“Remember, democracy never lasts long. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Former president John Adams

According to an analysis by The New York Times, the income of middle class Canadians is now greater than that of middle class Americans. In fact, since the days of President Reagan lower and middle class incomes have gone up more in Europe and Canada than they have in the United States. Only the wealthiest Americans have enjoyed substantial income gains in the past 35 years.

Researchers attribute this in large part to the fact that top executives make considerably more, the minimum wage is lower, and the rich pay much lower taxes in America than in other Western nations.

Why are things so different here? America is, after all, a democracy, so our policies are a reflection of the will of the people. Whatever our situation is, it’s presumably of our own making.

But do our nation’s policies reflect the will of the majority? In some ways, yes, they do. The increasing recognition of gay marriage and nascent marijuana legalization are two current instances of popular opinion shaping government policy. And while there are other examples as well, research conducted by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University indicates that much of our nation’s policy is disproportionately influenced by – and disproportionately beneficial to – special interests.

“America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” these researchers claim, adding that “the general public has little or no independent influence” on the way this nation’s policies are made.

These two political scientists examined where both the middle class and various special interest groups stood on 1,779 policy issues since 1981. Gilens and Page then compared this to how these issues were settled.   They conclude that “economic elites” – on both the left and the right — have the greatest influence on our government (and the Supreme Court recently struck down restrictions on what these elites can donate to politicians). The next most powerful groups are those who represent business interests.

Alarmingly, Gilens and Page found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” They say this disparity of influence has given rise to the growing inequality between the rich and everyone else (and between average Americans and average Canadians). It’s also fueling growing dissatisfaction with and distrust of both government and large corporations.

In his 2009 documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, politically polarizing film maker Michael Moore tried to raise awareness of this point. Moore revealed that the super-rich already consider America a “plutocracy” – government by the wealthy – and suggests that in at least some quarters, an effective democracy is seen as the biggest threat to the interests of the rich. If the American people were to actually vote in favor of their own financial interests — rather than for politicians who favor the interests of the rich – the rich would lose their oversized influence.

It should come as no surprise that the super-rich wield far more influence on our government than anyone else. But what is surprising is that so many Americans – Americans who still have great potential democratic power – either don’t know, don’t care or are in denial of what’s actually going on. Unless or until our electorate starts to worry as much about economic policy as it does about who we can marry and how to get high, John Adams’ concern would seem valid — our democracy is in danger of dying.