If politics is about getting, keeping, and using power, with a few or many sides competing with each other to control government, then it is curious that in the history of our country politics is not often expressed this way. Politics is not often described as a competition among centers of power in the country. The competition is more often expressed as going on between the federal government and the states, or as it is now, between big (federal) government, and big business--with small government being only a proxy for the dominance of big business.
Samuelson's column in today's Washington Post is an example of the failure to confront the basic nature of politics. Samuelson admits that for its practitioners politics is a matter of power, but then he shifts the argument by saying that "for the nation, the basic purpose of politics is to conciliate." He then goes on to say that politics achieves conciliation by working out a consensus on issues. His basic complaint is that politics especially in the present "has abdicated its central role," as he defines it. He ignores the alternative definition of politics as the exercise of power. For him politics is the process of achieving a bipartisan consensus.
Samuelson admits that there has never been a golden age of bipartisan harmony, but he finds that its present lack is especially troubling, with voter anger driven to just throw everybody out. But if there has never been a period of bipartisan harmony, maybe that is not the purpose of politics. His acceptance of bipartisan consensus then amount to no more than a wishful hope: politics should be bipartisan, even if it never has been. His political theory departs from an objective description of what is, into a fantasy of how things should be, equivalent to the idealism of having a benevolent dictatorship.
His description of a cycle of disillusionment about politics is probably accurate, with initial optimism, but then demoralization. The cause of this cycle, though, is not "that leaders cannot command broad support." in the form of bipartisan agreement. It is just the opposite; disillusionment is the result of the difficulties in making political decisions resulting from the necessity of having a bipartisan consensus.
Decision making by majority rule is the mathematically, morally, and politically the best way to make decisions. The problem with our government is that we do not have majority rule.We avoid confronting this issue by discussing politics as one of big government vs big business, and pretending that consensus is all.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
class warfare
E J Dionne in the Washington Post continues his discussion of campaign finance following the Citizens United decision. In his latest column he complains that "the 2010 election is turning into a class war." This strikes me as a totally naive statement. There has always been a class war: the US has tried again and again to deny and hide it, but it has always been there. It is to the benefit of the wealthy to deny it, and so they have. The Progressive Movement of the early 1900s gave the wealthy a way to obscure the issue, and this was the basis of most of the campaign reform legislation. Such legislation has served only to further hide the influence of the wealthy.
Typically Dionne himself tries to deny class war by presenting Obama as a supporter of the wealthy and the market system. Setting up Obama as a supporter of the wealthy leaves Dionne mystified as to why the wealthy would want to attack Democrats. Again, Dionne is being naive: Obama might say nice things about the free market, but the wealthy are not fooled. The wealthy want to control the government, and Obama and Democrats are an obstacle to this control.
Dionne then complains that the Supreme Court has peremptorily "swept away decades of restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections." I have mixed feelings about what the Supreme Court has done, preferring that the legislature make such decisions, but in fact what the Supreme Court did was possibly motivated by the reality that all of those restrictions on campaign finances has not been successful, and has instead distorted the political process.
Dionne talks in terms of corruption, but that term is a very slippery one, easily shading into simple political preferences rather than something criminal. Corruption is supposedly the use of undue or illegitimate influence, but who is to say what is undue? Corruption is buying influence, but if one has money, what else is one to do with it, how else is one to exert influence?
The counterweight to the use of money to gain influence in a democracy is the power of numbers at the voting booth. The wealthy will always have money, and will try to use it in elections. The only power able to counteract the influence of money is the power of numbers, and this is almost by definition the power of the poor, or the non-wealthy. The problem in elections, and in government more generally, is that the US government is not democratic, and thus is not able to counter the influence of wealth. Contrary to Dionne's claims, this country does not a class war; it is not irrational, it is basic.
Typically Dionne himself tries to deny class war by presenting Obama as a supporter of the wealthy and the market system. Setting up Obama as a supporter of the wealthy leaves Dionne mystified as to why the wealthy would want to attack Democrats. Again, Dionne is being naive: Obama might say nice things about the free market, but the wealthy are not fooled. The wealthy want to control the government, and Obama and Democrats are an obstacle to this control.
Dionne then complains that the Supreme Court has peremptorily "swept away decades of restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections." I have mixed feelings about what the Supreme Court has done, preferring that the legislature make such decisions, but in fact what the Supreme Court did was possibly motivated by the reality that all of those restrictions on campaign finances has not been successful, and has instead distorted the political process.
Dionne talks in terms of corruption, but that term is a very slippery one, easily shading into simple political preferences rather than something criminal. Corruption is supposedly the use of undue or illegitimate influence, but who is to say what is undue? Corruption is buying influence, but if one has money, what else is one to do with it, how else is one to exert influence?
