8 ms·

Lawrence Lessig's new TED talk

66 points by psadauskas 16y ago

psadauskas 16y ago
Summary: All of our country's (US) problems (obesity, Deep Horizon, bank bailout) stem from the fact that Congress serves businesses making donations, rather than the people.
- deleted 16y ago
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- cma 16y ago
  re: obesity, don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? Total total agricultural subsidies (excluding tariffs) amount to less than 1% of the average american's food budget; much of it for the aforementioned ethanol. Am I off?
  - Empact 16y ago
    I don't know the numbers, but you're probably off in comparing the food budget to subsidies on raw ingredients. Relative to what people spend in restaurants it may not be much, but in making a choice between two similar ingredients, it can tip the balance and switch the market entirely.
  - Nwallins 16y ago
    > don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? My understanding is that the subsidies are there to incentivize corn production. The video says that the subsidized cost of corn production is actually negative -- that you can go plant a corn field and will have made money before you sell a single ear. Once the corn is produced, if there are additional subsidies for ethanol production from corn, then that may divert corn from food uses. It may increase the cost of HFCS production. But the cost of corn production is still lower despite, or perhaps even because of, the ethanol subsidies.
  - telemachos 16y ago
    The issue is high fructose corn syrup (made from corn) versus sugar. According to Lessig, the price of sugar (high relative to corn) and the price of corn (low relative to sugar) are both a result of market tampering. See 2.17 into the video. (And in both cases, again according to Lessig the tampering was straightforwardly paid for by lobbying, which is apparently a very good investment. That is, it works very well.)
    - JeffL 16y ago
      And as a result, we get inferior sodas with corn rather than sugar. The only country with corn soda as far as I know. =(
- MC27 16y ago
  He is also dismissive of transparency, yet that's one of the many steps towards fixing the problem.
  - psadauskas 16y ago
    No, he dismisses the Democrats' proposal of using only transparency to solve the problem.
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      - wdewind 16y ago
        I think his point is more that you've got this bottleneck of corruption in the way congress is structured, and it doesn't really matter if you shift their responsibilities around - still shit in shit out, what you need is a deeper change.
- drewcrawford 16y ago
  I think the only way to solve this is in a deep and fundamental way is to strip congress of the power to make decisions that benefit corporations. I realize that this sort of libertarianism is often viewed as "immature" or primitive. But ultimately I don't see how you can have, one the one hand, a congress powerful enough to do healthcare and financial reform, and on the other hand, be surprised when the same congress is successfully courted by financial interests. It seems to be an inevitable result.
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  - khafra 16y ago
    That's not the only way. One alternate option is Futarchy. A less drastic one is implementing the top 3 or 4 pieces of model legislation at downsizedc.org.
- pacemkr 16y ago
  No really, where is the proof that this is in fact happening?! Businesses, with current law, CANNOT make donations to campaigns! Only individuals can and the limit is $2,300. The whole thing sounds very sensational and juicy, but the FEC data just DOES NOT SHOW THIS. See my comment down the page, email me at my username at gmail, I am really trying hard to understand campaign finances. I'm very much disturbed by the impotence of our Congress, and that's exactly why I keep trying to understand what's _really_ wrong, but I am not about to accept some theory just because it sounds enticing when there is ZERO data to confirm it.
  - Benjo 16y ago
    It's true that individual contributions are limited to $2400 as of 2010. See the FEC restrictions: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml I would like to see more about the specific restriction on direction corporate contributions, as I wasn't able to find a reference to it. However, because the free speech of an individual or corporations must be protected, nothing stops a corp from paying thousands of people to shout praises from a rooftop, either about a specific candidate or just a divisive campaign issue. Because money can fairly easily be translated into free speech or the opportunity for free speech (the attention of the public) it is very hard to effectively regulate. The best that has been done is regulation around the edges that require campaign commercial disclosures. Lately, even these restrictions have been called into question as well: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1228056...
    - pacemkr 16y ago
      Here is the document from FEC that explains how corporations can get involved in election campaigns: http://www.fec.gov/pdf/colagui.pdf http://www.fec.gov/pdf/colagui.pdf It clearly states that corporations can't use their treasury to make contributions to campaigns. From what I gather, they can start a PAC but thats subject to the more or less the same limits as individual contributors.
  - Mod_daniel 16y ago
Synaesthesia 16y ago
Great movie. Thanks
barmstrong 16y ago
Wow - quality of TED talks has been on a steady decline, but this one really stood out.
- billybob 16y ago
  I can't tell if you meant "they've all stunk lately, but this REALLY stunk," or "this was the exception."
- Empact 16y ago
  This is a TEDxBoston talk - TEDx is a series of independently organized groups who put on events in the spirit of TED.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Good to hear. Then I'm looking forward to seeing TEDxBoulder this upcoming Saturday. Hopefully we'll have some talks on par with this one or those from the main TED conference.
Empact 16y ago
What's more fundamental: the way that campaigns are funded, or the fact the most voters have no clue what their representatives actually stand for? Does changing campaign funding solve a fundamental problem? It seems to me that influence can easily be traded for things other than campaign contributions. The energy company lobbies with millions because they can expect the benefits of lobbying to exceed the millions. The people could easily out-vote the special interests, but they run into the rational ignorance problem: with current technology, the cost of casting an informed vote is greater than the expected benefit. Isn't that the fundamental problem? The solution, I think, is to create technology which makes it easy for voters to hold their reps accountable, thus shifting the task of accountability into the "worth it" category for regular people. That's what I'm working on anyway: http://votereports.org/ http://votereports.org/
