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Richard Posner: “The Real Corruption Is the Ownership of Congress by the Rich”

208 points by chmaynard 10y ago

andrewclunn 10y ago
In a globalised economy, breaking up your own multinationals because they have an effective monopoly in you own country is to concede the global market to foreign competitors. Capitalism and global markets are now more powerful than any individual nation.
- praptak 10y ago
  People haven't yet realised that it's not EU versus US versus China but rather corporations versus the people. If they did, states would cooperate more so as not to let corps play one against the other and thus screw everyone. Anyway, the solution to the particular problem of the rich owning Congress isn't breaking multinationals but rather limits on campaign donations - this whole "money is speech" argument is just bullshit.
  - simion314 10y ago
    I agree with the limits in campaigns, I am not from US and here too lot of money it is spent in campaigns and after election the politicians must pay the money back with favors, so IMO no limits encourages corruption, and the money spent on campaigns could be used in a better way.
  - bigtimeidiot 10y ago
    >People haven't yet realised Thankfully we have enlightened people among us to guide the sheep, right? >that it's not EU versus US versus China but rather corporations versus the people Corporations have zero ability to act by themselves. So where do you propose to draw the between the "corporation team" and the "people team"?
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Viruses and mad dogs also have little innate volition. We still put them down, if we can.
    - dang 10y ago
      > Thankfully we have enlightened people among us to guide the sheep, right? Please don't do this here. If another comment takes a wrong turn, going further that way doesn't help. Instead, please help the thread self-correct by posting more substantively.
  - ciq_steve 10y ago
    3M, Activision and Alaska Air Group (3 S&P 500 companies) are a bigger threats than the government? I'd venture to say between corporations and governments 99% of 'bad things' that have happened in the last century were at the hands of governments. A few world wars is a good starting place. The idea that governments are benevolent overseers of the common good is what is bullshit. Those in government are as self-interested (if not more) as any other group (lawyers, plumbers, etc). The last thing the rich want to do is kow-tow to a bunch of politicians, but the reality is they have to because one poorly conceived law or regulation can do real harm to a business. You have to pay to be at the table to do the best you can to prevent this. Politicians demand $$$$ to be at that table. I've seen this first hand.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    ...the solution to the particular problem of the rich owning Congress isn't breaking multinationals but rather limits on campaign donations... That's so cute. If only this super-powerful threat to humanity could be directed toward the good rather than the banal, all would be well! Bullshit. The threat itself is the problem, not who is temporarily at the reins. In fact this whole myth of "if we vote hard enough it will work this time!" was created by those who want to perpetuate the monster, so that they may profit by it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - cies 10y ago
    > People haven't yet realised that it's not [some dividing topic] but rather corporations versus the people. Maybe you should try to meet some socialists. But the authoritarian ones (like Marx) and the anti-authoritarian ones (like Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin) have written many books on the topic of class-struggle.
- emt02 10y ago
  Personally I don't think we can accept Capitalism and global markets to be more powerful than any individual nation. Especially given the current trend in automation, the risk that a relatively small group of capitalists will slowly take full control of almost all the means of production is real. Another huge problem of having a world run by corporations is the environmental situation. Personally I cannot accept a world where profit is considered more important than the environment to such an extent. I don't know what the solution to this problem may be. Alternatives to capitalism have been proposed in the past, and are continuously studied now, but shifting to another economical system would not be easy, if possible at all at this point.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > I cannot accept a world where profit is considered more important than the environment to such an extent. Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution? Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it.
    - emt02 10y ago
      > Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution? No, I'm not sure. But we're talking about private companies now, not governments. Governments and companies in the end are two faces of the same coin: the first aim at power, the latter aim at profit (with some exceptions of course). Moreover, many proposed alternatives to capitalism consider the governments (as we know them today) harmful and unnecessary. I'm not saying I agree, just wanted to point out that removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments. > Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it. Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. And in a world that runs on profit, limiting your local companies may in the end give an advantage to the foreign ones, so this solution may not always be practicable, unless a truly global coordinated action gets taken.
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        > Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. There's no reason it cannot reduce pollution to tolerable levels. > removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments Yes, it does. Who/what else is going to prevent people from trading for a profit?
- anonymfus 10y ago
  There is a need for global antitrust and environmental agencies.
  - lithos 10y ago
    I don't look forward to seeing how it will be twisted beyond recognition.
- mcv 10y ago
  If you see the global market as a contest to see which country can suck up to the big corporations the most, it's a race to the bottom for everybody. Countries need to take anti-trust issues seriously, and work together on them. And maybe don't allow foreign companies onto your market if they have a monopoly back home.
- godmodus 10y ago
  Not sure why youre being downvoted. Its a bleak comment, but still true. There are many individuals and their respected conglomerates who own sums that equal and exceed the wealth of many nations. Our systems and even our own nature allows for this. And its bad. Real bad. Some are benevolent, most arent. I mean this does sound conspiracy'ish, but it really isnt. We will feel the brunt of it all soon, and we'll need viable solutions, a new way of government, and a new way of sustaining ourselves that avoids such concentrations of power.
rudimental 10y ago
Today somebody on Reddit linked to this video which talks about the process of money influencing politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig It doesn't discuss the role of the judicial system. It's all about the legislative aspects of US government. It's pretty compelling and well made. Hopefully a bipartisan movement can have some impact. The video was made by https://represent.us/ https://represent.us/
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  A pretty interesting video pointing out some damning stats. I'm curious however, how does the data look for other democracies, e.g. in Europe. The question is, whether this is a problem of US and its "money in politics" issue, or whether other democracies suffer from that problem too. I have a suspicion that this is inherent to politics in general, regardless of form - that money and power will always find themselves in bed together.
clarkevans 10y ago
Congressional Fundraising: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2016) is a serious eye opener: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk
wazoox 10y ago
I recently watched Capra's "Mr Smith goes to Washington" (1941). The more it changes, the more it stays the same... Anyone who didn't see it should go watch it, it's still worth it.
nl 10y ago
There's an actual, real world solution that has been implemented in Arizona and Maine and appears to work: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left If you prefer the more academic version: http://mysite.du.edu/~smasket/Masket_Miller_SPPQ.pdf http://mysite.du.edu/~smasket/Masket_Miller_SPPQ.pdf What's more, it doesn't appear to favor one side of politics (which challenges some partisan rhetoric around the influence of Soros/Koch on outcomes. Note that this is different to corporate influence, which may well be a worse problem)
- tomohawk 10y ago
  Arizona - the state that elects McCain over and over again. Yep, must really be working well.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Supposedly his last reelection was his most difficult yet? Of course, that could be because he's fairly old.
  - nl 10y ago
    I'm not from the US (and I'd be considered very left leaning in the US!), but as a former Republican presidential candidate it would seem unsurprising that McCain has backing wouldn't it? I haven't heard any allegations of corruption or scandal around him either. What am I missing here?
    - flubert 10y ago
      >I haven't heard any allegations of corruption or scandal around him either. https://www.google.com/#q=john+mccain+corruption https://www.google.com/#q=john+mccain+corruption
      - nl 10y ago
        Well, looking at that one is about 'the Keating scandle' from the 1980s where 'Mccain was cleared' and the others were his anti-corruption statements.
known 10y ago
Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109
mirimir 10y ago
