Columnists are supposed to be opinionated. As a matter of convention, a column on an issue should express some strong opinion about it. Sorry to disappoint, but all I can do is raise some questions to which I have no satisfactory answers.
Libertarians commonly argue that campaign finance regulations are a restriction on free speech. Yes, but …
I try to use what Objectivist scholar Chris Sciabarra calls “dialectical libertarianism” as a tool for analyzing issues. That means a state action should be evaluated not in terms of its formal statism in static isolation, but in terms of its functional relationship to the larger system of state power.
State interventions can be broken down, for the sake of the present discussion, into 1) primary structural interventions that serve the overall needs of the system of power, and 2) secondary ameliorative interventions that cushion the negative side effects of primary interventions.
Primary interventions include subsidies to privileged economic actors, protecting them from market competition and enforcing artificial property rights and artificial scarcities that enable them to collect monopoly rents.
Secondary interventions include regulatory and welfare state measures that constrain those privileged actors from abusing their privilege in ways that undermine the long-term stability of the system. Such secondary interventions are intended to prevent, among other things, levels of destitution, homelessness and starvation that might destabilize the political system. They serve to make the system of privilege at least minimally endurable on a human level.
Viewing such secondary interventions in this light, we can plausibly see them as reductions in statism: i.e., as limits or qualifications on the exercise of a state grant of power. Eliminating the secondary ameliorative interventions, without addressing the primary structural interventions they’re designed to compensate for, amounts to increasing the fundamental statism resulting from those primary grants of privilege.
Back to campaign finance: According to liberal critics, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, handed down earlier this year, enables the corporate plutocracy to buy up the political system. I’m inclined to agree.
From a libertarian standpoint, corporate lobbying is rent-seeking — substituting legislation for production as a source of profits the corporation couldn’t earn through legitimate economic means in a free market. As Roderick Long, Director of the Molinari Institute, put it: A corporation can invest $10 million in electing politicians who will pass legislation that increases the company’s profits by a billion dollars. That’s a pretty good ROI.
Now, thanks to Citizens United” according to analyst Charles Hugh Smith (one of the better writers on the crisis tendencies of late corporate capitalism), we’re entering a positive feedback loop (“Concentrated Wealth and the Purchase of Political Power,” Of Two Minds, Oct. 29).
The richer the plutocracy gets through political means, the greater its resources to invest in the political system and tighten its hold on the state, which increases its wealth still further — and so on, and so on, in an endless death spiral.
So maybe regulating the way money can be spent to influence elections was one of those secondary qualifications I mentioned above. Maybe it was a sort of governor that prevented the system from entering the uncontrolled positive feedback loop that Smith describes. Maybe the undoing of McCain-Feingold was a tipping point of sorts, akin to methane bubbling up from the warming seabeds and melting permafrost and causing the greenhouse effect to accelerate out of control.
From a dialectical libertarian standpoint, statism inheres in the functioning of the overall system, rather than in the formal statism of its static individual parts taken in isolation. And I have a sick suspicion that Citizens United will lead to a massive increase in the statism of the overall system. I’m inclined to believe the decision amounted to an act of the state removing one of the few remaining limits on its own statism.
What’s the practical implication for us market anarchists? What should we do? Well, remember I mentioned at the outset that this column would mainly raise questions, not answer them.
I really don’t think there’s much we can do, from the standpoint of undoing the decision. The damage is probably done, and irreversible. And even given an outside chance, from an anarchist standpoint political action wastes resources far more effectively invested in building a better society.
About all we can do is take this as a sign of the times, another configuration of the stars indicating that Babylon the Great is on its way down. We can get out of the way and avoid getting in the way of the crash. And we can do our best to have a new system in place when the crash happens.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, Citizens United — is the Gas Pedal Stuck?, Carlsbad, NM Current-Argus, 11/17/10
Let's not pretend that corporations had no influence on politics before the Citizens United ruling, shall we? This whole brouhaha about "Campaign Finance Reform" began in 1971 when an upstart, John Anderson, nearly captured the Presidency. Politicians were frightened by the possibility that they (the incumbents) might Lose Their Jobs! And so, they gave us "Campaign Finance Reform", which should have been called "Incumbency Protection Act," if politicians were noted for anything approaching truth in advertising.