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  When bills are 2000 pages long, every bill is a "special interest" bill. It doesn't matter what your rep's voting record is, by the time the bill is up for vote the sausage has already been made. Asking the public to pay attention to amendments made in committees and subcommittees is wishful thinking. The inexorable economic logic of special interests fleecing a Democratic political system crushes the intentions of the do-gooders.
  - Empact 16y ago
    > Asking the public to pay attention to amendments made in committees and subcommittees is wishful thinking. Of course - and not my wish, incidentally. The whole point is to use technology to lower the cost of informed participation to the point that just about anybody is willing to do it. This means that somebody has to pay attention, but we want that somebody to be somebody else. That voters don't have time, but trusted intermediaries can doing legislative scrutiny for them and simplify it down to a actionable information for busy voters - a simple score. Interest groups have been issuing this sort of thing for years. Ever heard of the NRA report card? It's the lynchpin of gun advocacy political success. At VoteReports, we're opening up the process of creating these report cards, simplifying and systematizing it so any user can create them, and building higher-level concepts and tools on top of them so any voter can get answers easily and quickly. > It doesn't matter what your rep's voting record is ... the sausage has already been made. So I guess courts don't matter - the crime has already been committed, right? The logic of accountability is it deters bad behavior going forward. And if politicians start losing their cushy jobs because of accountability, do you really believe they won't shape up? And yes, as of this week we'll be adding amendments to the mix - so we'll bring the sausage-making to light by including those actions in their ultimate score as well. I guess my logic is a little different: I'm saying, if politicians are voted for based on their actual actions, rather than party label, incumbency, or what-not, then bad behavior is punished and the opportunity for proper representation presents itself. Is that so crazy? What kind of sane political system doesn't have people voting based on the issues?
rwl 16y ago
Some highlights: * Eisenhower's original draft of the "military-industrial complex" speech originally referred to the "military-industrial-Congressional complex" * every $1 spent on lobbying for lower corporate taxes brings a return of $6 to $20 in tax reductions * the top 10 hedge fund managers last year made an average of $2.5 billion and paid 15% of that in tax * "there were more people who believed in the British crown at the time of the Revolution than who believe in our Congress today" More at: http://www.fixcongressfirst.org http://www.fixcongressfirst.org
mgw 16y ago
Could anyone enlighten a foreigner why these bills ('Fair Elections Now Act', http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:S752: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:S752:) seem stalled? Who decides when, which actions are taken on what bills?
- gojomo 16y ago
  Any legislator can submit a bill. The majority party's leadership has the greatest control over which bills get hearings or substantial votes. Most bills languish indefinitely in the committees they're referred to. Party senior leaders with keen regional or committee-jurisdiction interests in certain subjects have disproportionate influence on those subjects, but party discipline is far less than in a parliamentary system. The minority party can obstruct with a little help from dissenters in the majority, and can occasionally force some hearings/votes for show (even if their favored bills have little chance of passing).
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dantheman 16y ago
As long as people thing the federal government, or government in general, should be involved in funding, regulating, developing and in general spending money on things other than it's well defined functions - a minarchist/night-watchman state. When someone can greatly affect the outcome of events those who are effected will try to improve the outcome in their favor. In this case, it's getting laws passed to benefit you at the expense of everyone else. This happens all the time, and has happened extensively throughout the past. It has very little to do with lobbyists, they are merely a symptom. The root problem is that the government has its hand in everything and can tip the scales arbitrarily that unless you have someone in washington fighting for your cause you are likely to get the shaft. The correct solution is to remove the incentives for people to lobby. This can be achieved by drastically shrinking the size and authority of the government. By pushing governance down to local levels it becomes less cost effective to lobby, it's no longer winner take all -- it becomes winner takes 1/50th and has to keep winning. It allows democracy to thrive. Anyway, in short (TLDR) - his ideas are about treating the symptom and not the cause.
- moultano 16y ago
  How do you solve global problems like climate change with a local government? It seems to me that whenever there is a tragedy of the commons, the more independent actors there are in the negotiations, the more it will be exploited. When there are two entities negotiating, they can commit to something and hold eachother to it. You can't do that with 50 entities negotiating.
- wdewind 16y ago
  Shrinking the size and authority of the government sounds great in the light of disincentivizing certain behaviors, but I believe you're applying game mechanics prematurely here. I (liberals in general mostly) actually don't WANT a smaller government, I want a better regulated one that in many cases has MORE power (ie: banking regulation). The solution is not to join the Tea Party and tear down the federal government, it's to fix the government by providing a better feedback mechanism, and restore the regulations that Regan etc. destroyed. Governance at local levels sounds great, but unfortunately there are things that need to be regulated federally. Perhaps a compromise we can agree on is that the separation of authority is where the core issue lies, and some of that authority certainly needs to be pushed down to the local level, but some certainly needs federal regulation (again, Finance, lookin at you).
