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Campaign Finance—The Government We Deserve, and Why It Won’t Reform
“New friends pourthrough the revolving door,maybe there’s one that’s moreif you find one, that’ll do.But us, Old Friend, what’s to discuss, Old Friend?Here’s to us!Who’s like us?Damn few!”—Old Friends; Merilly We Roll Along; Stephen Sondheim
Antipathy towards, and contempt of, political leaders has always existed but rarely, it seems, to the degree we are currently experiencing. But this is unsurprising—we have lousy representatives, terrible representation, and you know what? We deserve it.
Campaign finance reform has always been an issue in American politics from its inception, but it seems especially pertinent today. Many people agree that there is too much money in politics, that power and speech are disproportionately bought and sold by the monetary movers and shakers in the upper echelons of society, whose interests are seen to while the rest of us flounder and flail about in useless, impotent rage. The general solution to the problem that seems to be most often proposed is to limit the ability of individuals and collectives to donate to given campaigns and candidates, to reduce the amount of money any one politician can receive from a single donor. The proponents of these reforms frequently attempt to structure them in such a way as to limit only the abilities of their political opposition’s potential contributions while simultaneously preserving their own. The creation of Super PACs as a method of circumventing this current reality only further compounds and confuses the issue.
The problems with top-down attempts to control and curtail the influence of money on politicians and their campaigns are varied and many but most people seem to agree that the largest issue is one of interest; the people who could level the political landscape most effectively are the very people whose interests would be harmed as a result. That no one ever proposes to limit the discretionary limits of Government largess, or the ability of government agents to distribute such, seems proof enough of this. So platitudes are said, speeches are made, and nothing gets done.
Increasingly, many feel that we are limited to one of two avenues of action: to organize into collectives large enough to challenge these interests, which historically has only ever had the sort of success where, at the end of the day, the heroes of justice and equality look in the mirror to find that they have become the beasts they meant to slay; or, to await the coming of a political maverick—a messiah!—to lead us forward and overwhelm the corporate bureaucrats, part the sea of red tape, and push through the necessary legislation that will magically prevent the masters of capital from ever again wielding the influence they always have.
These opinions, regardless of their validity, miss the larger point. People declare that money is the root of our problems, that too much money in our politics is why our political system is (supposedly) broken. This viewpoint, aside from being overwhelmingly Christian in nature, confuses cause for effect. Money is not the reason for our broken political system; rather, our broken system is what enables money to have such a perceived influence.
Political campaigns are studies in incentives. In order for a politician to get elected (or re-elected) the politician must connect with as many people as possible and convince or persuade them to vote for him. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, some more effective than others, and all of these cost money. Good campaigners will seek to maximize the potential return on their advertising investments. The cheapest methods—print media, books, pamphleteering—are the methods that require active engagement from the intended recipients, and are by their nature the least effective, the least likely to reach undecided or persuadable voters.
The average American has a reputation for laziness when it comes to anything outside their work or personal pleasure, and while this is not an entirely unfair assumption the simple truth is that most people, after a full day of work, do not have the time or energy to make the effort necessary to thoroughly inform themselves of the issues and people on the ballot, all of whom seem so removed from their daily realities. Thus, the most effective means of communicating with—or rather, to—the average voter are media advertisements; television, radio, and so on, which are disengaged, passive methods of absorption. These avenues of communication take less energy than active engagement but also result in weak understanding. Reading, discussion, dialogue—these methods of engagement are the respiration of political thought, breathing life into the process and energizing the participants.
But while visual media are far and away the most effective methods of reaching voters they are also the most expensive. Politicians, by existential necessity, are incentivized to spend most of their week seeking contributions to fund their next campaign, rather than working primarily on solving the problems for which they were elected. The result is that we elect a class of politicians whose primary skills lie in extracting money from people and firms, rather than solving their problems—and we wonder why there is so much money in politics while nothing gets done!
Worst of all, when these do-nothing politicians finally retire, are defeated, or otherwise leave office, they are quickly hired by various firms and organizations that use their access and connections to lobby their replacements on their behalf, creating revolving door of influence peddlers and an aristocracy of political pull. In such an environment, where the decision-makers are divorced from the consequences of their actions and never have to leave their protective political bubble or face the vulgar subjects of their policy decisions, is it any wonder that moral hazard predominates in Washington?