Your recent TSA post was great.
But I'm not sure I'm with you on this conclusion:
"From a dialectical libertarian standpoint, statism inheres in the functioning of the overall system, rather than in the formal statism of its static individual parts taken in isolation. And I have a sick suspicion that “Citizens United” will lead to a massive increase in the statism of the overall system.
I’m inclined to believe the decision amounted to an act of the state removing one of the few remaining limits on its own statism."
Ultimately, I suspect the only solution parallels Frank Chodorov's response to the anguished observation that communists were occupying government jobs: "Get rid of the jobs." That the state can be manipulated by the wealthy isn't a bug–it's a feature. So if the wealthy are buying politicians, get rid of the politicians. I worry that any other solution of an ad hoc nature runs the risk of allowing the state to pick and choose whose speech will be tolerated and whose won't; thus my tendency to agree with Glenn Greenwald–no fan of corporate power–on this decision.
I don't know. One of the unexamined premises of Smith's "positive feedback loop" (that more money increases one's chances of winning an election) is so obvious that I'm inclined to believe it's false. And from none other than Americans for Campaign Reform:
If this is so, it tells us that more corporate money in elections will, at best, get a candidate noticed, and a "corporation [that] invest[s] $10 million in electing politicians" is wasting their money. I read that this is covered in detail in "Freakanomics".
I have to register my disagreement also.
I think our disagreement would come down to our view of the relative influence of different factors on the outcome of elections (and policy-setting). Advocates of campaign finance restrictions seem to think that big spending = "corporate influence" whereas the default is "citizen influence".
However, I don't see how big spending could detract much from citizen influence. Either the citizens are well-informed rational decision-makers, or they aren't. Advertising doesn't change that — it only changes voter behavior if they are not independently well-informed.
From this perspective, advertisements only impact the relative influence of various elite groups who would control the campaign narrative in the absence of advertisements (e.g. newspaper owners, incumbent politicians, party officials), and all of these elites are just as likely to be statist as the corporations are. Anyway, money will always find a way in influence the elections regardless of the details of the laws (e.g. can't buy and ad, then buy a newspaper!).
I think that the worst thing about these campaign finance debates is that they distract activists who have some openness to radical critiques of the political system.
terrymac: Nobody pretending here. I think I've repeatedly made it clear we've had 150 years of mutually reinforcing support between big govt and big business. The point of this column was that the mutual support came with a stabilizing mechanism of sorts — and that the relationship between big business and big government had just reached a tipping point in which this mechanism was removed. The state has always been executive committee of the ruling class, but it has at least sometimes done so in ways that balance the short-term utility maximization of individual actors against the long-term interests of capital as a whole.
ricketson: I don't think we're in disagreement on citizens' ignorance. But *given* an ignorant citizenry, it's easier now for the folks with the most money to leverage that ignorance as a political force. And I think the money is disproportionately corporate.
I think that the secondary measures turn into primary measures relatively quickly. They also cover up the violence of the state with more violence elsewhere, Then that needs to be covered up.
So I'm with Rothbard here, oppose ANY state growth and ANY regulation of freedom.
I think the focus of the debate is a little bit off. As noted by Lewis, actual campaign spending faces decreasing marginal utility issues. But that's not the point. The DNC and RNC both believe (or claim to believe) that fundraising is THE determining factor, and candidates that can't excel in this area are winnowed out extremely early in the process, well before any sort of nominally democratic process becomes involved. The best parallel is to Iran, where, sure, there is a democratic election, but only between candidates that have proven themselves sufficiently obedient to the clerics. Here, it's not so explicit, but the process is essentially the same; the people at large only get to choose between candidates that are well vetted by the ruling class. Of course, cultural issues are a big component as well, since if people were willing to "waste" their votes on 3rd parties, it would be much harder for the ruling class to maintain gatekeepers.
Given all that, I'm not sure campaign finance reform was ever much of a check on statism. I saw it mainly as a defense against the rise of 3rd parties, as the regulatory burden was heavy for smaller organizations – you had to be a certain size almost right off the bat to make a new party viable under the regs. However, I have a nagging suspicion campaign finance was always more about a conflict between competing factions of the ruling class – a tool for the "old guard" to put some upstarts back in their place, much the same way the Microsoft anti-trust prosecution was. Perhaps it outlived its use to the old guard, or perhaps they ultimately lost the fight. Either way, I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer to the issue of whether Citizens United is a net good or bad. To me, it's more along the lines of "Oh look, we elected Obama to replace W."