dantheman 16y ago
His proposal misses the point that money is speech. His favored solution is limiting campaigns to 100$ per person. Then he of course would need to limit celebrity endorsements to the 100$ limit, or the amount of volunteer time to 100$ worth, or in any way supporting a candidate to the value of 100$ per person. Otherwise you're enabling those who have more time available and greater reach due to celebrity to have a greater reach than those who are busy working to produce things for the world, and have money to spend but not the time or voice that others have. It is merely favoring one group over another. Which is just plain wrong.
- telemachos 16y ago
  He wants to limit donations to citizens (thus excluding corporations). You can make all the analogies you like about time, celebrity and money, but none of that is as distorting as corporate-funded lobbying. Corporate money completely subverts the basic principle of "one person, one vote." By pouring vast sums of money into lobbying, corporations have influence all out of proportion to that principle.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    Are you against a group of people forming an organization around an issue and then spending money they raise? How about 10 guys who pool their money to take out an tv ad for candidate they like? Is that ok?
- lutorm 16y ago
  I disagree. The idea that money is speech is absurd. Money is different from speech for the same reason working on a web startup is different from working as a physician: a difference in scaling. The differences in wealth are so absurdly large, and spending money, compared to speaking, costs essentially no time. The end result is that allowing people to spend money to have others speak for them leads to much larger differences in influence. It is not "merely favoring one group over another".
  - btilly 16y ago
js2 16y ago
According to Snopes, the Lincoln quote presented by Lessig is misattributed. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp
- Benjo 16y ago
  Lessig pulled the video after getting similar feedback: http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/blog/entry/lincoln-quote/ http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/blog/entry/lincoln-quote/
zeynel1 16y ago
the dumbest socialism man ever produced - socialized --risk-- privatized --benefit-- wow - this really defines the wall street and the united states of america as it exists today - this says in effect that wall street is a --legal-- ponzi scheme - the risk of the ponzi scheme is -insured- by people and the benefit -is- sure to go to the people who run the ponzi scheme - what an insight --i-- wish i said this myself
- jacksoncarter 16y ago
  It's not a ponzi scheme, because additional wealth is created by the investment of the capital. That capital buys factories, jobs, and marketing. In a ponzi scheme, the investment goes solely to pay off previous investors -- that's it. Wall Street is not a ponzi scheme.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Not true. Some of the money the Ponzi operator takes in is siphoned off to himself, in the form of "fees" or whatever. That's the reason he's in it for, in part, along with hopefully absconding with ideally the entirety of the last big round just before he folds it and runs and or gets exposed. Ideally, he just keeps it going for a long time and and his fees grow since it's a percentage. Wall Street refers to this big amorphous blob comprised of many individual entities and transactions and businesses. Some of them do very much resemble Ponzi schemes. All of them? Of course not. Some? Yes.
pacemkr 16y ago
I've recently tried to understand who funds the elections of my elected official. I immediately ended up on something like OpenSecrets.org or sites that feed basically off the same data (which in the end comes from FEC and you can download in the raw.) You go on OpenSecrets and discover a list of corporations that are supposedly funding your official. The problem with this data is that if I was to independently make a donation right now, it would be attributed to my EMPLOYER by OpenSecrets and every other such site out there. In reality, by law, corporations CANNOT contribute to campaigns directly. They can establish one single PAC, which has a limit of several thousand dollars or something like that, but thats that. Hardly the millions in direct contributions that we hear about. If you download the raw data from the FEC -- which I did -- what you see is thousands of small donations, subject to the same limits as set by law ($2,300 I believe), coming from individuals. How can you possibly attribute these contributions to their employers and claim that a particular corporation is influencing the official through campaign money? I really really want to understand how a corporation gets from point A (we want to give a million dollars to this guy) to point B (he actually gets it regardless of the limits set by law). I am very frustrated by not being able to "follow the money" from the raw data coming from the FEC. Would somebody please offer an explanation? Why should I blindly believe that Mega Corp USA is influencing my official through campaign contributions? Where's the proof?! EDIT: Quick search turns up what I mean about the data: http://www.delawarepolitics.net/misusing-opensecretsorg/ http://www.delawarepolitics.net/misusing-opensecretsorg/
- Benjo 16y ago
  I don't think it's possible for the FEC to collect data on all the ways corporate money can influence an election. I agree that I would like to hear more about the logistics of how corporate money is translated into influence. One argument is that the election itself doesn't really matter that much. Access to elected officials matters more: thus the economy of lobbying in DC. Lobbyists are former congressmen or staffers who can use their connections to influence existing legislation. You may argue that lobbyists have no influence, but given the number of representatives and staffers that work on the contents of each thousand page bill, it's hard to imagine that they truly have ZERO influence. Once you've established nonzero influence, it's just a matter of hiring enough lobbyists to get some desired change.
JeffL 16y ago