OK, so he says that antitrust is dead. And that wealthy entities own the government. That fight was lost in the US about 150 years ago, when corporations got human rights. After former slaves, but before women, I note. But I don't get his devil-may-care attitude toward Google etc. He seems to acknowledge that they're a monopoly, but argues that it's not hurting anyone. Loves to Google stuff. So what am I missing? Is it just that he's a cynical libertarian?
- bwat49 10y ago
  Agreed, his opinions on google kept making me think I was reading quotes from two different people
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yeah, same here. I couldn't help thinking that he was joking, on one side at least.
- joshjkim 10y ago
  anti-trust enforcement is premised on the existence of some harm, generally related to anti-competitive practices (like price fixing), and it seems like Posner doesn't see a harm there, at least in traditional anti-trust terms. this is not surprising: posner (I would assume) ascribes to the chicago school re: anti-trust, where anti-trust is really all about consumer harm and efficient outcomes for the industry, and on those terms especially hard to see harm since google is "free" to what most people understand as consumers, and even the real consumers (advertisers) don't seem to be banging on the door saying they are overpaying (at least not yet), and google seems to do a decent job of running their ad markets efficiently (that's a total guess honestly, feel free to correct me if wrong!). on a funnier (and more cynical) level, when posner says "anti-trust is dead" he may very well be giving himself a pat on the back, since he's a leading thinker of the "law and economics" school (usually attributed to u chicago, where posner has long been a professor - his seminal paper on the subject here is pretty amazing: http://m.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.pdf http://m.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.pdf) that many give credit / blame for shifting anti-trust's focus away from reigning in corporate power (the traditional "trust-busting" rationale, which was really as much about trying to avoid total capture of government by the big trusts), and instead focus on consumer harm and market inefficiency, which is generally indifferent to the expansion of corporate power so long as they don't gauge prices or do anything blatantly harmful to the market. this shift in focus greatly reduced the scope and practice of antitrust prosecution, and I think posner in general thinks that's a good thing since he's prefer less gov intervention. what's odd to me is that he seems concerned (or honestly, he just seems annoyed ha) about corporate influence on government, but doesn't seem to care that the fact that these companies are able to become so massive is in large part why they are able to influence the government so much... this is the backdrop to a lot of the interview, good example is when the interviewer asks "Are we only concerned about seeing low prices, and not about other things like capture or having members of the House of Representatives owned by one large company?" this is just rambling at this point (sorry!), but posner's response here is totally amazing / weird - he seems to basically say the problem is that the court system has been making bad decisions because it has been politicized because appointments are made by politicians, and (at least in part) because money influences politics, the politicians are picking judges for their stances on token political issues, not their abilities. that all makes sense, but his solution is not to attempt make the entire political system less full of shit...but just have other smart judges/lawyers appoint new judges (presumably producing more judges like...him). he seems to want to simultaenously NOT reign in corporate power at all (or maybe he just doesn't believe it's possible, which is a fair assumption), but still not have corporations influence (at least one branch of) government - feels pretty "cake-and-eat-it-too" to me. not the worst idea, but exposes posner's high view of himself to be both smart and nonpartisan (not surprising and honestly pretty well-deserved) and his arguably naive belief in the ability of judges to be "above the fray" - very few people in general are as intelligent, idiosyncratic and nonconformist as he is - pro market, pro choice, pro drug legalization, pro human organ markets, and frankly he's widely considered a genius (an eccentric one for sure, but that's not an unusual pairing)!
tomohawk 10y ago
We're all corrupt. How many people are unwilling to vote against incumbents? How many people are unwilling to vote out an incompetent just because the incompetent is wearing the right jersey? Change is the best antidote to vested interests. So, term limits and always voting against an incumbent unless they are doing a demonstrably superior job are going to be far more effective than other approaches.
- mannykannot 10y ago
