusion: In recent decades, whenever
U.S. government policy preferences held
by the top 10% of U.S. income earners DIFFER from the preferences of the remaining
90% of us (i.e., middle and lower classes),
government policy outcomes bear essentially ZERO (statistically insignificant) correlation with the preferences of the 90% of
us (p. 81).
So when do the policy preferences of the
90% of us in the lower and middle classes
get satisfactory outcomes from U.S. government policy? Gilens’ well-researched
and documented answer: ONLY when our
policy preferences are also held by the top
10% of U.S. income earners (p. 138). Gilens’ research also concludes that there is no
evidence that the degree of interest group
engagement on an issue either enhances
or detracts from the public’s ability to influence policy outcomes.
It probably doesn’t surprise you that Gilens finds “as political campaigns have become more expensive in recent decades,
the