Just my opinion, but I think that even this may be striking at the root. I've long thought that what we really need is a constitutional amendment dictating the separation of economy and state, just as we separate church and state. There should be no tariffs, since those economically benefit some while hurting everyone else. There should be no subsidies, as those economically benefit some while hurting everyone else. Congress shouldn't be allowed to make complicated tax laws. If there's to be a tax, it should be simple and described in 1 paragraph. No exemptions, no breaks, no deductions. Those things are all trying to encourage or discourage some sort of activity, but it just ends up helping some while hurting everyone else more. Congress shouldn't be allowed to redistribute wealth. It just helps some people while hurting everyone else and has negative secondary consequences. It as also not a necessary role for government. Every way that congress dictates that the economy should go ends up helping some group by some amount and hurting everyone else by even more. That's sort of by definition, because if it helped everyone involved, it would take place naturally without the need to legally dictate it. The domain of government is ultimately force, and when it tries to act in other areas, its monopoly on force corrupts its actions in those other areas, so it really needs to be restricted to the very simple act of protecting our rights as originally spelled out in the constitution. Things like tariffs, tax exemptions, redistribution of wealth, etc, have nothing to do with the protection of rights.
- psadauskas 16y ago
  You should read about fairtax.org . Its just a flat sales tax on everything, and removes all other taxes. People below a set poverty line get 100% of their taxes refunded. No room for loopholes.
  - JeffL 16y ago
    Yeah, I think the fair tax is a great idea. Just thinking of the savings on tax compliance alone is almost mind boggling.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    loopholes: 1. no sales tax on anything considered an investment. only on "consumer" retail goods. 2. if you owned say a farm to grow food and owned a company or factory or machinery that could provide for you all the goods and services you needed (directly, without "selling" it to you) then you would pay no federal sales tax and therefore no federal tax at all, of any kind. Guess what class of people would most likely to be able to pull that off? That's right, the very rich, especially the inherited rich (remember, no tax on inheritance in this scheme!). Oh but you'd still have to buy the farm/factory/company right? But that would be an investment. No tax on buying an investment/asset. 3. buy a "used" good there would be no federal sales tax. only when buying a new good. (This would probably be abused. Imagine a bunch of people suddenly only wanting to buy "used" new things (one previous owner, still in new condition, no more than say 1 day old, etc.) 4. only retailers would have to collect this tax. if one private individual sold something to another private individual (or business!) then no tax. Also, in a system like they propose where there is no IRS and no income tax reporting, how do they know who is below or above the poverty line? Psychic powers? I'll stop now. I haven't even dug very deep. FairTax.org has some attractive elements but it has a lot of suspicious elements too that makes me think it's a ploy by the rich/aristocratic class.
Synaesthesia 16y ago
It's a great suggestion to have citizen elections, with the $100 limit, but there's no way the Senate and House are going to cut off their own election money!
piguy314 16y ago
I think one of the other root causes of this problem is corporate personhood (which was a silly legal hack to allow railroads to not pay high taxes to state governments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_...). If corporations were not considered legally to be people with the same rights of people under the constitution we would have fewer problems with an apparent inability to regulate them in a sensible way.
Ardit20 16y ago
Rather than limit citizen's donation, shouldn't perhaps all election campaigns be funded by the tax payer? It is not really fare that a party can win only because it has more money to communicate their message more widely and effectively. All variable should perhaps be minimised or eradicated except so that each candidate can be judged on merit. I do not think I am in any way qualified to suggest how the system might work, but perhaps something like a dollar for every member of the party, or ten dollars for every member, or something like that. The alternative might be to give each and every party a set amount, however small or large they might be, but then you might get some Nazi party with 10 million dollars to spend on corrupting the young. So perhaps the first suggestion is preferable. That way, we are actually and really paying for them so their lifeline depends on the number of people that support them. I doubt democracy can be more direct than that.
- Benjo 16y ago
  I think Lessig would be in favor of this. What he's proposing now is a more practical compromise that is less likely to be ruled unconstitutional. Practically speaking thought, how do you regulation how campaigns are funded? Ultimately a campaign is just a bunch of people talking to each other, which translates into free speech. Constitutional guarantees of free speech and the 14th amendment make it very difficult to restrict how a company can influence an election.
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  - Ardit20 16y ago
    I don't actually know how campaigns are funded, but we have a party system so I suppose they are funded through the party system. That is each individual or company can donate to the party. What does that have to do with free speech, we are talking about money. They can speak whatever they like and as freely as they like as can the companies. The companies can sponsor ads, or do whatever they like, just not give money to politicians or their party. And even if it infringes free speach not many things are absolute, even murdering someone has exceptions, such as self defence, soldiers, or a policeman for the prevention of crime. If the funding of political campaigns corrupts the entire system so fundamentally then maybe there should be an exception. But as I said funding hardly has anything to do with free speech, they can speak to each other as much as they like.
noverloop 16y ago
European countries just banned the most costly part of elections: TV advertising.
mian2zi3 16y ago
The amazing thing is not so much that our politicians are bought, but they are bought so cheaply and so profitably by special interests.

