The Sructure of the American System
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The American system was structured as a deliberate reform of the government of the past, the government of high social stratification, with power concentrated in a central figure or group. The American system was intended to disperse power more widely and to provide for the means to assure that power would not become concentrated in any one person or office or even in any one branch of government. The system elevated the average citizen to a new position of power, power exercised through the right to vote. The system from the beginning promised not only change and reform but a new equality and has been portrayed as removing power from the elite and giving it to the public at large. However, the reality does not match the ideal as embodied in the Constitution and in the government it created and supports, and power still remains largely in the hands of certain elites. It is this fact that has caused more agitation from reform in recent years as people consider how to alter the system to make it live up to its promise. Yet the system as it stands today is not elitist but a hyperpluralist system in which certain groups dominate the process, exert more power than other groups, and get what they want. The system has changed over the history of this country, as should be expected given the dynamic nature of that system, the flexibility of the Constitution that governs it, and the tendency for democratic debate to center on the question of what democracy itself means as Will
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ful few in society manage to define the issues and to constrain possible outcomes of decisions to suit their own interests.
However, America does not seem to have a stable elite but a shifting pattern of interest groups with greater or lesser power, and such power is not derived only from money but from other characteristics or capabilities. One of the main capabilities has been the ability to deliver votes, As so-called Big labor has been doing for some time. Representing a large segment of a candidate's constituency gives an organization a particular cachet. The system is not elite because the groups that dominate are not necessarily elites and because groups succeed in a system of shifting alliances. The environmental movement consists of a wide variety of people and is influential beyond its numbers because its goal is one held by vast numbers of citizens. At the same time, the movement is more or less successful depending on which political party is in control, as has been seen in recent years with the shift in Washington to Republican control rather than Democratic. Even in the current Republican-led Congress, environmental groups retain power because of the appeal of their message to a broad cross-section of Ameri
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Approximate Word count = 1606
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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