The most pathetic aspect of this demented dance is that various economic studies suggest that this mad scramble for political cash, at least for campaign purposes, is largely a waste of everyone’s time—and money. Large volumes of campaign spending have, at best, a marginal effect on electoral outcomes, and money has a tendency to find its way into the hands of political candidates that were already more attractive to voters from the beginning. Thus, the correlation between greater campaign dollars and political victory is not a causal relationship, but an expensive coincidence, resulting in the raising and spending of lots of superfluous campaign cash could have been put to more productive use.
So who is to blame for this situation? What is wrong with our system? As implied earlier, it’s us, the voters—we are what’s wrong. We are unwilling or unable to meet our politicians and office seekers halfway, to challenge them, to engage them in dialogue rather than be engaged by advertisements; to push back, rather than be pushed, or “nudged” as it is now termed by behavioral economists. And until we voters change our habits and priorities we will continue to get the politicians we deserve.
Ally — The Word That Makes Everyone Worse
“France has no friends, only interests.”
-Charles de Gaulle
De Gaulle’s famous rejoinder to Clementine Churchill, who implored him not to hate his friends more than his enemies, is a characteristic feature of politics (and crime, for that matter); the situation is always fluid. Goals and priorities shift, alliances form and dissolve, and the map of the world is rewritten.
Much the same can be said of social justice, broadly; the landscape of identities and factions perpetually balkanizes into ever more fractious inter-sectional sub-groups, and the broken pieces coalesce into new alliances and confederacies, only to fall apart again from the inevitable internecine conflicts, mirroring our political topography with alarming accuracy. In this environment, close comrades can become hated enemies almost overnight. It’s a marvelous social sandbox that could probably teach us a lot about the nature of loyalty, faith, and group psychology, for those who can stomach the unremittingly pathetic show.
This Boschian tableaux is having a Orwellian effect on the very language that we use, and our attitudes toward it. An expanding set of discrete words and phrases are increasingly becoming the proprietary property of specific groups of people, and the usage of such verbiage by non-members has become an action worthy of censure. The result? The lexicon of available words with which to communicate our thoughts with clarity and precision (not to mention, creativity and joy) is narrowing and approaching a precipice. Soon, we won’t be able to talk in any way but in the anodyne, corporate, HR-compliant manner, with approved, proper, and exclusively permitted diction and syntax denuded of all meaning, content, interest, or personality—all packaged in the cowardly, evasive, and inoffensive passive-voice, of course.
No, the irony of that last phrase is not lost on me—I am a product of my environment, after all.
Even worse is the exclusive associations certain words and phrases now have with specific groups and factions; words such as problematic, or degenerate, for example, words that I adore for their evocative nature, can be taken by some as implicit confession to membership of, or sympathy with, the social justice or white supremacist causes, respectively.
Newspeak is looking less and less novel.
But there is one word whose current usage I find more insidious than most, and that cuts to the heart, lies at the root, of the problem.
Ally.
The term is ubiquitous in social justice circles. Article after article can be found discussing the importance of being a good ally, instructing how to be a better ally, advising acceptable diction for allies, and explaining to potential allies which privileges they need to check if they wish to claim the coveted mantle. It is a mark of distinction that many are eager to receive as recognition of their efforts towards their cause of choice, and as proof against accusations of impropriety—allyship is seen as a social prophylactic, however imperfect.
Note the imperious tone of condescension and superiority that pervades every word of the above pieces. The title of ‘ally’ is used interchangeably as both carrot and cudgel to motivate desperate people, fearing for their reputations, to conform to the entitled demands of resentful activists, to massage their fragile psyches in a perverse public display of ego validation.
But why do such people desire allies? And who desires to become one?
Ally is a political term, used to denote a person or faction with whom we share common cause, at least for the moment. This shift in usage from the political to the social context is implicitly divisive, in a multitude of ways. Requisite declarations of a common enemy aside, the most destructive aspect of its increasing usage is the encroaching redefining of our interpersonal relationships. Such relationships, once predicated on friendship, are increasingly devolving to mere alliances, to everyone’s detriment.