66 points by psadauskas 16y ago

Summary: All of our country's (US) problems (obesity, Deep Horizon, bank bailout) stem from the fact that Congress serves businesses making donations, rather than the people.

deleted 16y ago
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cma 16y ago
re: obesity, don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? Total total agricultural subsidies (excluding tariffs) amount to less than 1% of the average american's food budget; much of it for the aforementioned ethanol. Am I off?
- Empact 16y ago
  I don't know the numbers, but you're probably off in comparing the food budget to subsidies on raw ingredients. Relative to what people spend in restaurants it may not be much, but in making a choice between two similar ingredients, it can tip the balance and switch the market entirely.
- Nwallins 16y ago
  > don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? My understanding is that the subsidies are there to incentivize corn production. The video says that the subsidized cost of corn production is actually negative -- that you can go plant a corn field and will have made money before you sell a single ear. Once the corn is produced, if there are additional subsidies for ethanol production from corn, then that may divert corn from food uses. It may increase the cost of HFCS production. But the cost of corn production is still lower despite, or perhaps even because of, the ethanol subsidies.
- telemachos 16y ago
  The issue is high fructose corn syrup (made from corn) versus sugar. According to Lessig, the price of sugar (high relative to corn) and the price of corn (low relative to sugar) are both a result of market tampering. See 2.17 into the video. (And in both cases, again according to Lessig the tampering was straightforwardly paid for by lobbying, which is apparently a very good investment. That is, it works very well.)
  - JeffL 16y ago
    And as a result, we get inferior sodas with corn rather than sugar. The only country with corn soda as far as I know. =(
MC27 16y ago
He is also dismissive of transparency, yet that's one of the many steps towards fixing the problem.
- psadauskas 16y ago
  No, he dismisses the Democrats' proposal of using only transparency to solve the problem.
  - deleted 16y ago
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    - wdewind 16y ago
      I think his point is more that you've got this bottleneck of corruption in the way congress is structured, and it doesn't really matter if you shift their responsibilities around - still shit in shit out, what you need is a deeper change.
drewcrawford 16y ago
I think the only way to solve this is in a deep and fundamental way is to strip congress of the power to make decisions that benefit corporations. I realize that this sort of libertarianism is often viewed as "immature" or primitive. But ultimately I don't see how you can have, one the one hand, a congress powerful enough to do healthcare and financial reform, and on the other hand, be surprised when the same congress is successfully courted by financial interests. It seems to be an inevitable result.
- deleted 16y ago
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- khafra 16y ago
  That's not the only way. One alternate option is Futarchy. A less drastic one is implementing the top 3 or 4 pieces of model legislation at downsizedc.org.
pacemkr 16y ago
No really, where is the proof that this is in fact happening?! Businesses, with current law, CANNOT make donations to campaigns! Only individuals can and the limit is $2,300. The whole thing sounds very sensational and juicy, but the FEC data just DOES NOT SHOW THIS. See my comment down the page, email me at my username at gmail, I am really trying hard to understand campaign finances. I'm very much disturbed by the impotence of our Congress, and that's exactly why I keep trying to understand what's _really_ wrong, but I am not about to accept some theory just because it sounds enticing when there is ZERO data to confirm it.
- Benjo 16y ago
  It's true that individual contributions are limited to $2400 as of 2010. See the FEC restrictions: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml I would like to see more about the specific restriction on direction corporate contributions, as I wasn't able to find a reference to it. However, because the free speech of an individual or corporations must be protected, nothing stops a corp from paying thousands of people to shout praises from a rooftop, either about a specific candidate or just a divisive campaign issue. Because money can fairly easily be translated into free speech or the opportunity for free speech (the attention of the public) it is very hard to effectively regulate. The best that has been done is regulation around the edges that require campaign commercial disclosures. Lately, even these restrictions have been called into question as well: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1228056...
  - pacemkr 16y ago
    Here is the document from FEC that explains how corporations can get involved in election campaigns: http://www.fec.gov/pdf/colagui.pdf http://www.fec.gov/pdf/colagui.pdf It clearly states that corporations can't use their treasury to make contributions to campaigns. From what I gather, they can start a PAC but thats subject to the more or less the same limits as individual contributors.
- Mod_daniel 16y ago

Synaesthesia 16y ago

Great movie. Thanks

barmstrong 16y ago

Wow - quality of TED talks has been on a steady decline, but this one really stood out.

billybob 16y ago
I can't tell if you meant "they've all stunk lately, but this REALLY stunk," or "this was the exception."
Empact 16y ago
This is a TEDxBoston talk - TEDx is a series of independently organized groups who put on events in the spirit of TED.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Good to hear. Then I'm looking forward to seeing TEDxBoulder this upcoming Saturday. Hopefully we'll have some talks on par with this one or those from the main TED conference.

