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You can reconcile those claims under a model in which most politicians (including Clinton) have genuine beliefs that are not corruptible by money, but the Koch

by davmre 11y ago

You can reconcile those claims under a model in which most politicians (including Clinton) have genuine beliefs that are not corruptible by money, but the Koch brothers can buy political outcomes by bankrolling those politicians whose genuine ideological beliefs align with theirs. That is, they are not changing the beliefs of individual politicians, just replacing politicians that disagree with them with others that don't. To first order I think this is a pretty good model of money's influence on politics, though it's definitely not the entire story.

quadrangle 11y ago
Indeed. Hillary's claims are deductively logical and consistent internally. It's logically possible for there to be corrupt sell-out politicians and others who are incorruptible. However, empirical research provides overwhelming evidence that basically everyone is susceptible to conflicts of interest. In other words, that logical model you describe doesn't fit observed reality. Either Hillary is lying or she has delusions about her own immunity to influence. The only way to not get influenced is to avoid the things that would influence you. FWIW, I care more about educating people to understand that all people are susceptible to conflicts of interest than about pointing out Hillary's particular conflicts of interest. I'm somewhat more offended that she is spreading the myth that people can be immune to influence than I am about whatever particular influences she's subjected herself to.
- gjm11 11y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding davmre's proposed model, which is not about there being corruptible politicians and incorruptible ones. The idea, rather, is that even without corruption big donors can effectively buy influence, because what they do is to help politicians who (honestly, sincerely, without corruption) happen to share their goals. So, e.g., suppose that before any money gets thrown around there are exactly two Democratic presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton (who loves Wall Street, just because she does) and Bernie Sanders (who hates Wall Street, just because he does). Then Wall Street donates a bazillion dollars to HC's campaign, she squashes BS like a bug with her superbly-resourced campaign, and becomes president. Since she (honestly, sincerely, incorruptibly) loves Wall Street, she uses all the power the presidency gives her to advance the interests of Wall Street. And, bingo, Wall Street has got what it wants by spending money, without any politicians being corruptible. In a parallel universe, Wall Street has no money to spare for political donations (that would eat into their bonuses, which would never do) and Occupy Wall Street donates a bazillion dollars to BS's campaign instead. Now he squashes HC like a bug with his superior campaigning firepower, becomes president, and makes banking a felony -- and, bingo, OWS has got what it wanted by spending money, again without a shred of corruption being needed. Back in the real world, of course no one is incorruptible, and indeed I bet real-world-Hillary is influenced by all those donations, but it seems pretty plausible to me that the mechanism davmre describes is in fact at least as important as corruption in explaining why large donors make large donations. (But I also agree with whoever it was that said any answer less definite than "no, of course I am not influenced" would likely be political suicide, and a policy of never voting for anyone who makes that claim is in practice probably equivalent to a policy of never voting for anyone who has large enough conflicts of interest for the question to be put in the first place.)
  - markdown 11y ago
    Which is why money being speech is absolutely bullshit and anti-democratic, because only the very loudest (read: richest) voices are heard. Incidentally, an American can praise Al Qaeda all they want (free speech), but they can't send money to them. You see, money isn't speech when it comes to funding terrorism. Money is only speech when it suits the 1% who own and run the corps that pay the legislature to enact law.
  - quadrangle 11y ago
    Thanks for the nicely stated thoughts, but I understood the model the same way you describe. My reply can be summed up as: "that model can indeed work as a model, but it doesn't match reality". That is to say, reality certainly has elements of that model, but it is far from complete. The entire gist of Lawrence Lessig's arguments of late are that we really are not seeing successful politicians simply being those who already love Wall Street and rich corporations. Instead, we are seeing those with some leanings in that direction also being normal people influenced in predictable ways by the system being set up so that most of their time and energy is spent with these biased sets of constituents. In other words, politicians do change their views based on who they talk to and what they learn. And the system just works so that the people they talk to and learn from are almost always representatives of Wall Street and big corporations. In the end, there's certainly both factors happening. Big money goes to elect those who already serve big money's interests, but big money also goes toward being in the place where its message gets heard by whoever is there. There's certainly lots of cases of big money donating to both sides of a two-way race.
markdown 11y ago
> the Koch brothers can buy political outcomes by bankrolling those politicians whose genuine ideological beliefs align with theirs. Well here you go: https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=Career https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N000...
SwellJoe 11y ago
So, by this logic, we merely need to decide whether we wish to elect the politician who meets the needs of Wall St., the prison industrial complex, and war profiteers. If so, we vote for Clinton, because she is extraordinarily favored by those interests. As you note, a politician could be entirely honest and sincere in their beliefs, and still be supported by a corrupt system...so long as their sincere and honest beliefs happen to coincide with the needs of the corrupting parties. I'm not particularly political, but Clinton is a particularly unnerving example of the kind of politics I find distasteful and a symptom of our broken democracy.

