Comment Of The Hour

Okay, I know I haven't been very good at feeding back to my comments. I do promise, though, that I have read all of them, and appreciate them.

Commenter Ryaison raises one point for comparison on my post about campaign finance reform, talking about a French law which mandates, within a certain percentage, equal coverage of every candidate.

As I said earlier, I don't like large parts of the current system. In particular, I definitely want to know who is behind the groups showing various commercials, and I want the regular news organizations to take some interest in who, for instance, the Texas bazillionaire who funded the 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth' was. But this idea, of mandating equal coverage, just strikes me as a little silly. I don't want equal coverage. Frankly, I don't want Mike Gravel getting equal time on the air as Hilary or Obama. He's not going to win, and I don't particularly care what he thinks.

I am, at heart, a marketeer. If the market is interested in your ideas, then you'll find some play for them. Obviously, even though Obama has been very vague in his policy prescriptions, the market approves of what he's doing. The dude had a quarter of a million individual contributors last quarter! So clearly, either what he is saying, or how he is saying it, is more interesting to people. And so, I believe that he should have more opportunities to have it heard than someone who isn't as interesting, or compelling, or whatever. That's the market, and it's a good thing.

The fundamental problem, I think, is not too much market; it's too little. Let me explain. The issue is not a problem with the application of market forces, it's a problem with the weakness of market forces. In particular, the asymmetry that comes from the difference in power levels between individual consumers and vast corporations.

This issue displays itself differently in economic market interactions, but in the political realm, the problem has traditionally been that it's been much easier to raise vast amounts of money by appealing to a few large donors than to appeal to many smaller ones. And so, politicians have been encouraged to take positions that appeal to money, rather than to people. Or, if you want to be a bit more classist about it, to rich people rather than to regular people.

And so, the solution, in my opinion, is not to reduce the market forces at play in politics. It's to level them. Fundamentally, politicians should be vying for votes, for people's opinions, not for their money. Now, we're not going to remove money from the game. That's just not going to happen. But, instead, we can level the playing field by reducing the appeal and power of the moneyed interests.

The best idea, far and away, that I've seen for this problem is outlined here. The short version is that every US citizen, or I guess every taxpayer, is earmarked $25 which they can donate to the politician of their choice. The next effect of this flood of money into the system ($25 by, say, 200 million taxpayers, is 5 billion dollars, about 5x what is expected to be raised and spent on the presidential race this time around. A lot of money, to be sure, but isn't it worth it to achieve a freer, more open, more democratic system?) would be to pretty much eliminate the ability of corporations, or wealthy individuals, to have a huge influence on the game.

I'm still working through my ideas on this issue, but this seems right to me - the answer is not to reduce market effects on the process, because money just finds a way. It would be great if we could have a wonderful crop of saintly politicians, halos in tow, who were not influenced by people who gave them free cigars, or junkets to tropical islands. Unfortunately, we're stuck with actual human beings for our politicians, which means that they are going to be influenced, and corrupted. A more pragmatic solution to reduce the corruption is to democratize it, bring it out in the open, and let everyone play.