Empact 16y ago

What's more fundamental: the way that campaigns are funded, or the fact the most voters have no clue what their representatives actually stand for? Does changing campaign funding solve a fundamental problem? It seems to me that influence can easily be traded for things other than campaign contributions. The energy company lobbies with millions because they can expect the benefits of lobbying to exceed the millions. The people could easily out-vote the special interests, but they run into the rational ignorance problem: with current technology, the cost of casting an informed vote is greater than the expected benefit. Isn't that the fundamental problem? The solution, I think, is to create technology which makes it easy for voters to hold their reps accountable, thus shifting the task of accountability into the "worth it" category for regular people. That's what I'm working on anyway: http://votereports.org/ http://votereports.org/

jacoblyles 16y ago
When bills are 2000 pages long, every bill is a "special interest" bill. It doesn't matter what your rep's voting record is, by the time the bill is up for vote the sausage has already been made. Asking the public to pay attention to amendments made in committees and subcommittees is wishful thinking. The inexorable economic logic of special interests fleecing a Democratic political system crushes the intentions of the do-gooders.
- Empact 16y ago
  > Asking the public to pay attention to amendments made in committees and subcommittees is wishful thinking. Of course - and not my wish, incidentally. The whole point is to use technology to lower the cost of informed participation to the point that just about anybody is willing to do it. This means that somebody has to pay attention, but we want that somebody to be somebody else. That voters don't have time, but trusted intermediaries can doing legislative scrutiny for them and simplify it down to a actionable information for busy voters - a simple score. Interest groups have been issuing this sort of thing for years. Ever heard of the NRA report card? It's the lynchpin of gun advocacy political success. At VoteReports, we're opening up the process of creating these report cards, simplifying and systematizing it so any user can create them, and building higher-level concepts and tools on top of them so any voter can get answers easily and quickly. > It doesn't matter what your rep's voting record is ... the sausage has already been made. So I guess courts don't matter - the crime has already been committed, right? The logic of accountability is it deters bad behavior going forward. And if politicians start losing their cushy jobs because of accountability, do you really believe they won't shape up? And yes, as of this week we'll be adding amendments to the mix - so we'll bring the sausage-making to light by including those actions in their ultimate score as well. I guess my logic is a little different: I'm saying, if politicians are voted for based on their actual actions, rather than party label, incumbency, or what-not, then bad behavior is punished and the opportunity for proper representation presents itself. Is that so crazy? What kind of sane political system doesn't have people voting based on the issues?

rwl 16y ago

Some highlights: * Eisenhower's original draft of the "military-industrial complex" speech originally referred to the "military-industrial-Congressional complex" * every $1 spent on lobbying for lower corporate taxes brings a return of $6 to $20 in tax reductions * the top 10 hedge fund managers last year made an average of $2.5 billion and paid 15% of that in tax * "there were more people who believed in the British crown at the time of the Revolution than who believe in our Congress today" More at: http://www.fixcongressfirst.org http://www.fixcongressfirst.org

mgw 16y ago

Could anyone enlighten a foreigner why these bills ('Fair Elections Now Act', http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:S752: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:S752:) seem stalled? Who decides when, which actions are taken on what bills?

gojomo 16y ago
Any legislator can submit a bill. The majority party's leadership has the greatest control over which bills get hearings or substantial votes. Most bills languish indefinitely in the committees they're referred to. Party senior leaders with keen regional or committee-jurisdiction interests in certain subjects have disproportionate influence on those subjects, but party discipline is far less than in a parliamentary system. The minority party can obstruct with a little help from dissenters in the majority, and can occasionally force some hearings/votes for show (even if their favored bills have little chance of passing).
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dantheman 16y ago

As long as people thing the federal government, or government in general, should be involved in funding, regulating, developing and in general spending money on things other than it's well defined functions - a minarchist/night-watchman state. When someone can greatly affect the outcome of events those who are effected will try to improve the outcome in their favor. In this case, it's getting laws passed to benefit you at the expense of everyone else. This happens all the time, and has happened extensively throughout the past. It has very little to do with lobbyists, they are merely a symptom. The root problem is that the government has its hand in everything and can tip the scales arbitrarily that unless you have someone in washington fighting for your cause you are likely to get the shaft. The correct solution is to remove the incentives for people to lobby. This can be achieved by drastically shrinking the size and authority of the government. By pushing governance down to local levels it becomes less cost effective to lobby, it's no longer winner take all -- it becomes winner takes 1/50th and has to keep winning. It allows democracy to thrive. Anyway, in short (TLDR) - his ideas are about treating the symptom and not the cause.

moultano 16y ago
How do you solve global problems like climate change with a local government? It seems to me that whenever there is a tragedy of the commons, the more independent actors there are in the negotiations, the more it will be exploited. When there are two entities negotiating, they can commit to something and hold eachother to it. You can't do that with 50 entities negotiating.
wdewind 16y ago
Shrinking the size and authority of the government sounds great in the light of disincentivizing certain behaviors, but I believe you're applying game mechanics prematurely here. I (liberals in general mostly) actually don't WANT a smaller government, I want a better regulated one that in many cases has MORE power (ie: banking regulation). The solution is not to join the Tea Party and tear down the federal government, it's to fix the government by providing a better feedback mechanism, and restore the regulations that Regan etc. destroyed. Governance at local levels sounds great, but unfortunately there are things that need to be regulated federally. Perhaps a compromise we can agree on is that the separation of authority is where the core issue lies, and some of that authority certainly needs to be pushed down to the local level, but some certainly needs federal regulation (again, Finance, lookin at you).