by davmre 11y ago

quadrangle 11y ago

Indeed. Hillary's claims are deductively logical and consistent internally. It's logically possible for there to be corrupt sell-out politicians and others who are incorruptible. However, empirical research provides overwhelming evidence that basically everyone is susceptible to conflicts of interest. In other words, that logical model you describe doesn't fit observed reality. Either Hillary is lying or she has delusions about her own immunity to influence. The only way to not get influenced is to avoid the things that would influence you. FWIW, I care more about educating people to understand that all people are susceptible to conflicts of interest than about pointing out Hillary's particular conflicts of interest. I'm somewhat more offended that she is spreading the myth that people can be immune to influence than I am about whatever particular influences she's subjected herself to.

gjm11 11y ago
I think you're misunderstanding davmre's proposed model, which is not about there being corruptible politicians and incorruptible ones. The idea, rather, is that even without corruption big donors can effectively buy influence, because what they do is to help politicians who (honestly, sincerely, without corruption) happen to share their goals. So, e.g., suppose that before any money gets thrown around there are exactly two Democratic presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton (who loves Wall Street, just because she does) and Bernie Sanders (who hates Wall Street, just because he does). Then Wall Street donates a bazillion dollars to HC's campaign, she squashes BS like a bug with her superbly-resourced campaign, and becomes president. Since she (honestly, sincerely, incorruptibly) loves Wall Street, she uses all the power the presidency gives her to advance the interests of Wall Street. And, bingo, Wall Street has got what it wants by spending money, without any politicians being corruptible. In a parallel universe, Wall Street has no money to spare for political donations (that would eat into their bonuses, which would never do) and Occupy Wall Street donates a bazillion dollars to BS's campaign instead. Now he squashes HC like a bug with his superior campaigning firepower, becomes president, and makes banking a felony -- and, bingo, OWS has got what it wanted by spending money, again without a shred of corruption being needed. Back in the real world, of course no one is incorruptible, and indeed I bet real-world-Hillary is influenced by all those donations, but it seems pretty plausible to me that the mechanism davmre describes is in fact at least as important as corruption in explaining why large donors make large donations. (But I also agree with whoever it was that said any answer less definite than "no, of course I am not influenced" would likely be political suicide, and a policy of never voting for anyone who makes that claim is in practice probably equivalent to a policy of never voting for anyone who has large enough conflicts of interest for the question to be put in the first place.)
- markdown 11y ago
  Which is why money being speech is absolutely bullshit and anti-democratic, because only the very loudest (read: richest) voices are heard. Incidentally, an American can praise Al Qaeda all they want (free speech), but they can't send money to them. You see, money isn't speech when it comes to funding terrorism. Money is only speech when it suits the 1% who own and run the corps that pay the legislature to enact law.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  Thanks for the nicely stated thoughts, but I understood the model the same way you describe. My reply can be summed up as: "that model can indeed work as a model, but it doesn't match reality". That is to say, reality certainly has elements of that model, but it is far from complete. The entire gist of Lawrence Lessig's arguments of late are that we really are not seeing successful politicians simply being those who already love Wall Street and rich corporations. Instead, we are seeing those with some leanings in that direction also being normal people influenced in predictable ways by the system being set up so that most of their time and energy is spent with these biased sets of constituents. In other words, politicians do change their views based on who they talk to and what they learn. And the system just works so that the people they talk to and learn from are almost always representatives of Wall Street and big corporations. In the end, there's certainly both factors happening. Big money goes to elect those who already serve big money's interests, but big money also goes toward being in the place where its message gets heard by whoever is there. There's certainly lots of cases of big money donating to both sides of a two-way race.

markdown 11y ago

> the Koch brothers can buy political outcomes by bankrolling those politicians whose genuine ideological beliefs align with theirs. Well here you go: https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=Career https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N000...

SwellJoe 11y ago

So, by this logic, we merely need to decide whether we wish to elect the politician who meets the needs of Wall St., the prison industrial complex, and war profiteers. If so, we vote for Clinton, because she is extraordinarily favored by those interests. As you note, a politician could be entirely honest and sincere in their beliefs, and still be supported by a corrupt system...so long as their sincere and honest beliefs happen to coincide with the needs of the corrupting parties. I'm not particularly political, but Clinton is a particularly unnerving example of the kind of politics I find distasteful and a symptom of our broken democracy.