The counterweight to the use of money to gain influence in a democracy is the power of numbers at the voting booth. The wealthy will always have money, and will try to use it in elections. The only power able to counteract the influence of money is the power of numbers, and this is almost by definition the power of the poor, or the non-wealthy. The problem in elections, and in government more generally, is that the US government is not democratic, and thus is not able to counter the influence of wealth. Contrary to Dionne's claims, this country does not a class war; it is not irrational, it is basic.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
campaign finance disclosure
It occurred to me this morning as I was reading Politico.com about the Sunday talk shows, where Axelrod again said all we need is to know who is making all these campaign ads. It struck me that the problem with this approach to improving our political discourse is that it allows the consumer of the ads to discount the argument itself by deflecting attention to the source of the argument. In effect for any campaign ad, it becomes possible to say "consider the source" and then to ignore the substance of the ad. This works both ways. If an ad is sponsored by a liberal group, the consumer is able to say that it is only the liberal point of view, and then ignore the argument. Conversely, if it is a conservative group that sponsors the ad, the consumer is able to say that it is only the conservative point of view, and ignore it. In either case the consumer is encouraged to ignore the substance of the argument, and in general to ignore the discourse itself. In effect we praise and promote political ignorance or non-involvement.
It seems to me that the consumer of political advertising should rather be encouraged to evaluate the substance of the argument, regardless of who is sponsoring the ad. To do so may in fact even require that the source of the argument not be known. In any case, the value of the argument should be more the focus of comment about the ad than its source. To pretend that knowing the source of the ad is going to somehow make the ads more fair and responsible is a stretch, and amounts to no more than saying don't trust the ads because we don't know where they are coming from. We can know whether the substance of the ad is valid and important or not without knowing where it came from.
It seems to me that the consumer of political advertising should rather be encouraged to evaluate the substance of the argument, regardless of who is sponsoring the ad. To do so may in fact even require that the source of the argument not be known. In any case, the value of the argument should be more the focus of comment about the ad than its source. To pretend that knowing the source of the ad is going to somehow make the ads more fair and responsible is a stretch, and amounts to no more than saying don't trust the ads because we don't know where they are coming from. We can know whether the substance of the ad is valid and important or not without knowing where it came from.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Restart
I have been away for the last two weeks, so I thought I would start over in trying to say what my book is about.
My book is about what is wrong with our government, and how we can change it. Its conclusion is that we should strengthen our political parties so that they have more discipline and control over their elected members in Congress. This could be done by changing campaign finance laws to require that all financial contributions to political campaigns be made only to political parties. Individual candidates would not be able to solicit or accept contributions from anyone other than their party. This would free the candidate from the burden of fund raising, and allow him or her to focus solely on the issues. More importantly, it would enable the party to discipline its members with the threat of withholding funding for campaigns.
I realize that this proposal is directly contrary to most of the discussions of campaign finance reform, where the focus is on reducing the influence of money and parties on the campaigns and on the candidates. Parties for most people are part of the problem of campaign finance, not its solution.
The effects of such a change in the political parties, however, would be to trigger changes in the dynamic relationships between the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, and eventually even the Supreme Court. These changes would result in a different kind of government, one more closely resembling the parliamentary government of Britain and most other European governments.
To understand my reasons for this conclusion, it is necessary to take a different look at our history, one that includes our government as a factor in our history, not just as part of the neutral background on which cultural and social forces play out their conflicts. Most of my book is in fact devoted to presenting this view of our history.
My book is about what is wrong with our government, and how we can change it. Its conclusion is that we should strengthen our political parties so that they have more discipline and control over their elected members in Congress. This could be done by changing campaign finance laws to require that all financial contributions to political campaigns be made only to political parties. Individual candidates would not be able to solicit or accept contributions from anyone other than their party. This would free the candidate from the burden of fund raising, and allow him or her to focus solely on the issues. More importantly, it would enable the party to discipline its members with the threat of withholding funding for campaigns.
I realize that this proposal is directly contrary to most of the discussions of campaign finance reform, where the focus is on reducing the influence of money and parties on the campaigns and on the candidates. Parties for most people are part of the problem of campaign finance, not its solution.
The effects of such a change in the political parties, however, would be to trigger changes in the dynamic relationships between the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, and eventually even the Supreme Court. These changes would result in a different kind of government, one more closely resembling the parliamentary government of Britain and most other European governments.
To understand my reasons for this conclusion, it is necessary to take a different look at our history, one that includes our government as a factor in our history, not just as part of the neutral background on which cultural and social forces play out their conflicts. Most of my book is in fact devoted to presenting this view of our history.
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