Review Essay

The Irony of Democracy is a book that explores the American government in a light that not many people see it in. In this book, Thomas Dye sights many examples while proving the point that our government is not one that is run by the people. Dye states that the United States of America is a nation that is run by a handful of “elite” individuals. These people generally gain power not by influencing the masses with popular ideas, but by using their money. This is evident even in the earliest years of the country in that the founders were upper-class, white males. They did not represent the majority of people in the new country. Dye also makes the point that every branch of our government is controlled by the elite. He is especially skeptical of the judicial branch because the nine judges are not elected, yet they have the power to overrule the elected officials of congress and the house. I see these issues in the same way that Dye sees them and I agree with most of his points.
One aspect of The Irony of Democracy that jumped out to me was the miniscule about of power that each individual citizen has. Dye covers this in great detail in chapter one. Even with just a small amount of research, one can find that the framers were highly skeptical of a direct democracy. Madison states in Federalist 10, “it may be concluded that a pure democracy… can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction” (Madison, Fed #10). Madison saw factions as a great threat to the existence of a stable government so it can be assumed that he was against a pure democracy. The reality of this situation is that without a true democracy, the individual citizen has no power.
Another section of the book that I felt strongly about was when Dye discusses what having political parties does. The truth is that political parties don’t help anything. One reason that parties are ineffective is because there truly aren’t many differences between the two major parties in the USA. All the differences come in small, abstract matters of opinion that truly have no effect on the majority of the population’s lives. This is bad because it causes people to vote for a candidate based on small things such as gay marriage and not bases on how he would handle foreign affairs and the military. Also, parties are ironic because there is still an internal system in each party that directly reflects that of our country as a whole. There are elites ruling masses even within parties. In 2004, there were 62,040,610 votes cast for George Bush. Logically, most of these votes were cast by republicans. Honestly, will Bush hear the voice of one common man out of 62,040,610? There is no power in the individual.
One of the most powerful ideas in The Irony of Democracy was the thought that the judicial branch is run by elites. This is a true statement because all of the Supreme Court judges are appointed. In order to be appointed, you must have some ties to the President. Knowing that George Bush isn’t friends with too many poor people, a conclusion can be drawn that only the upper-class and well educated can become Supreme Court judges. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is that non-elected judges can strike down bills that are made by officials that are elected by the masses.
In conclusion, The Irony of Democracy makes many good points about why the government is not truly one by the people and for the people. The combination of the framers not wanting a direct democracy, parties that try to group a mass of people into one belief system, and an elitist judicial branch leave the individual citizen without a voice. Dye’s book is an eye opener than show the true inner workings of American politics.

Sources:
"United States Presidential Election: 2004." Wikipedia.Org. 20 Feb. 2007 .

Madison, James. "The Federalist No. 10." www.constitution.org. 21 Feb. 2007 .

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1- The Irony of Democracy

This chapter describes the meaning of elitism and the meaning of democracy and shows that they cannot truly coexist in the purest form of each system. Dye shows that the irony of democracy is that the elite must make the decisions that the rest of the people have to follow. He states that, “The masses do not lead, they follow.” (Dye, 1). Also discussed in this chapter are certain threats that can hurt democracy. Two of these threats are terrorism and civil unrest based on scandals or court rulings. These two things can whip the masses into mobs and cloud judgment. The chapter concludes by joining the ideas of elitism and democracy stating that every government must be ruled by the elite, even democracies.

Chapter 2- Founding Fathers: The Nation’s First Elite

This chapter opens by explaining that the fifty five men who founded the US constitution were very elite. They were born from good families, were white, Christian, educated and rich. Dye also notes that these qualities of being wealthy and educated were not the norm for the average person in America at the time. This being said, the vast majority of people in did not have any say in the creation and drafting of the constitution. Dye states that had the people of the USA known what the constitution said and could they have voted on it, they probably would’ve rejected it. This chapter also describes how the founders strongly disagreed with pure democracy. They thought that if everyone had power, the lower class would try to level with the upper class. They felt that this was a violation of a person’s right to land.

Chapter 3- The Evolution of American Elites

Chapter three deals with the evolution of the elites in the USA. Dye states that there were no great and sudden changes in the ideas of the American elites even when power shifted from one party to the other because they all had the same common interests. He also explains how there were more and more types of elite as the time went on. This is because there were more manners in which people could become rich as more land was taken for the USA. These people were unusually Jacksonians. They thought that people with new money should have as much influence as those with old money. Even with the arrival of new influences, the elite stayed rigid in their belief that not everyone should have an equal say in the government activities. Dye goes on to site examples in the Civil War and World War II. After and during World War II, it was seen in the enemy that the elite should be responsible for the well being of the general population.






