CEG\'er
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 443 |
Originally posted by caltour2:
Good point; there are numerous kinds of money that can influence elections and policies. And you are correct that (so-called) campaign finance reform restricted one means of buying influence. But wealthy individuals and corporations can still buy power through "soft money" and "527 groups." (Not to mention outright illegal payola, see for example Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-San Diego).
The BIG contributions to political parties and to "527" organizations influenced the last election by paying for armed guards at polling places to intimidate minority voters in Ohio, by paying for operatives who challenged poor and minority voters' right to vote, and by paying for ads like the "Swift Boat Veterans" ads designed to derail the Kerry campaign.
In general I'd say we've seen quite a bit of change in how money affects politics. The amounts of dollars spent on political action across the board have skyrocketed over the last ten years. I've not given a ton of thought to why this is, except to say that the growth of technology specific to mass media services seems to have made it possible to influence both individual votes on specific issues and those in Congress.
Like I said, I tend not to put much weight in what the press has to say. The whole Ohio argument, at least according to some friends I have that live there, came down to people not following the law properly and then claiming they were not permitted to vote. The fact is there are ground rules for everything in life, yes even voting, and if the person decides not to adhere to the law, then they sacrifice their right to vote in so doing.
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I hope you don't mean that the wealthy SHOULD have greater political influence than the rest of us. That's called oligarchy, not democracy.
Well, define democracy. For all of the talk surrounding democracy, the fact is we don't live in a fully democratic society, nor would I ever want to. We live in a capitalist republic (or sometimes termed a representative democracy).
Capitalism limits our democracy -- defined as the majority of the moment -- to its only useful purpose: the electing of various individuals to various positions of public office. Other then this limited aspect, the power of the majority is severely limited. Capitalism in this sense only supports a limited "democracy", but not a pure one.
Under capitalism no individual, nor any group of individuals, whether they be a minority or a majority, can violate the inalienable rights of any other minority, including the most oppressed minority that has ever existed -- the individual. In the sense, commonly used, that democracy means egalitarianism -- the equality of results (wealth), by an unequal protection (violation) of rights -- capitalism is entirely opposed to it.
The founding fathers knew of the inherent weakness of a pure democratic system, and often wrote about it, here is one such quote:
To quote The Federalist, on democracies: "it may be concluded that a pure democracy...can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction...as there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
A capitalist system is a republic and not a pure democracy. It is a system of checks and balances so ordered to protect the rights of the individual, from criminals and most importantly from the democratically elected voices who claim to speak for the "public good." It is a limited "democracy".
For those who are confused by the issue, the essential point is this: is it right for another man to rape, rob and murder another? Capitalism says never; democracy says yes -- if the majority wills it.
So, to address your question regarding the wealthy having influence. Sort of. If what you mean by wealthy equals our capitalist economic system, then yes, I'm a bigger believer in our capitalist economic system than I am or ever will be in our federal government and/or pure democracy, which by definition is somewhat shortsighted and temperamental based upon the current majority party and the election cycles.
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I'd like to see the studies you are referring to. How could anyone reliably measure the influence of vast amounts of money contributed to campaign funds ("hard money"), to political parties ("soft money"), to Political Action Committies (PACs) and to 527 groups (like the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth")? Just ask yourself the common-sense question: How could that money NOT have overwhelming influence?
I'll try and dig one up. Of course I was paraphrasing/summarizing in my own words what I've read in the past. My underlying point was that from a democrat/republican voting perspective, few people change their voting patterns despite all of the money spent on campaign finance/advertizing. Where money seems to be effective is with issue specific advertizing, which has much more to do with K street/lobbyists and influencing the Congress.
Personally, I'm not a fan of big government (that fact should be fairly abvious by now!  ). I really have difficulty understanding how anyone can put faith in an entity that, in the final analysis, utilizes physical force as it's only method of manipulating people to do it's bidding for the "public good." Behind every single gov't program, ultimately, is a gun. Why anyone would want to have their lives in submission to such an entity, is really beyond my comprehension.
The last point in regard to PAC's, soft money, etc., is that the rampant growth of the federal gov't (and it's debt/deficit) is starting to take a serious toll on our economic ability to stay competitive. Because gov't has become increasingly intrusive all in the name of the "public good," the capitalist economic system ends up spending a larger percentage of it's output on influencing the growth of the democratic system of gov't. We see this through the PAC's, soft money, 527's, etc. This is money that could be better spent on employees, benefits, R&D, retained earnings, you name it, but instead it ends up flowing into an entity that does no real good with it (the federal/state gov'ts). It's bad enough that our taxes are as high as they are on businesses and individuals, now we have businesses, and individuals through orgs like moveon.org and many others, spending increasingly larger amounts of money (on top of the taxes paid) in an attempt to buy influence. Our focus is wrong here IMHO, big gov't will never solve the problems inherent in our society. Let me be clear, IT NEVER WILL. Europeans in some countries are burdened with 70-80% tax rates by their federal gov'ts, and they are still plagued with problems, in many cases the same types of problems that we have, only worse off. Taxing and gov't growth aren't the answer to the problems at hand. I really don't have the slightest understanding of why people look to a federal entity as the God that's going to save us from our plights. It is falsehood at it's best. 
If we would shrink the federal system and stop being such a litigious society, we'd see the political money problems go away all by themselves, as there would be little reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy influence, for their would be little influence to purchase, because gov't would stop it's increasingly harmful meddling with the capitalist economic system. Idealistic? Probably.
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