  Incumbency/change is largely an orthogonal issue, as money works well in both cases. In fact, it may be more effective in an environment of continual change, driving up the cost of participation beyond the reach of true grassroots campaigns.
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
For the record, the United States was not designed to be operated in the way it is currently being operated. It was designed to have a bicameral legislature. The lower house was supposed to be full of your neighbors, folks that lived down the street. They were supposed to only serve for a couple of years at a time. It wasn't a lifetime job. One of their main responsibilities was handling money. The upper house was specifically designed to be a bunch of old, privileged, party hacks from the states. They work six years at a time, and might stay in for a long haul. They are the architects. They are responsible for monitoring and maintaining the structure of the system and keeping an eye on the other two branches. This is not where we are. Somehow we thought that the more democratic the legislature, the better. That is not the case. The structure of the system suffers. Somehow we have Representatives that have jobs for life. The system suffers. Now I can't tell the difference between my senators and my representatives. They're all camera hungry partisan hacks voting solidly as a block. Voting for them is pointless. It's not rich people. It's not privileged people. It dumbasses over the years that have hacked the system into something it was never supposed to be. Democracy is not some special thing where the more you get of it the better you are. It doesn't work like that. It never worked like that. You take apart the body of legislators that were specifically responsible to monitor and fix the system and turn them into run-of-the-mill politicians? Then the rest of it is going to fall apart. What else would you expect?
- zero_intp 10y ago
  This is a remarkably insightful comment, and I hope that it receives attention. -Thank you
- sharemywin 10y ago
  Thirty-thousand.org advocates the bill passed by the House in 1789: to require there be at least one Representative for every 50,000 people. At the current population level of approximately 300 million people, that formulation would require a minimum of 6,000 congressional districts.
  - padobson 10y ago
    50,000 seems reasonable to me. A congress member could have a townhall at a football stadium with every one of their constituents in attendance. It's unlikely there would ever be that level of interest, but it's nice to know it's possible.
cs702 10y ago
"If you become a member of Congress, you’ll get a card from the head of your party that you will spend five hours [each] afternoon talking to donors. That’s not the only time you spend with donors—they’ll take you to dinner, cocktails—but these five hours are important. The message is clear: You are a slave to the donors. They own you. That’s [the] real corruption, the ownership of Congress by the rich." In other words, if you live in the US, your congressman/woman is spending FIVE HOURS A DAY (!) on the phone raising money from people at the top of the wealth/power distribution. Yikes!
- cies 10y ago
  I don't teach my children they live in a democracy. Maybe we should all stop doing that and maybe we can start to address the lack of democracy (and excess of lobbycracy/plutocracy/capitalism) as a problem.
  - cies 10y ago
    > and maybe we can start to address the lack of democracy (and excess of lobbycracy/plutocracy/capitalism) as a problem. Instead of cheering how "democratic" we are.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - narrowrail 10y ago
    >I don't teach my children they live in a democracy. That's good because if you read the Federalist Papers, you will see the founders explicitly set out to design a Republic at the federal level. Each state, however is a democracy, but people seem to ignore state-level politics for some reason.
    - cies 10y ago
      Sorry not living in the US. :)
standardly 10y ago
The picture looks like young Jack Nicholson talking to current Larry David.
metaphorm 10y ago
The U.S. is presently in a state of constitutional crisis and we lack the means to do anything about it. Those who are responsible for creating a government consistent with constitutional principles have abdicated their duty and succumbed to corruption.
doug1001 10y ago
In case anyone doesn't know, Richard Posner is a federal judge, for the 7th circuit court of appeals (and former chief judge of that circuit) and a professor at the University of Chicago law school. RP is widely regarded as the most influential legal scholar in the last 50 years (eg, he's the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century). As a judge, his body of legal opinions over his 36 years (and counting) on the 7th circuit put him in the company of Hand, Holmes, Cardozo, etc. this piece by RP appears to echo Larry Lessig's. Interestingly, LL was a law clerk for RP, after graduating from the law school where RP taught.

