On 26th September (http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/scary-stuff.html) I mentioned two scary articles in the NYRB and now it is time to report on the second, the one on corruption, the article being à propos of a book by one Zephyr Teachout. One wonders in passing how on earth anyone could come to have such a name, to find that a zephyr is indeed a light wind, as one suspected, but that google seems to know nothing about teachouts apart from the zephyr in question, turning up, inter alia, http://www.teachoutwu.com/.
The article is mainly about the sort of corruption where people in public office put their private interests before the public interest, something which, it seems, has been an issue in the US since its foundation, with the founders working hard to devise ways of keeping corruption at bay. They thought about not paying public officials, to deter the venal, but settled, inter alia, for forbidding their acceptance of gifts from foreign sovereigns without the approval of Congress.
As time went on, there came to be great concern about lobbying, at one time largely illegal. What decent man would need to pay some third party to advance his cause with Congress? So in 1874 the Supreme Court declined to enforce a contract for lobbying, with the test case being that of an old man who was too frail to travel to Washington and who hired a lawyer to travel for him on the promise of a share of any loot that might be forthcoming. Something with which we would be unlikely to quarrel in this day and age - at least, plenty of this sort of thing goes on. Whereas, then, the Supreme Court took a very high moral tone.
We do not quarrel with someone who spends his own money to advance some cause or other. Endangered beavers, turkey vultures, spotted newts or maybe, even, the planet. By extension, if I think that Joe Soapbox would make a jolly good senator, why should I not pay for television advertisements to tell everybody else what I think about the matter? My reading of the Teachout position is that it is hard to frame laws about corruption, in this case taking the form of excessive contribution to political campaigns, which do not take down both the reasonable and desirable along with the unreasonable and undesirable. There is also the knotty question of the first amendment which says that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances'. Much ink has been spilled on whether or not this freedom extends from individuals to for-profit corporations, and the general view seems to be that it does.
But while it might be hard to legislate, another part of the Teachout position is that spending on political campaigns is unhealthily large, It was not healthy, for example, for the Koch brothers - originally oil now http://www.kochind.com/ - to be spending $122 million in the course of the 2012 presidential campaign. Or for Sheldon Adelson - a Las Vegas flavoured casino mogul - to be spending $150 million. How can the likes of the interesting looking http://www.livefreeordiealliance.org/ be an adequate make-weight?
Some put their faith in the Supreme Court coming up with something that works. Others, looking at the political balance of the Supreme Court, are more pessimistic.
While here in the UK, where we spend rather less on elections, we used to be reasonably comfortable with the arrangement whereby the Labour Party was funded by the trade unions while the Conservative Party was funded by business. While governments alternated with reasonable regularity and governments with weak mandates did not go in for strong measures, this seemed OK. Maybe not ideal, but we rubbed along. These days, I am not so sure.
PS 1: there is a new to me aperçu on the whole business at http://www.realfarmacy.com/news-anchor-completely-loses-it-on-air-for-the-best-possible-reasons/#VsO7ZC2gIyU6wY4e.01.
PS 2: philanthropic activities of the Kochs include donations to cancer research, medical centers, educational institutions, arts and cultural institutions and public policy organizations.
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