dantheman 16y ago

His proposal misses the point that money is speech. His favored solution is limiting campaigns to 100$ per person. Then he of course would need to limit celebrity endorsements to the 100$ limit, or the amount of volunteer time to 100$ worth, or in any way supporting a candidate to the value of 100$ per person. Otherwise you're enabling those who have more time available and greater reach due to celebrity to have a greater reach than those who are busy working to produce things for the world, and have money to spend but not the time or voice that others have. It is merely favoring one group over another. Which is just plain wrong.

telemachos 16y ago
He wants to limit donations to citizens (thus excluding corporations). You can make all the analogies you like about time, celebrity and money, but none of that is as distorting as corporate-funded lobbying. Corporate money completely subverts the basic principle of "one person, one vote." By pouring vast sums of money into lobbying, corporations have influence all out of proportion to that principle.
- dantheman 16y ago
  Are you against a group of people forming an organization around an issue and then spending money they raise? How about 10 guys who pool their money to take out an tv ad for candidate they like? Is that ok?
lutorm 16y ago
I disagree. The idea that money is speech is absurd. Money is different from speech for the same reason working on a web startup is different from working as a physician: a difference in scaling. The differences in wealth are so absurdly large, and spending money, compared to speaking, costs essentially no time. The end result is that allowing people to spend money to have others speak for them leads to much larger differences in influence. It is not "merely favoring one group over another".
- btilly 16y ago

js2 16y ago

According to Snopes, the Lincoln quote presented by Lessig is misattributed. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp

Benjo 16y ago
Lessig pulled the video after getting similar feedback: http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/blog/entry/lincoln-quote/ http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/blog/entry/lincoln-quote/

zeynel1 16y ago

the dumbest socialism man ever produced - socialized --risk-- privatized --benefit-- wow - this really defines the wall street and the united states of america as it exists today - this says in effect that wall street is a --legal-- ponzi scheme - the risk of the ponzi scheme is -insured- by people and the benefit -is- sure to go to the people who run the ponzi scheme - what an insight --i-- wish i said this myself

jacksoncarter 16y ago
It's not a ponzi scheme, because additional wealth is created by the investment of the capital. That capital buys factories, jobs, and marketing. In a ponzi scheme, the investment goes solely to pay off previous investors -- that's it. Wall Street is not a ponzi scheme.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Not true. Some of the money the Ponzi operator takes in is siphoned off to himself, in the form of "fees" or whatever. That's the reason he's in it for, in part, along with hopefully absconding with ideally the entirety of the last big round just before he folds it and runs and or gets exposed. Ideally, he just keeps it going for a long time and and his fees grow since it's a percentage. Wall Street refers to this big amorphous blob comprised of many individual entities and transactions and businesses. Some of them do very much resemble Ponzi schemes. All of them? Of course not. Some? Yes.

pacemkr 16y ago

I've recently tried to understand who funds the elections of my elected official. I immediately ended up on something like OpenSecrets.org or sites that feed basically off the same data (which in the end comes from FEC and you can download in the raw.) You go on OpenSecrets and discover a list of corporations that are supposedly funding your official. The problem with this data is that if I was to independently make a donation right now, it would be attributed to my EMPLOYER by OpenSecrets and every other such site out there. In reality, by law, corporations CANNOT contribute to campaigns directly. They can establish one single PAC, which has a limit of several thousand dollars or something like that, but thats that. Hardly the millions in direct contributions that we hear about. If you download the raw data from the FEC -- which I did -- what you see is thousands of small donations, subject to the same limits as set by law ($2,300 I believe), coming from individuals. How can you possibly attribute these contributions to their employers and claim that a particular corporation is influencing the official through campaign money? I really really want to understand how a corporation gets from point A (we want to give a million dollars to this guy) to point B (he actually gets it regardless of the limits set by law). I am very frustrated by not being able to "follow the money" from the raw data coming from the FEC. Would somebody please offer an explanation? Why should I blindly believe that Mega Corp USA is influencing my official through campaign contributions? Where's the proof?! EDIT: Quick search turns up what I mean about the data: http://www.delawarepolitics.net/misusing-opensecretsorg/ http://www.delawarepolitics.net/misusing-opensecretsorg/

Benjo 16y ago
I don't think it's possible for the FEC to collect data on all the ways corporate money can influence an election. I agree that I would like to hear more about the logistics of how corporate money is translated into influence. One argument is that the election itself doesn't really matter that much. Access to elected officials matters more: thus the economy of lobbying in DC. Lobbyists are former congressmen or staffers who can use their connections to influence existing legislation. You may argue that lobbyists have no influence, but given the number of representatives and staffers that work on the contents of each thousand page bill, it's hard to imagine that they truly have ZERO influence. Once you've established nonzero influence, it's just a matter of hiring enough lobbyists to get some desired change.