208 points by chmaynard 10y ago

In a globalised economy, breaking up your own multinationals because they have an effective monopoly in you own country is to concede the global market to foreign competitors. Capitalism and global markets are now more powerful than any individual nation.

praptak 10y ago
People haven't yet realised that it's not EU versus US versus China but rather corporations versus the people. If they did, states would cooperate more so as not to let corps play one against the other and thus screw everyone. Anyway, the solution to the particular problem of the rich owning Congress isn't breaking multinationals but rather limits on campaign donations - this whole "money is speech" argument is just bullshit.
- simion314 10y ago
  I agree with the limits in campaigns, I am not from US and here too lot of money it is spent in campaigns and after election the politicians must pay the money back with favors, so IMO no limits encourages corruption, and the money spent on campaigns could be used in a better way.
- bigtimeidiot 10y ago
  >People haven't yet realised Thankfully we have enlightened people among us to guide the sheep, right? >that it's not EU versus US versus China but rather corporations versus the people Corporations have zero ability to act by themselves. So where do you propose to draw the between the "corporation team" and the "people team"?
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Viruses and mad dogs also have little innate volition. We still put them down, if we can.
  - dang 10y ago
    > Thankfully we have enlightened people among us to guide the sheep, right? Please don't do this here. If another comment takes a wrong turn, going further that way doesn't help. Instead, please help the thread self-correct by posting more substantively.
- ciq_steve 10y ago
  3M, Activision and Alaska Air Group (3 S&P 500 companies) are a bigger threats than the government? I'd venture to say between corporations and governments 99% of 'bad things' that have happened in the last century were at the hands of governments. A few world wars is a good starting place. The idea that governments are benevolent overseers of the common good is what is bullshit. Those in government are as self-interested (if not more) as any other group (lawyers, plumbers, etc). The last thing the rich want to do is kow-tow to a bunch of politicians, but the reality is they have to because one poorly conceived law or regulation can do real harm to a business. You have to pay to be at the table to do the best you can to prevent this. Politicians demand $$$$ to be at that table. I've seen this first hand.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 10y ago
  ...the solution to the particular problem of the rich owning Congress isn't breaking multinationals but rather limits on campaign donations... That's so cute. If only this super-powerful threat to humanity could be directed toward the good rather than the banal, all would be well! Bullshit. The threat itself is the problem, not who is temporarily at the reins. In fact this whole myth of "if we vote hard enough it will work this time!" was created by those who want to perpetuate the monster, so that they may profit by it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- cies 10y ago
  > People haven't yet realised that it's not [some dividing topic] but rather corporations versus the people. Maybe you should try to meet some socialists. But the authoritarian ones (like Marx) and the anti-authoritarian ones (like Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin) have written many books on the topic of class-struggle.
emt02 10y ago
Personally I don't think we can accept Capitalism and global markets to be more powerful than any individual nation. Especially given the current trend in automation, the risk that a relatively small group of capitalists will slowly take full control of almost all the means of production is real. Another huge problem of having a world run by corporations is the environmental situation. Personally I cannot accept a world where profit is considered more important than the environment to such an extent. I don't know what the solution to this problem may be. Alternatives to capitalism have been proposed in the past, and are continuously studied now, but shifting to another economical system would not be easy, if possible at all at this point.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > I cannot accept a world where profit is considered more important than the environment to such an extent. Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution? Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it.
  - emt02 10y ago
    > Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution? No, I'm not sure. But we're talking about private companies now, not governments. Governments and companies in the end are two faces of the same coin: the first aim at power, the latter aim at profit (with some exceptions of course). Moreover, many proposed alternatives to capitalism consider the governments (as we know them today) harmful and unnecessary. I'm not saying I agree, just wanted to point out that removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments. > Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it. Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. And in a world that runs on profit, limiting your local companies may in the end give an advantage to the foreign ones, so this solution may not always be practicable, unless a truly global coordinated action gets taken.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      > Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. There's no reason it cannot reduce pollution to tolerable levels. > removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments Yes, it does. Who/what else is going to prevent people from trading for a profit?
anonymfus 10y ago
There is a need for global antitrust and environmental agencies.
- lithos 10y ago
  I don't look forward to seeing how it will be twisted beyond recognition.
mcv 10y ago
If you see the global market as a contest to see which country can suck up to the big corporations the most, it's a race to the bottom for everybody. Countries need to take anti-trust issues seriously, and work together on them. And maybe don't allow foreign companies onto your market if they have a monopoly back home.
godmodus 10y ago
Not sure why youre being downvoted. Its a bleak comment, but still true. There are many individuals and their respected conglomerates who own sums that equal and exceed the wealth of many nations. Our systems and even our own nature allows for this. And its bad. Real bad. Some are benevolent, most arent. I mean this does sound conspiracy'ish, but it really isnt. We will feel the brunt of it all soon, and we'll need viable solutions, a new way of government, and a new way of sustaining ourselves that avoids such concentrations of power.

rudimental 10y ago

Today somebody on Reddit linked to this video which talks about the process of money influencing politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig It doesn't discuss the role of the judicial system. It's all about the legislative aspects of US government. It's pretty compelling and well made. Hopefully a bipartisan movement can have some impact. The video was made by https://represent.us/ https://represent.us/

TeMPOraL 10y ago
A pretty interesting video pointing out some damning stats. I'm curious however, how does the data look for other democracies, e.g. in Europe. The question is, whether this is a problem of US and its "money in politics" issue, or whether other democracies suffer from that problem too. I have a suspicion that this is inherent to politics in general, regardless of form - that money and power will always find themselves in bed together.

clarkevans 10y ago

Congressional Fundraising: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2016) is a serious eye opener: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk

wazoox 10y ago

I recently watched Capra's "Mr Smith goes to Washington" (1941). The more it changes, the more it stays the same... Anyone who didn't see it should go watch it, it's still worth it.

