Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
Ban big-money election giving
Print Edition
AT first glance, the title of the book “Dollarocracy” suggests that it is dollars, rather than demos, that are increasingly dominating American politics.
But the book does more than suggest the business-as-usual of moneyed politics in America. In fact, as the authors — journalist John Nichols and professor Robert McChesney — point out, moneyed politics is nothing new in American history, nor in Greek or Roman history, in which conflicts between haves and have-nots have never been rare.
What distinguishes this book from many others condemning America’s big-money politics is that it does not just air the dirty linen, it argues that the linen can be cleansed with a radical constitutional amendment to ensure that everyone’s vote counts.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, writes in the forward: “With this book, John Nichols and Bob McChesney invite Americans to examine in new ways the challenges facing America and to fully recognize the threat that the combination of Big Money and big media poses to the promise of self-government. They paint a daunting picture — but they do not offer us a pessimistic take.”
As a Chinese reader, I’ve learned two things from the book. One is that American politics, especially its vaunted fair elections and free press, are a mirage. The other is that American political problems, daunting as they are, can and should be solved through informed discussions rather than irrational rants. The book excels both in pinpointing American political ills and in prescribing solutions.
In describing how corrupt US elections have become, the authors cite former US President Jimmy Carter, who looked out across the American political landscape in the midst of the 2012 election campaign and saw a political process “shot through with financial corruption.”
In fact, fresh seeds of big-money politics were sown in 2010 when the US Supreme Court decided the case of Citizens United v FEC, ruling that First Amendment free speech guarantees prohibit the government from restricting political campaign contributions by corporations, associations, or labor unions.
Influx of money
In the words of Carter, the case was “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other power interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” Carter said that “we have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America, and it’s almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money.”
In fact, long before that 2010 Supreme Court decision, America’s founding fathers’ dream of a democratic nation had been shattered. The book quotes Lawrence Lessig, a famous constitutional law professor, as saying: “The day before Citizens United was decided, our democracy was already broken. Citizens United may have shot the body, but the body was already cold.”
News media are part of the game, say the authors. The media companies crave political advertising, which accounts for around a third of their revenues. “The money makes a mockery of political equality in the voting booth, and the determination of media companies to cash in on that mockery — when they should instead be exposing and opposing it — completes a vicious circle,” say the authors. “The immediate effect of the money-and-media election complex is to encourage election campaigns, like those in 2012, that do not even begin to address the societal pathologies...The trillion dollars spent annually on militarism and war is off-limits to public review and debate.”
In conclusion, they write: “The type of society we have is far better understood as a Dollarocracy than as a democracy. We have a system that is now defined more by one dollar, one vote than by one person, one vote.”
Solution
“So where does this leave matters? Should people look for the nearest ledge to jump off of?” the authors write. “Hardly. In fact, there are workable solutions to all these problems, both in American history and in the experiences of other democratic nations.”
“The change must come, as it always has, from the people. It must go beyond partisanship and ideology,” the authors suggest. “...it must be a campaign for a constitutional commitment to a right to vote for all citizens, with all that entails...concerned citizens will have to work through, as well as around, the existing electoral and media systems to generate the necessary reform.”
The authors believe in the wisdom of the American people to reform with informed debates.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
