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Well I don't know for sure. It's not like private interests have disappeared, and I'm not privy to how they manifest. But if nothing else, we can assume that t

Well I don't know for sure. It's not like private interests have disappeared, and I'm not privy to how they manifest. But if nothing else, we can assume that there's less money in politics because campaigns are less expensive. Macron's last campaign cost 16 millions euros. Biden's last campaign cost 1.06 billion dollars. That money has to come from somewhere. In theory, Macron's campaign could have hidden costs not reported in accounting (which is what Sarkozy did) but in practice it's hard to hide that (hence Sarkozy getting caught). Big campaign meetings in expensive stadiums are, by design, hard to hide. Also, since you can't spend money getting your candidate on TV ads, there's not a huge incentive to blow up your campaign budget. Regulators also ensure that TV outlets spend an equal amount of time on each candidate. (Though there are also ways to game that, eg CNews got fined for putting Zemmour on prime time and every other candidate in night slots). So while power games still exist (the key to becoming French president is basically being friends with Xavier Niel), we can assume there's less money overall because parties have fewer things to spend money on.

gojomo 4y ago
> But if nothing else, we can assume that there's less money in politics because campaigns are less expensive. I don't think this is self-evident even for money, if the money is simply being spent in ways that can't be tallied. It's even less assured for all undue influence, including insider networks of non-financial favor-trading – as you note in your (fairly cynical!) observation that "the key to becoming French president is basically being friends with Xavier Niel". Is that really tangibly better than overt, measurable money influence from many competing sources? It's possible the low (above-board) spending totals are really a negative indicator: evidence that a de-facto cartel has enough levers to repel challenges without explicit cash outlays. When spending on wages seems suspiciously low, as with American college athletes or French IT workers, it's not a sure sign evil money has been kept out of a lily-pure process, but rather that insufficient competition has kept all the real money/power with secure incumbents. I am not an expert on French politics, but from the outside it seems just as protetive of traditional elite/insider interests as politics elsewhere. Maybe more so!
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  Well we can ask the reverse question. Would most French people expect politics to be healthier, less elitist and less insider-obsessed if politicans were allowed to spend infinite money on campaigns, if politicals ads were allowed, etc? I certainly wouldn't expect that. > Is that really tangibly better than overt, measurable money influence from many competing sources? You're implying that any overt influence from political donations is fungibly replaced by an equivalent amount of hidden undue influence. That's not at all obvious. It's not like hidden influence doesn't exist in a system with political donations. Having the support of media corporations is important in France, but it's important in the US too. And to bring it back to the original subject, if crypto regulations were proposed in France, we wouldn't be worried that the MPs had been pre-bribed by crypto exchanges before the vote even began.

gojomo 4y ago

> But if nothing else, we can assume that there's less money in politics because campaigns are less expensive. I don't think this is self-evident even for money, if the money is simply being spent in ways that can't be tallied. It's even less assured for all undue influence, including insider networks of non-financial favor-trading – as you note in your (fairly cynical!) observation that "the key to becoming French president is basically being friends with Xavier Niel". Is that really tangibly better than overt, measurable money influence from many competing sources? It's possible the low (above-board) spending totals are really a negative indicator: evidence that a de-facto cartel has enough levers to repel challenges without explicit cash outlays. When spending on wages seems suspiciously low, as with American college athletes or French IT workers, it's not a sure sign evil money has been kept out of a lily-pure process, but rather that insufficient competition has kept all the real money/power with secure incumbents. I am not an expert on French politics, but from the outside it seems just as protetive of traditional elite/insider interests as politics elsewhere. Maybe more so!

PoignardAzur 4y ago
Well we can ask the reverse question. Would most French people expect politics to be healthier, less elitist and less insider-obsessed if politicans were allowed to spend infinite money on campaigns, if politicals ads were allowed, etc? I certainly wouldn't expect that. > Is that really tangibly better than overt, measurable money influence from many competing sources? You're implying that any overt influence from political donations is fungibly replaced by an equivalent amount of hidden undue influence. That's not at all obvious. It's not like hidden influence doesn't exist in a system with political donations. Having the support of media corporations is important in France, but it's important in the US too. And to bring it back to the original subject, if crypto regulations were proposed in France, we wouldn't be worried that the MPs had been pre-bribed by crypto exchanges before the vote even began.