Friendship is a recognition of goodwill and the common humanity between two individuals. Such acknowledgment obliges us to respect the individual rights of others and to deal with them as we would ourselves—it is the basis of the golden rule. Allies have no such obligations; all they require is a common cause, and, more importantly, a common enemy. It is a pragmatic relationship of political convenience, requiring no particular bonds of loyalty, decency, or respect.
And so the desire to both create and beomce an ally reveals itself; becoming an ally, though a more precarious position subject to the control and judgment of others, is easier than establishing friendship, and can substitute for same in the minds of the weak and the insecure. It’s pathetic, but such cultivated weakness has become a characteristic of our culture, a society dominated by tech and finance companies whose primary profit centers are best expanded by encouraging social and financial behavior that nurtures and enables the most self-destructive habits of the socially inept and misanthropic, creating more such people in the process (the subject of another article).
And we all understand this as a society on a fundamental level. There is a reason why children’s programming and media—books, comics, video games, cartoons, and beyond—overwhelmingly stress the value, desirability, and positive enduring power of friendship, of love, of the utility and necessity of social connections and bonds.
Allies do not need to be friends, and that is dangerous outside the realm of politics (and even within, if we are being honest).
Alliances are as dangerous for the allied as they are for the enemy, possibly more so, for at least the declared enemy knows where to watch for threats. A relationship based on political expedience is a mutually distrustful one-way street, capable of being unilaterally discarded the moment it is no longer politically useful.
The individual nature of friendship is not an accident—groups cannot become friends, as that relationship requires individual identities; identity groups, ironically, do not, and cannot, have this characteristic. It should come as no surprise that as society brings greater focus on identity groups and focuses more of its conversation through that lens, the emphasis on alliance over friendship becomes more pronounced. The result: people, rightly or wrongly, are coming to view politics and ideas as greater threats to their relationships than religion, race, or class.
The increasing usage of ally as a position of status, and the insistence on the expansion of this paradigm by the self-styled trend setters, taste-makers, and thought leaders who most benefit from possessing throngs of thralls clamoring for their nuggets of approval, motivates people to view and use each other as stepping-stones on the paths of their ambitions, with a concomitant tendency to view relationships as primarily political, rather than personal.
And to make all things personal, political.
The more we trend this way as a society, and individually, the more we will see each other as tools for our personal use, rather than as people deserving of, if not respect, then common, basic human decency.
The Nature of the Economy
Note: Edited, retitled and re-posted from October 21, 2013
Lately, I have been making the most of my work commute by getting a subscription to audible so as to catch up on the reading I would otherwise rather be doing in place of the 1-2 hours daily I spend on the road.
I was listening to the audible edition of Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell, when a thought occurred to me: The economic environment is a not so surprising parallel to the natural environment. (To be fair, thoughts occur to me all the time while reading/listening to books, which is often highly distracting). This may not come as much of a revelation to most, and in truth I had made this connection before; but, for some reason this time I saw it in a way I hadn’t really understood before; The economy cares about individual businesses, their successes and failures, to the exact same degree that nature cares about individual species—not at all. Species thrive; species die. Businesses thrive; businesses die. The world keeps turning and the market keeps moving.
It is not enough to say that both environments run on the Darwinian principle—survival of the fittest. While true, this statement does not go deep enough. Most people do not understand the exact degree to which this is the case.
For example: When Arnold Schwarzenegger announced c.2003 that he was considering making Warren Buffett his economic advisor to help California through it’s financial crisis, many people were quite excited at the prospect. Even some of Schwarzenegger’s harshest critics had little to criticize about such a possibility. In fact, whenever Buffett makes comments about matters relating to business, people attend his words as to Moses at Sinai. And why wouldn’t they? The man is the most successful individual investor in the world; clearly he knows what he is doing. If he can run such a successful business, then he must know everything there is to know about how to manage an economy! Predicting the economy is what he does for a living—and he wins!
Nevermind that no one can possibly know everything, and even Buffett makes mistakes, this sort of logic is what allows for brigands like Donald Trump, (whose entire existence is built on plying money from his investors and then filing bankruptcy in his corporations, leaving them in the lurch after absconding with the profits—and I use the term ‘profits’ loosely; these companies never make a dime in profit, but his corporate salary is nevertheless his from the outset) to constantly threaten to run for president on an economic platform based entirely on their reputation for business acumen, expecting that people will believe such an attribute to be applicable to the economy at large.
