“As case studies, they used 1,800 policy proposals over 30 years, tracking how they made their way through the political system and whose interests were served by the outcomes. ... America, they concluded, was not a democracy at all, but a functional oligarchy.”

Oligarchy in the open: What happens now as the U.S. is forced to confront its plutocracy problem?

“The research was done by two political scientists, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, and had two parts: First, they measured the amount of political influence various groups have in America. Then, they checked this against some technical definitions of democracy, oligarchy, and other forms of government.”

The U.S. is an Oligarchy? The Research, Explained