Kinda off-topic, but the question I find more interesting is whether the fast food marketing ban in SF is defensible from a dialectical perspective. I'm starting to lean towards "yes" on that one.
Kevin what you just wrote appears to be the truth.
I don’t think we’re in disagreement on citizens’ ignorance. But *given* an ignorant citizenry, it’s easier now for the folks with the most money to leverage that ignorance as a political force. And I think the money is disproportionately corporate. Kevin Carson
Then again maybe a sleeping giant and not corporate
Thanks for the response Kevin, but could you clarify two things?
1) Why should we expect these regulations to make a big difference, given that they didn't exist 8 years ago (and campaign finance regulations are ~40 year old, in total)? Did some other mechanism prevent the corporate plutocrats from taking over before then?
2) If the corporate plutocrats will gain power, then who will lose it? We seem to agree that their gain will not come at the expense of regular voters, so it must be other elite groups. Will these other elites lose all power, or will there just be a slight shift in the balance of power? The main losers that I see are the mainstream media and the politicians themselves (including party bosses). However, the politicians will always retain some power simply because they have direct control over the state, and the media corporations have their brand reputations that gives them some credibility that election-year advertisements don't have.
And for the record, I see no reason that commercial corporate charters (being grants from the state) should not be legally required to prohibit political activity with corporate funds. Maybe they could even place limits on the political activity of top management, similar to how NBC prohibits its media personalities (e.g. Olberman) from engaging in political activity. Of course, the supreme court disagrees with me, it seems.
Corporate influence over the state extends far, far beyond the mere financing if campaigns. Energy corporations write our energy policy. Insurers write our health care laws. Paying for campy tv spots is such a minor aspect of the system. Campaign Finance Reform is just another distraction.
Ricketson: The one bit of data that sticks in my mind is a reference I saw recently to a 500% increase in campaign spending over the 2006 midterms. I think the real increase in influence is not so much capital at the expense of non-capital, but in the responsiveness to the most short-sighted demands of short-term profit maximizing capital at the expense of the long-term, collective interests of capital. It's like the capitalists' state burnt out the part of its brain that weighted short-term impulse gratification against long-term interests.
Great, so it'll crash faster!
I keep thinking – we're on the Titanic and we've seen it hit the iceberg over and over again. We've also seen we could live comfortably on the iceberg. Why would we try to stop it from sinking? The faster, the better.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_cos…
Who speak's for the Earth
Love and agree whole-heartedly with Gary Chartier's post.
Does anyone who has observed how the state operates and how the Supreme Court makes decisions really believe that the Court would agree to turn off or limit the amount of cash flowing into the hands and pockets of incumbents and other parasites?
RE: Lewis Collard's statement:
I don’t know. One of the unexamined premises of Smith’s “positive feedback loop” (that more money increases one’s chances of winning an election) is so obvious that I’m inclined to believe it’s false. And from none other than Americans for Campaign Reform:
Once candidates exceed the competitive spending threshold [$700,000] and voters learn who they are, more spending does not measurably increase the share of votes.
If this is so, it tells us that more corporate money in elections will, at best, get a candidate noticed, and a “corporation [that] invest[s] $10 million in electing politicians” is wasting their money. I read that this is covered in detail in “Freakanomics”.
-end quote.
Are people so naive that they believe that all that money goes to campaigning? LOL! Much of that money that is given ends up as six-figure or more 'salaries' for people on the politician's election committee. Wife (or husband) get's a $600,000 salary as chairman of the re-elect Congressman Lyin' Bastard and junior gets $50,000 to manage the re-election staff and the candidates themselves take a 'salary' or 'stipend' out of the campaign money. The 1992 Eddie Murphy movie, The Distinguished Gentleman, used this fact as the plot where Murphy played a conman who ran for Congress, not to win, but to pocket all the campaign contributions he could.
I do not believe that we will achieve a stateless society by engaging the state and playing their game by their rules. That's the way to perpetuate the state, not end it or make it irrelevant.