13 ms·

I'm going to say this until I'm blue in the face: fix money in politics, and half of these issues will no longer be intractable.

gnopgnip 10y ago
How can you fix money in politics without making the whole system worse?
- raarts 10y ago
  Do you think making politicians dependant on funding makes politics better?
- smt88 10y ago
  1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Any of those ideas sound good?
  - sjwright 10y ago
    That's pretty much what we have in Australia — except the campaign period is much shorter still, around 6-8 weeks.
  - mullen 10y ago
    > 1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. You can't do this without limiting Free Speech. > 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) Might be possible. > 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Lying is Free Speech.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      So limit free speech. It's already not absolute, never has been, never will be.
    - smt88 10y ago
      Lying is free speech, but you can already sue if someone's speech is false and then damages you. A candidate's lies should qualify as damaging to someone who votes for them under false assumptions.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 10y ago
      Lying is a felony in several situations.
  - twoodfin 10y ago
    So the New York Times can only say good or bad things about elected officials and potential candidates for the six months before an election? If not, people with money looking to campaign outside your window will just buy media companies.
    - smt88 10y ago
      Media companies, by definition, are never considered to be "campaigning". They can say whatever they want. There legal definition of campaigning (ex. churches aren't allowed to campaign in many countries).
KZeillmann 10y ago
How do we "fix money in politics" without chilling free speech?
- javajosh 10y ago
  We put all candidates online, for free. They are not allowed to spend money on getting elected - although they can spend their time (generally speaking, sometimes studying, a particular problem, history, how other countries do it, etc). Citizens subscribe to individuals, and groups of individuals, that best reflect their views. Additionally, citizens will be exposed to views that are slightly or significantly different based on an algorithm. On voting day they can print out their vote and either mail it or bring it to the polling place with their ID. While I like the idea of short races (1 or 2 months) this system could easily be a constant presence in people's lives; and a constant presence in the elected official's life, as their decisions are recorded and weighed against their stated principles. This would force pols to be explicit about any horse-trading. Ultimately such a thing is a specialization of social media in the same way the liver is a specialization of muscle. Note that there is no place for "party" in this system, except insofar as it defines a grouping.
  - javajosh 10y ago
    Right speech is independent of its volume. Money can only increase volume, so get rid of it. Money isn't speech, it's amplification of speech, and as such should not be protected.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - icebraining 10y ago
      If a candidate makes a speech in the woods... You proposal is a recipe for electing only celebrities, who don't need money to be amplified.
      - javajosh 10y ago
krupan 10y ago
Seems like fixing the tax system would go a long way towards fixing money in politics. What are lobbyists buying from politicians? Tax breaks and tax subsidies.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
A more important question I never see addressed is how you prevent "money in politics" from unfixing itself as soon as you're done with the fixing? Money and political influence are two sides of the same coin - power. Money gives more influence, which attracts more money, and so on, in a positive feedback loop. How do we break, or at least control, that loop? Is it even possible?
- cwkoss 10y ago
  Decentralization of power. For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profits. ex. If your company earns less than $50k/year, no taxes, 10% tax rate up to 250k, 20% up to $1M, 40% up to 10M, 50% on earnings over $10M. This would provide a strong incentive to only maintain a large corporation if the value of your economy of scale exceeds the additional tax burden. Most companies would have an incentive to break up into many smaller subsidiaries. This would provide additional opportunities for competition, prevent profitable departments from being dragged down by executive mismanagement, and minimize the ability for power and wealth to be concentrated. Would probably need some anti-collusion laws to make sure entities are truly 'separate' to prevent shell games. But I think it would be pretty useful if it could be implemented properly.
  - scythe 10y ago
    IIRC this is the situation (or with a slightly different mechanism such as regulations affecting only large companies) in e.g. France and some other European countries, but an unintended consequence is that the ownership structure of large corporations becomes complex and usually spread across multiple countries, such as the infamous tax-avoidance strategies used by IKEA. This creates a barrier to entry that makes large actors more entrenched in some cases. The best way to see this in action is to compare the ages of the largest European companies (e.g. BASF) with the ages of the largest American companies (incl. Amazon, Google); the largest American companies are generally much younger.
    - ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
rockstartech 10y ago
In our current system, people with money will always have outsize political power. The only coherent solution to this problem is to abandon capitalism.
dragonwriter 10y ago
In California, I suspect the issue was not intractable, just approaches wrongly. After the initial defeat in the legislature, lobbying the legislature to reverse course as the wrong approach: with the successful pilot, clear moneyed-interest-vs.-common-sense narrative, this is an ideal use of the initiative process.

