Monday, September 07, 2015

3) Profit

Obviously the whole Lessig thing is silly and pointless, but I'd like an answer to the question: exactly which policies do you think would (or even should!) be enacted if not for all of that meddling money and gerrymandering. The problem with goo-goo process liberalism (and now centrism) is that it basically says that once we fix the system then ??. There's no agenda.

Money in politics is a problem, but for a long time I've been very unsure that the very narrow issue of money-in-federal-election-campaigns is really a big part of the "money in politics" problem. Quite possibly regulating that while ignoring the rest of it has contributed to the problem for various reasons.

But for those who think money-in-federal-election-campaigns (somewhat broadly defined, though there really are legitimate speech issues once you move away from the very narrowly defined campaign committee) is a major impediment to the liberal agenda, what are the policies that the nation is clamoring for but The Big Money won't allow that will be able to become law when the Lessig plan becomes law?

Again, of course the influence of money and entrenched wealthy interests is an issue. I just don't think this very narrow slice of it is that big of an issue. Yes he also includes the revolving door problem, but even there I don't think the real problem is the government/lobbyist revolving door. It's the regulatory agency/industry revolving door that's the problem.