The truth is that Buffett—and Trump, in his own way—is a businessman, not an economist. These two things are not the same. The purpose of a business is to make a profit, and a businessman does his best to steer the business in such a way that it is most likely to succeed in this task; an economy—increasingly The Economy—is the environment in which this happens. But the environment owes nothing to its denizens and operates under its own set of rules, independent of what the businesses under its aegis might desire. Outside factors—the government, for example—can try to affect The Economy to its own ends, but ultimately it is simply outside of anyone’s ability to command; to command it one must command the trillions of individual transactions that occur daily as the result of the interactions between the millions of active participants within it, as well as control their needs and desires to a degree of exactitude impossible outside of an Orwellian nightmare-state, and maybe not even then.
The economic environment is indifferent to the concerns of business, or rather, individual businesses. Whether they succeed or fail, so long as activity continues, the economy thrives—and activity always continues.
The parallels with the natural environment are so obvious that any concrete examples risk belaboring the already extended point. You need only notice the stunning biodiversity of your immediate location, expand that to the entirety our little blue marble, and then realize that the vast majority of these species are relatively young, and have little to nothing in common with their ancestors. The species that exist today are nothing like the species that once were, and for good reason; 99% of everything that has ever lived is dead. Gone. Extinct. Several times over. Extinction events have happened multiple times in the course of terrestrial history. And each time, nearly everything was wiped out. I suppose we could retroactively blame the mass extinction of very nearly everything that has ever lived on the malfeasance of human activity echoing backward into the distant past (since there is simply not enough room in our current era to contain all of our combined environmental evil), but that seems like a bit of a stretch (though a great premise for a sci-fi novel). The simple truth, as George Carlin said, is “we didn’t kill them all.”
We are not the culprit; Nature is.
Nature does not care about individual species, if it can even be said to possess such a human quality. It simply is. It grows and changes, and the species that can adapt to these environmental changes survive; those that cannot, die. And nature goes on, uncaring and unending, until the stars burn out.
Attempts to command nature or control an economy invariably meet with embarrassing results, as Xerxes and the various communists discovered. Examples of the consequences of this sort of folly are found everywhere, from real life to the wildest science fiction: killer robots, inefficient factories, mad scientists, pervasive poverty, overwhelmed dikes, sunken ships, rampant AIs, the zombie apocalypse—all of these examples of the catastrophic failure, real or imagined, of human ingenuity serve to underscore a fundamental truth; some things are just too big to fuck with.
Posted with BlogsyActively Passive
As a bookkeeper, you would think my job involves a lot of math–and I suppose, in a way, it does–but most of the job is detective work–noticing things; small things and minor details that don’t seem like much but, over time and taken in aggregate, can add up in surprising ways. This sort of situation can change your perspective on things you knew, or thought you knew. More than that, it can give you insight into things you never really noticed.
Today I caught a minor error in one of our deposits that required an immediate adjustment, not because it was a huge discrepancy but because it would be easier to take care of it while the item in question was still in the working memory of everyone involved.
Notice, that I said, ‘adjustment’, not ‘correction’. It never really occurred to me that there was any purpose to this use of diction beyond precision; accounts are often adjusted for reasons other than errors. But maybe there is an additional reason for this particular choice in terminology. The difference between ‘correction’ and ‘adjustment’ is one of implication. A mistake is corrected. An adjustment is simply…adjusted.
It’s like the difference between active and passive voice. A correction means someone made a mistake. An adjustment means–as Reagan might say–a mistake was made.
Passive voice, which emphasizes the object acted upon (the mistake that was made), is less accusatory than the active voice, which implies an actor (someone made a mistake). This is why the passive voice, along with sesquipedalian loquaciousness, is the favored refuge of the cornered or contrite politician.
Perhaps it is the result of the accounting trade being intrinsically linked to the office environment, where tempers flare at the slightest provocation. A more diplomatic way of telling someone they made a mistake has probably saved more than a few people’s careers.
Zurtlespace 