Are Politicians Puppets? Who Really Runs the World? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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We vote. We debate. We argue over politicians like they’re the real decision-makers. But are they really in charge? Or are they just well-dressed puppets, reading from a script written by those with real power?

Behind every election, there are corporations, lobbyists, billionaires, and hidden networks pulling the strings. Policies aren’t always shaped by public interest but by those who fund campaigns, control the media, and influence economies.

The question is: Who truly holds the power? The government? The wealthy elite? Tech giants? Intelligence agencies?

And if politicians are just the face of a system much bigger than them, does voting even matter? Or are we just choosing between different masks of the same machine?

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[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Think about it this way, why would funding campaigns matter if the vote wasn’t real? There is no correct answer, because each culture has it’s own power structure, but look at the history of each political system, starting with your own to see how the rules started and each incremental change and shift between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law.

It might help to watch Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self as a starting point (better yet, Hypernormalization-> Bitter Lake -> Century of the self if you want to go from today to 1920s. Reverse that if you prefer to start earlier).

It would also hell to understand economics as globalization, which is a huge part of the current political climate, is an economic tide (See Thomas Friedman). Milton Friedman (different than Thomas) is really important to current political events, too. I personally like Niall Ferguson and Joel Mokyr as scholars of economic history, but to each their own.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

why would funding campaigns matter if the vote wasn’t real?

In capitalist states, campaign finance is one of the reasons why voting isn’t, in practical terms, real.

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Fair, in the sense that an independent or third party politician has a significantly lower likelihood of being elected.

[-] qprimed@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

couple that with first past the post voting and you set the voters against each other in some convoluted "least worst" competition. tyranny is inevitable.

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

You make an excellent point campaign funding absolutely impacts the democratic process, raising questions about the authenticity of our votes. It's a reminder that power structures often go far beyond what we see on the surface. History shows us how systems evolve and shift, and understanding that, along with how economics like globalization shape politics, is key. Curtis’ work on media manipulation and how it influences public perception is a great resource for seeing how we’ve been conditioned, and I agree that understanding economic history and theorists like Milton Friedman helps put today’s political climate into context. The real challenge is figuring out where the line is between genuine democracy and systems that mainly serve a select few.

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

Your take on genuine democracy is fair, especially if we’re referring to the US (as per my assumption). According to this Wikipedia article on The Economist Democracy Index:

In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report stated that this was caused by myriad factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans' trust in governmental institutions.

The question we’re facing is, if we make it through Trump’s term(s?) with a functional federal gov’t, how can we begin to return to a full democracy, and is that even possible given the trajectory of our economic system.

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

The downgrade to a "flawed democracy" highlights the reality of a system that's never truly been for the people it's always been about serving the interests of the capitalist class. A "full democracy" is a myth in a society where the economic system is designed to prioritize a select few. The real solution isn't about restoring a broken democracy but about dismantling the capitalist structures that prop it up. A good dictatorship, one that truly serves the people and removes the influence of the elite, could be the only way to actually return power to the masses.

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I, personally, don’t accept any kind of dictatorship can ever be good. That there is a series of humans with self interest in between the resources of a nation and the populace of a nation leads me to doubt that possibility. If it were possible, we would have seen more than a few prosperous Marxist nations.

I’m referencing Marxism specifically because, to my mind, it requires individuals, like union leaders, to represent the interests of their union constituents (all of whom are shareholders of the means of production) and would require those representatives to act in the interest of the laborer-as-shareholder which, as I see it, puts them in a moral overlap between politics and economics. i.e., Marxism would be the most likely form of government to satisfy the conditions if a morally good dictator, and yet historically it doesn’t seem to have worked out that way.

I actually fully believe in a genuine democratic capitalist government being a great means of achieving full democracy, but we have never truly been a democratically capitalist country.

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I, personally, don’t accept any kind of dictatorship can ever be good. That there is a series of humans with self interest in between the resources of a nation and the populace of a nation leads me to doubt that possibility. If it were possible, we would have seen more than a few prosperous Marxist nations.

A "good dictatorship" in the Marxist sense isn’t about a singular tyrant, but the working class collectively taking control to dismantle capitalist power.

The reason Marxist nations have struggled is due to elite corruption, not the ideology itself. Dictatorship, when it's truly for the people, can redistribute power and create equality.

The real issue with capitalism is that it claims to be democratic but is manipulated by the wealthy elite. True democracy can only exist when economic power is decentralized, and that's something capitalism can never achieve.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

The reason Marxist nations have struggled is due to elite corruption, not the ideology itself.

The primary reason, by a long shot, is that the imperialist states never stop trying to destroy socialist states, or really any state that stands between them and their plundering.

Understanding Siege Socialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds, Pure Socialism vs. Siege Socialism

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The reason Marxist nations have struggled is due to elite corruption, not the ideology itself.

I think this is kind of my point exactly. I misunderstood the dictatorship of Marxism, but I’m not sure I believe there can be a “good” Marxist dictatorship that is broadly cooperative on a national scale because it will require intermediaries who are themselves susceptible of corruption. Occupy Wallstreet seems to be a great example of that working locally, but I’m skeptical it can be easy to coordinate nationally as a market can. On paper, the Marxist ideology is sound, in practice, human self-interest seems to not want it to work, though there is always an opportunity to try again somewhere. That being said, markets come with their own distinct style of corruption, as we’re currently seeing playing out right now.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I actually fully believe in a genuine democratic capitalist government

This is impossible to achieve, because whenever “democracy” becomes too “genuine” for their tastes, the bourgeoisie will unleash fascism.

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

I am (perhaps naively) hopeful that there can be mechanisms in place to avoid this. Ranked Choice Voting seems like one possible lever, but I think it’s probably true that any certain that has a hierarchy is vulnerable to capture by those with access to the most resources.

Genuinely: What are some political systems capable of avoiding capture by the elite (Bourgeoisie, Royal, etc. classes?

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

A good dictatorship, one that truly serves the people and removes the influence of the elite, could be the only way to actually return power to the masses.

A “good dictatorship” in the Dark Enlightenment sense of the people skulking around the White House right now, or a “good dictatorship” in the Marxist sense?

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

A "good dictatorship" in the Marxist sense

One that dismantles capitalist structures, redistributes power, and serves the working class free from elite manipulation. Not the kind that exists to maintain power for a select few under the guise of order.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

They’re not wrong about democratic backsliding in this case, but I generally ignore this index, which The Economist Group[^1] publishes for the purposes of imperial core propaganda against states that it wants to regime change.

[^1]: The tribune of the aristocracy of finance. — Karl Marx

[-] Binx85@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

What are better indexes for this data?

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

You really need to specify what state you’re talking about and when. If you’re talking about a capitalist state, then the answer is the capitalist class runs it. If you’re talking about the US specifically, then I’ll recycle my previous answer:

It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

You bring up a critical point, if we’re talking about a capitalist state, it’s hard to deny that the capitalist class holds the reins. The US, as you mentioned, was built on a bourgeois revolution, and the foundational structures, designed by a wealthy, white, land-owning elite, set the stage for the kind of oligarchy we see today. The idea that the system was never intended to represent the working class is key, and it’s something that’s often overlooked. The study you mentioned about the US being an oligarchy rather than a democracy really underscores how deep this issue runs. It’s not just regulatory capture, it’s the very nature of the state being designed to serve the interests of the elite, which we can trace back to its origins.

[-] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Dons my tinfoil hat...

[-] NobodyIsPito@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Giorgio knows what’s up.

Who’s to say we’re not all just shadows on the wall, right?

this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025

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