JeffL 16y ago

Just my opinion, but I think that even this may be striking at the root. I've long thought that what we really need is a constitutional amendment dictating the separation of economy and state, just as we separate church and state. There should be no tariffs, since those economically benefit some while hurting everyone else. There should be no subsidies, as those economically benefit some while hurting everyone else. Congress shouldn't be allowed to make complicated tax laws. If there's to be a tax, it should be simple and described in 1 paragraph. No exemptions, no breaks, no deductions. Those things are all trying to encourage or discourage some sort of activity, but it just ends up helping some while hurting everyone else more. Congress shouldn't be allowed to redistribute wealth. It just helps some people while hurting everyone else and has negative secondary consequences. It as also not a necessary role for government. Every way that congress dictates that the economy should go ends up helping some group by some amount and hurting everyone else by even more. That's sort of by definition, because if it helped everyone involved, it would take place naturally without the need to legally dictate it. The domain of government is ultimately force, and when it tries to act in other areas, its monopoly on force corrupts its actions in those other areas, so it really needs to be restricted to the very simple act of protecting our rights as originally spelled out in the constitution. Things like tariffs, tax exemptions, redistribution of wealth, etc, have nothing to do with the protection of rights.

psadauskas 16y ago
You should read about fairtax.org . Its just a flat sales tax on everything, and removes all other taxes. People below a set poverty line get 100% of their taxes refunded. No room for loopholes.
- JeffL 16y ago
  Yeah, I think the fair tax is a great idea. Just thinking of the savings on tax compliance alone is almost mind boggling.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  loopholes: 1. no sales tax on anything considered an investment. only on "consumer" retail goods. 2. if you owned say a farm to grow food and owned a company or factory or machinery that could provide for you all the goods and services you needed (directly, without "selling" it to you) then you would pay no federal sales tax and therefore no federal tax at all, of any kind. Guess what class of people would most likely to be able to pull that off? That's right, the very rich, especially the inherited rich (remember, no tax on inheritance in this scheme!). Oh but you'd still have to buy the farm/factory/company right? But that would be an investment. No tax on buying an investment/asset. 3. buy a "used" good there would be no federal sales tax. only when buying a new good. (This would probably be abused. Imagine a bunch of people suddenly only wanting to buy "used" new things (one previous owner, still in new condition, no more than say 1 day old, etc.) 4. only retailers would have to collect this tax. if one private individual sold something to another private individual (or business!) then no tax. Also, in a system like they propose where there is no IRS and no income tax reporting, how do they know who is below or above the poverty line? Psychic powers? I'll stop now. I haven't even dug very deep. FairTax.org has some attractive elements but it has a lot of suspicious elements too that makes me think it's a ploy by the rich/aristocratic class.

Synaesthesia 16y ago

It's a great suggestion to have citizen elections, with the $100 limit, but there's no way the Senate and House are going to cut off their own election money!

piguy314 16y ago

I think one of the other root causes of this problem is corporate personhood (which was a silly legal hack to allow railroads to not pay high taxes to state governments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_...). If corporations were not considered legally to be people with the same rights of people under the constitution we would have fewer problems with an apparent inability to regulate them in a sensible way.

Ardit20 16y ago

Rather than limit citizen's donation, shouldn't perhaps all election campaigns be funded by the tax payer? It is not really fare that a party can win only because it has more money to communicate their message more widely and effectively. All variable should perhaps be minimised or eradicated except so that each candidate can be judged on merit. I do not think I am in any way qualified to suggest how the system might work, but perhaps something like a dollar for every member of the party, or ten dollars for every member, or something like that. The alternative might be to give each and every party a set amount, however small or large they might be, but then you might get some Nazi party with 10 million dollars to spend on corrupting the young. So perhaps the first suggestion is preferable. That way, we are actually and really paying for them so their lifeline depends on the number of people that support them. I doubt democracy can be more direct than that.

Benjo 16y ago
I think Lessig would be in favor of this. What he's proposing now is a more practical compromise that is less likely to be ruled unconstitutional. Practically speaking thought, how do you regulation how campaigns are funded? Ultimately a campaign is just a bunch of people talking to each other, which translates into free speech. Constitutional guarantees of free speech and the 14th amendment make it very difficult to restrict how a company can influence an election.
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- Ardit20 16y ago
  I don't actually know how campaigns are funded, but we have a party system so I suppose they are funded through the party system. That is each individual or company can donate to the party. What does that have to do with free speech, we are talking about money. They can speak whatever they like and as freely as they like as can the companies. The companies can sponsor ads, or do whatever they like, just not give money to politicians or their party. And even if it infringes free speach not many things are absolute, even murdering someone has exceptions, such as self defence, soldiers, or a policeman for the prevention of crime. If the funding of political campaigns corrupts the entire system so fundamentally then maybe there should be an exception. But as I said funding hardly has anything to do with free speech, they can speak to each other as much as they like.

noverloop 16y ago

European countries just banned the most costly part of elections: TV advertising.

mian2zi3 16y ago

The amazing thing is not so much that our politicians are bought, but they are bought so cheaply and so profitably by special interests.