nl 10y ago

There's an actual, real world solution that has been implemented in Arizona and Maine and appears to work: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left If you prefer the more academic version: http://mysite.du.edu/~smasket/Masket_Miller_SPPQ.pdf http://mysite.du.edu/~smasket/Masket_Miller_SPPQ.pdf What's more, it doesn't appear to favor one side of politics (which challenges some partisan rhetoric around the influence of Soros/Koch on outcomes. Note that this is different to corporate influence, which may well be a worse problem)

tomohawk 10y ago
Arizona - the state that elects McCain over and over again. Yep, must really be working well.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Supposedly his last reelection was his most difficult yet? Of course, that could be because he's fairly old.
- nl 10y ago
  I'm not from the US (and I'd be considered very left leaning in the US!), but as a former Republican presidential candidate it would seem unsurprising that McCain has backing wouldn't it? I haven't heard any allegations of corruption or scandal around him either. What am I missing here?
  - flubert 10y ago
    >I haven't heard any allegations of corruption or scandal around him either. https://www.google.com/#q=john+mccain+corruption https://www.google.com/#q=john+mccain+corruption
    - nl 10y ago
      Well, looking at that one is about 'the Keating scandle' from the 1980s where 'Mccain was cleared' and the others were his anti-corruption statements.

known 10y ago

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109

mirimir 10y ago

OK, so he says that antitrust is dead. And that wealthy entities own the government. That fight was lost in the US about 150 years ago, when corporations got human rights. After former slaves, but before women, I note. But I don't get his devil-may-care attitude toward Google etc. He seems to acknowledge that they're a monopoly, but argues that it's not hurting anyone. Loves to Google stuff. So what am I missing? Is it just that he's a cynical libertarian?

bwat49 10y ago
Agreed, his opinions on google kept making me think I was reading quotes from two different people
- mirimir 10y ago
  Yeah, same here. I couldn't help thinking that he was joking, on one side at least.
joshjkim 10y ago
anti-trust enforcement is premised on the existence of some harm, generally related to anti-competitive practices (like price fixing), and it seems like Posner doesn't see a harm there, at least in traditional anti-trust terms. this is not surprising: posner (I would assume) ascribes to the chicago school re: anti-trust, where anti-trust is really all about consumer harm and efficient outcomes for the industry, and on those terms especially hard to see harm since google is "free" to what most people understand as consumers, and even the real consumers (advertisers) don't seem to be banging on the door saying they are overpaying (at least not yet), and google seems to do a decent job of running their ad markets efficiently (that's a total guess honestly, feel free to correct me if wrong!). on a funnier (and more cynical) level, when posner says "anti-trust is dead" he may very well be giving himself a pat on the back, since he's a leading thinker of the "law and economics" school (usually attributed to u chicago, where posner has long been a professor - his seminal paper on the subject here is pretty amazing: http://m.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.pdf http://m.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.pdf) that many give credit / blame for shifting anti-trust's focus away from reigning in corporate power (the traditional "trust-busting" rationale, which was really as much about trying to avoid total capture of government by the big trusts), and instead focus on consumer harm and market inefficiency, which is generally indifferent to the expansion of corporate power so long as they don't gauge prices or do anything blatantly harmful to the market. this shift in focus greatly reduced the scope and practice of antitrust prosecution, and I think posner in general thinks that's a good thing since he's prefer less gov intervention. what's odd to me is that he seems concerned (or honestly, he just seems annoyed ha) about corporate influence on government, but doesn't seem to care that the fact that these companies are able to become so massive is in large part why they are able to influence the government so much... this is the backdrop to a lot of the interview, good example is when the interviewer asks "Are we only concerned about seeing low prices, and not about other things like capture or having members of the House of Representatives owned by one large company?" this is just rambling at this point (sorry!), but posner's response here is totally amazing / weird - he seems to basically say the problem is that the court system has been making bad decisions because it has been politicized because appointments are made by politicians, and (at least in part) because money influences politics, the politicians are picking judges for their stances on token political issues, not their abilities. that all makes sense, but his solution is not to attempt make the entire political system less full of shit...but just have other smart judges/lawyers appoint new judges (presumably producing more judges like...him). he seems to want to simultaenously NOT reign in corporate power at all (or maybe he just doesn't believe it's possible, which is a fair assumption), but still not have corporations influence (at least one branch of) government - feels pretty "cake-and-eat-it-too" to me. not the worst idea, but exposes posner's high view of himself to be both smart and nonpartisan (not surprising and honestly pretty well-deserved) and his arguably naive belief in the ability of judges to be "above the fray" - very few people in general are as intelligent, idiosyncratic and nonconformist as he is - pro market, pro choice, pro drug legalization, pro human organ markets, and frankly he's widely considered a genius (an eccentric one for sure, but that's not an unusual pairing)!