gnopgnip 10y ago

How can you fix money in politics without making the whole system worse?

raarts 10y ago
Do you think making politicians dependant on funding makes politics better?
smt88 10y ago
1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Any of those ideas sound good?
- sjwright 10y ago
  That's pretty much what we have in Australia — except the campaign period is much shorter still, around 6-8 weeks.
- mullen 10y ago
  > 1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. You can't do this without limiting Free Speech. > 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) Might be possible. > 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Lying is Free Speech.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    So limit free speech. It's already not absolute, never has been, never will be.
  - smt88 10y ago
    Lying is free speech, but you can already sue if someone's speech is false and then damages you. A candidate's lies should qualify as damaging to someone who votes for them under false assumptions.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 10y ago
    Lying is a felony in several situations.
- twoodfin 10y ago
  So the New York Times can only say good or bad things about elected officials and potential candidates for the six months before an election? If not, people with money looking to campaign outside your window will just buy media companies.
  - smt88 10y ago
    Media companies, by definition, are never considered to be "campaigning". They can say whatever they want. There legal definition of campaigning (ex. churches aren't allowed to campaign in many countries).

KZeillmann 10y ago

How do we "fix money in politics" without chilling free speech?

javajosh 10y ago
We put all candidates online, for free. They are not allowed to spend money on getting elected - although they can spend their time (generally speaking, sometimes studying, a particular problem, history, how other countries do it, etc). Citizens subscribe to individuals, and groups of individuals, that best reflect their views. Additionally, citizens will be exposed to views that are slightly or significantly different based on an algorithm. On voting day they can print out their vote and either mail it or bring it to the polling place with their ID. While I like the idea of short races (1 or 2 months) this system could easily be a constant presence in people's lives; and a constant presence in the elected official's life, as their decisions are recorded and weighed against their stated principles. This would force pols to be explicit about any horse-trading. Ultimately such a thing is a specialization of social media in the same way the liver is a specialization of muscle. Note that there is no place for "party" in this system, except insofar as it defines a grouping.
- javajosh 10y ago
  Right speech is independent of its volume. Money can only increase volume, so get rid of it. Money isn't speech, it's amplification of speech, and as such should not be protected.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 10y ago
    If a candidate makes a speech in the woods... You proposal is a recipe for electing only celebrities, who don't need money to be amplified.
    - javajosh 10y ago

krupan 10y ago

Seems like fixing the tax system would go a long way towards fixing money in politics. What are lobbyists buying from politicians? Tax breaks and tax subsidies.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

A more important question I never see addressed is how you prevent "money in politics" from unfixing itself as soon as you're done with the fixing? Money and political influence are two sides of the same coin - power. Money gives more influence, which attracts more money, and so on, in a positive feedback loop. How do we break, or at least control, that loop? Is it even possible?

cwkoss 10y ago
Decentralization of power. For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profits. ex. If your company earns less than $50k/year, no taxes, 10% tax rate up to 250k, 20% up to $1M, 40% up to 10M, 50% on earnings over $10M. This would provide a strong incentive to only maintain a large corporation if the value of your economy of scale exceeds the additional tax burden. Most companies would have an incentive to break up into many smaller subsidiaries. This would provide additional opportunities for competition, prevent profitable departments from being dragged down by executive mismanagement, and minimize the ability for power and wealth to be concentrated. Would probably need some anti-collusion laws to make sure entities are truly 'separate' to prevent shell games. But I think it would be pretty useful if it could be implemented properly.
- scythe 10y ago
  IIRC this is the situation (or with a slightly different mechanism such as regulations affecting only large companies) in e.g. France and some other European countries, but an unintended consequence is that the ownership structure of large corporations becomes complex and usually spread across multiple countries, such as the infamous tax-avoidance strategies used by IKEA. This creates a barrier to entry that makes large actors more entrenched in some cases. The best way to see this in action is to compare the ages of the largest European companies (e.g. BASF) with the ages of the largest American companies (incl. Amazon, Google); the largest American companies are generally much younger.
  - ZoeZoeBee 10y ago

rockstartech 10y ago

In our current system, people with money will always have outsize political power. The only coherent solution to this problem is to abandon capitalism.

dragonwriter 10y ago

In California, I suspect the issue was not intractable, just approaches wrongly. After the initial defeat in the legislature, lobbying the legislature to reverse course as the wrong approach: with the successful pilot, clear moneyed-interest-vs.-common-sense narrative, this is an ideal use of the initiative process.