It clearly surprises some of us that the Southern oligarchs are thriving and have such a control over the demography of The Southern states. From Wikipedia: "In 1942 Key published the first edition of his textbook, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, in which he emphasized that politics was a contest and the main players were organized interest groups. The book decisively shaped the teaching of political science by introducing realism in analysis of politics, introducing the "interest group" model, and introducing behavioral methods based on statistical analysis of election returns."
Key's opus, Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949) was a microscopic examination, state by state, of the expansion of Southern politics. This Dixiefication was documented using interviews and statistics. In Public Opinion and American Democracy (1961) he analyzed the link between the changing patterns of public opinion and the governmental system. Key found that the Michigan model (the theory that voters' preferences were determined by psychological factors) was unsupported by the data. In Key's view, that model took the politics out of political science. In his last (posthumous) work, The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting 1936–60 (1966), Professor Key analyzed public opinion data and electoral returns to show that voters' choices were rational political decisions rather than responses to psychological stimuli. However, the choices in the South are manipulated by powerful and wealthy interests.
Professor Key refuted the hypothesis that "Southern backwardness" could be attributed to poor whites. Rather, he asserted that a rich oligarchy of "Southern Bourbons" manipulated working class whites. The Southern voters are unified, and dominated by, a small but wealthy class of people who deliberately act to preserve the economic and social order. They use well-entrenched techniques to inflame the race fears, and to prey upon the gullibilities of people whose education is deliberately marginalized.
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Key's opus, Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949) was a microscopic examination, state by state, of the expansion of Southern politics. This Dixiefication was documented using interviews and statistics. In Public Opinion and American Democracy (1961) he analyzed the link between the changing patterns of public opinion and the governmental system. Key found that the Michigan model (the theory that voters' preferences were determined by psychological factors) was unsupported by the data. In Key's view, that model took the politics out of political science. In his last (posthumous) work, The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting 1936–60 (1966), Professor Key analyzed public opinion data and electoral returns to show that voters' choices were rational political decisions rather than responses to psychological stimuli. However, the choices in the South are manipulated by powerful and wealthy interests.
Professor Key refuted the hypothesis that "Southern backwardness" could be attributed to poor whites. Rather, he asserted that a rich oligarchy of "Southern Bourbons" manipulated working class whites. The Southern voters are unified, and dominated by, a small but wealthy class of people who deliberately act to preserve the economic and social order. They use well-entrenched techniques to inflame the race fears, and to prey upon the gullibilities of people whose education is deliberately marginalized.
www.librarything.com/profile/keylawk
The peculiar institution : slavery in the ante-bellum South (original 1956; edition 1989), by Kenneth M. Stampp - documents the fact that the Southern oligarchs were the wealthiest people on the planet in the mid-1800s with a world monopoly on raw cotton, tobacco, rum, and slaves.
ReplyDeleteTouching upon the role of the monopolist/oligarchs in achieving wealth disparity: Peter Drucker, often credited with prescriptions for modern corporate business, would often remark that dramatic wealth inequality was a watermark of a business on the way out. He warned that a Board of Directors filled with men about the retire would be practically useless. And he thought that shareholders should have meaningful information about the directors "running" for office within the corporate governance. He used the word "sham elections" to describe rich CEO's holding perpetually re-elected sinecures by means of interlocked Boards.
ReplyDeleteThe point is, just as the difference between a Monarchy/dictatorship and a republic is the "election" process, Drucker also taught that elections should play a meaningful role in the corporations, for the same reasons. Elections do not guarantee great leadership, or good business judgment within the corporation, but if it may be best practice, for both public and private organizations.
The free market model is not based on ideology -- the Marxists and the Austrian/Chicago school are both based on Adam Smith logarithms -- nor is the model limited to incentivizing the productivity of private enterprises. The freedom of the market should also be valued and protected in the public service sectors as well. Adam Smith warned us in his 1776 Wealth of Nations that once a Republic is in place, the great danger of oppression is not from Government but from the large private monopolist enterprises. Capitalists seek to destroy competition and acquire monopoly. Hence the need for meaningful elections in both public and private enterprises, as a means of protecting the free market.
At the heart of the election process is the free market concept of "choice". And the key to meaningful "choice" is transparency and information. Ultimately the informed voter participating in a market protected from monopolist tendencies is what can insure good business judgments for both public and private enterprises.