tomohawk 10y ago

We're all corrupt. How many people are unwilling to vote against incumbents? How many people are unwilling to vote out an incompetent just because the incompetent is wearing the right jersey? Change is the best antidote to vested interests. So, term limits and always voting against an incumbent unless they are doing a demonstrably superior job are going to be far more effective than other approaches.

mannykannot 10y ago
Incumbency/change is largely an orthogonal issue, as money works well in both cases. In fact, it may be more effective in an environment of continual change, driving up the cost of participation beyond the reach of true grassroots campaigns.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

For the record, the United States was not designed to be operated in the way it is currently being operated. It was designed to have a bicameral legislature. The lower house was supposed to be full of your neighbors, folks that lived down the street. They were supposed to only serve for a couple of years at a time. It wasn't a lifetime job. One of their main responsibilities was handling money. The upper house was specifically designed to be a bunch of old, privileged, party hacks from the states. They work six years at a time, and might stay in for a long haul. They are the architects. They are responsible for monitoring and maintaining the structure of the system and keeping an eye on the other two branches. This is not where we are. Somehow we thought that the more democratic the legislature, the better. That is not the case. The structure of the system suffers. Somehow we have Representatives that have jobs for life. The system suffers. Now I can't tell the difference between my senators and my representatives. They're all camera hungry partisan hacks voting solidly as a block. Voting for them is pointless. It's not rich people. It's not privileged people. It dumbasses over the years that have hacked the system into something it was never supposed to be. Democracy is not some special thing where the more you get of it the better you are. It doesn't work like that. It never worked like that. You take apart the body of legislators that were specifically responsible to monitor and fix the system and turn them into run-of-the-mill politicians? Then the rest of it is going to fall apart. What else would you expect?

zero_intp 10y ago
This is a remarkably insightful comment, and I hope that it receives attention. -Thank you
sharemywin 10y ago
Thirty-thousand.org advocates the bill passed by the House in 1789: to require there be at least one Representative for every 50,000 people. At the current population level of approximately 300 million people, that formulation would require a minimum of 6,000 congressional districts.
- padobson 10y ago
  50,000 seems reasonable to me. A congress member could have a townhall at a football stadium with every one of their constituents in attendance. It's unlikely there would ever be that level of interest, but it's nice to know it's possible.

cs702 10y ago

"If you become a member of Congress, you’ll get a card from the head of your party that you will spend five hours [each] afternoon talking to donors. That’s not the only time you spend with donors—they’ll take you to dinner, cocktails—but these five hours are important. The message is clear: You are a slave to the donors. They own you. That’s [the] real corruption, the ownership of Congress by the rich." In other words, if you live in the US, your congressman/woman is spending FIVE HOURS A DAY (!) on the phone raising money from people at the top of the wealth/power distribution. Yikes!

cies 10y ago
I don't teach my children they live in a democracy. Maybe we should all stop doing that and maybe we can start to address the lack of democracy (and excess of lobbycracy/plutocracy/capitalism) as a problem.
- cies 10y ago
  > and maybe we can start to address the lack of democracy (and excess of lobbycracy/plutocracy/capitalism) as a problem. Instead of cheering how "democratic" we are.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- narrowrail 10y ago
  >I don't teach my children they live in a democracy. That's good because if you read the Federalist Papers, you will see the founders explicitly set out to design a Republic at the federal level. Each state, however is a democracy, but people seem to ignore state-level politics for some reason.
  - cies 10y ago
    Sorry not living in the US. :)

standardly 10y ago

The picture looks like young Jack Nicholson talking to current Larry David.

metaphorm 10y ago

The U.S. is presently in a state of constitutional crisis and we lack the means to do anything about it. Those who are responsible for creating a government consistent with constitutional principles have abdicated their duty and succumbed to corruption.

doug1001 10y ago

In case anyone doesn't know, Richard Posner is a federal judge, for the 7th circuit court of appeals (and former chief judge of that circuit) and a professor at the University of Chicago law school. RP is widely regarded as the most influential legal scholar in the last 50 years (eg, he's the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century). As a judge, his body of legal opinions over his 36 years (and counting) on the 7th circuit put him in the company of Hand, Holmes, Cardozo, etc. this piece by RP appears to echo Larry Lessig's. Interestingly, LL was a law clerk for RP, after graduating from the law school where RP taught.