HAIR'S BREADTH

Being able to buy public policy affects a polity in many ways. It tends to make policy reflect the short term interests of those who can make the purchase at the expense of others. It affects trust levels since even if the policy is aimed at the common good, the citizenry will suspect the motives behind the decisions that generate any policy. Once the belief that policy choices are up for bidding, then the job of governance by those in positions of power will be that more difficult, and reliance on coercive means will tend to become more the mode of ruling. So, with this in mind: What constitutes bribery? And is bribery different from political donations? Some claim the difference is miniscule – a hair's breadth of difference. I want to address this difference in upcoming postings. I want to describe how such a small difference has allowed people of means to have what some describe as undue influence over those who determine public policy. And while there is influence directed by those with money over those with political authority, those who have political authority also engage in practices that at times can exert undue influence over those who make political donations. Here, in this posting, I want to more or less introduce this topic.

Let me begin by stating what to many has become obvious: money, always the lubricant of politics, has become even more of an issue as the gap between the rich and the not so rich has grown over the last several decades or so. Dave Meslin, in a Ted Talks production,¹ addresses the belief that citizens of prosperous democracies tend to become selfish, stupid, and lazy. He rejects this belief and points out that the reason many citizens choose to be uninvolved in the political processes of the nation or even of the locality in which they live is because prevailing practices by governments or other political entities set up obstacles to such involvement. He lists seven obstacles and explains them. I want to focus on the second one he mentions and labels “public space.” Here, the point is that in order to be able to engage in meaningful political speech, speech that can compete with speech of those who can purchase large quantities of public space, in the form, for example, of advertising space, one needs a significant number of financial resources. In addition, this obstacle takes the form of having direct access to political decision-makers, in the form of lobbying efforts, which also call for enormous amounts of money. This, in effect, results in regular folks, as they attempt to compete against monied interests, having almost insurmountable disadvantages systemically placed against them.

So, due to this imbalance, a system has evolved in our nation, not by necessarily evil people, but by engaged people who have definite political goals and who also have the use of big bankrolls to pursue those goals. This system entails a definite process, not one of “bribing” public officials, per se, but of well-heeled political participants making political donations to those politicians or political parties that “see” things as they do.

Again, none of this is new. Probably the most famous effort to overcome this obstacle occurred during the Progressive period. During the beginning of the twentieth century, due to the enormous wealth of industrial corporations, public policy developed not to advance the interests of the people, but to almost solely advance that of the monied class – the industrialists. The citizenry became so disgusted that it began electing into office, from local to national, politicians that became known as Progressives. Probably the most famous was the Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, although the Progressives came from both major parties – Democrat Woodrow Wilson was also a Progressive – and from a variety of interest groups. “Yet,” as Lawrence Lessig writes of that time, “one common thread that united these different strands of reform was the recognition that democratic government in America had been captured.”² Today, as if on cue with the conditions of almost exactly a century ago, we again face the challenge of tackling a form of widespread corruption – a corruption born of a mutual, reciprocating relationship between those with money or access to money and policymakers.

There are differences today. To begin with, the nature of the public space has changed. That change has been the product of technology, as in the case of mass media and social media. As a result, monied interests have far reaching means to get their speech out there. They have the resources to make sure their speech is professionally produced and, as a result, more convincing and effective. And, in addition, we have a degree of banality on two levels: one, a certain enabling by the citizenry that has allowed an economy of dependency between the monied and the politicians to form – perhaps as a result of the changes during the last century – and, two, the nature of the goals many of the monied players seek. That is, they seek to have policy that gives them increased income they cannot attain under market conditions – for example, as in the case of special tax loopholes or subsidies. We call these attempts “seeking rents.”

This corruption – and it is a form of corruption – is mostly legal.³ There is no, for the most part, concrete quid pro quo: something, money, for something else, favorable votes in a legislature, for example. Instead, the system at work operates from understandings between the givers and the receivers. These understandings take the form of, to various degrees, vague expectations and tend to be created, nurtured, and maintained over time. It is a gift economy that has evolved. It is made up of no specific demands, but a relational understanding that is dependent on continued support by policy decisions that are favorable to those who furnish the resources.

All this is usually quite legal. Yes, it is a hair's breadth of difference between this practice and out and out bribery, but it is a difference nonetheless – of significant importance.

1See the Internet site: http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html .

2Lessig, L. (2011). Republic lost: How money corrupts Congress – and a plan to stop it. New York, NY: Twelve, Hatchette Book Group. Quotation on p. 5. Many of the ideas in this posting originate with Lessig's work.

3Sometimes it is illegal as some participants have crossed the line. People have gone to prison.