Chapter 4- Elites in America

Chapter four deals with the modern elites in America. Dye makes several points regarding how the elites of our nation don’t truly represent the democracy that we are supposed to have in place. The corporate upper-class is put under a microscope and analyzed in this chapter. Data suggests that a small percent of industrial companies control the majority of the industrial assets in the USA. This is the same case with banks controlling banking assets. This is ironic because, like the government, a small percent of top companies practically run the rest of the smaller companies.
Also talked about in chapter four is the role of CEOs and other high ranking executives in the corporate world today. A stunning statistic shows the overall greed that runs deep in corporate boardrooms. The average CEO makes 209 times more pay than a low level employee. Once again, an upper-class, usually white, well educated man is making decisions for the masses without fully consulting them. This is converse to the ideal American democracy.

Chapter 5- Masses in America

Chapter five explains many things about how the masses function in our system of government. Dye says that the overall earnings of the average American worker has steeply lessened in the last few decades. This is largely because international trade has exploded in the past 25-30 years. Instead of having American workers making goods with a minimum wage and limited work hours, it is cheaper to import goods from overseas. Other countries have cheap labor so it is easier to turn a profit by selling the foreign products. With this new method of procuring products to sell comes a broader gap between the elite and working classes. The CEOs are making more money from cheap labor and the American workers are getting laid off. This also leads to skepticism from the masses about how fair the government actually is. Fortunately for the government, the masses are dependent on the upper-class to provide a stable economy, which they have been successful in doing. This helps prevent activism by the masses that could lead to uninformed riots and extremism.

Chapter 6- Elite- Mass Communication

Chapter 6 describes the manner and process in which the elite and the masses communicate with each other. There is such a large gap between the rich and working class people that communication sometimes becomes a problem. Obviously, the easiest way to communicate ideas to the masses is to put them on TV. The mass media has almost endless power. Media outlets can control what the masses talk about, what they care about, and even what the think about. The media can pick and choose what stories it wants to air. For example, Fox News is notoriously republican. They are less likely to air stories that make Bush look bad than some other media outlets.

Chapter 7- American Political Parties: A System in Decay

Chapter 7 discusses the system of political parties that is in place in the USA today. Dye puts a negative connotation on the idea that parties rule everything because he feels that parties make its impossible for the USA to truly be a democracy. He also points out that both major parties share the same views on most important issues. They only differ on small things that don’t greatly affect the lifestyle of the majority of Americans. He also points out that even though most Americans belong to a political party, very few people actually have an effect one what decisions are made within the party. Dye shows that small interest groups have more power than the rest of the population because they collect money which can buy time to speak with party leaders.

Chapter 9- Organized Interests: Defenders of the Status Quo

Chapter 9 deals with interest groups and if they protect of destroy the idea of democracy. With interest groups comes the political theory of pluralism, which says that the government should be run by small interest groups. Dye says that most effective interest groups draw members from the upper and middle classes instead of the lower class. This is bad because the lower class population is the people that actually need help and need their voices heard. He also points out that the most successful groups are those that have small, but elite bases. Groups that are based on the masses have little success. To sum everything up, Dye thinks that a pure democracy cannot coexist with pluralism.

Chapter 13- Courts: Elites in Black Robes

Chapter 13 talks about the signs of elitism in the judicial system. To start off, the Supreme Court is a nine judge panel that is the highest court. None of these judges are elected even though the are the most powerful judges in the country. Dye points out that the only way that you can get appointed to the Supreme Court is by knowing the President, and the only way that you can know the President is by being an elite. The problem that can be seen here is that the Supreme Court can overrule decisions that are made by elected officials. Another problem with the Supreme Court is that most of the judges were upper-class before they even became elected. This can be seen in the colleges that they attended, mostly Ivy League.

Thesis of "The Irony of Democracy"

The thesis of “The Irony of Democracy” is the idea that despite calling ourselves a democracy, the United States is not run by the masses. We are instead govern by a handful of “elites” that are usually rich, white men. Dye bluntly states this thesis in the first sentence of the book, “Elites— not masses – govern the United States.” ( Dye, 1)

Thomas Dye Backround

http://www.thomasrdye.com/

Thomas R. Dye is renowned author, scholar, and professor. He was born in Pennsylvania and was the son of James Dye and Marguerite Dye. After he graduated high school, he attended college at Penn State University. He studied mostly politics and history at Penn State and he graduated with a Masters Degree for political science. He then attended grad school at The University of Pennsylvania where he obtained his PH.D. Dye then went into writing books that analyze politics. His first published book was “American Public Policy: “Documents and Essays” in 1969. Since then, Dye has published over fifty books that involve the discussion of politics. Dye is also an accomplished professor, most notably at The Florida State University. He is currently retired and living in Delray Beach, Florida.

Buy Online

I bought this book at Amazon.com

Why I chose IOD

I chose this book becuase I am curious to see how democratic our country acually is and why our system is flawed. I also chose this book because the co-author is Thomas Dye who was my dad's advisor in college. I expect to learn the many ways that our nation's system of govnment does not serve our people as well as it should.