It is standard economic theory that "dollar votes" or money spent on a product will result in an efficient allocation. Maximizing the size of market participation is crucial for the theory to work. Corporations do not have money because they are evil; they have it instead because they represent many investors, whose interests they act to preserve. Essentially, this grants corporations the same political status as unions and the like have enjoyed for years.
Will's argument is a red herring. That spending big $ doesn't always result in a winning candidate is obvious and not the main problem. There are 2 bigger concerns: 1) Special interests (i.e. corporations) are able to inundate media to get their message to the people. Their strategy is to gradually change public opinion via massive advertising campaigns. 2) If a candidate owes his office to special interest donors then it is likely that that candidate will do the bidding of his investors.
Corporations only care about Washington insofar as Washington cares about them. Microsoft use to BRAG that they had only one lobbyist in Washington -- until Sun very nearly succeeded in having Washington write legislation breaking up Microsoft. Now they spend billions on lobbyists.
Government regulation is what produces lobbyists. Deregulate, and nearly every corporate lobbyist will leave Washington.
It is standard economic theory that "dollar votes" or money spent on a product will result in an efficient allocation. Maximizing the size of market participation is crucial for the theory to work. Corporations do not have money because they are evil; they have it instead because they represent many investors, whose interests they act to preserve. Essentially, this grants corporations the same political status as unions and the like have enjoyed for years.
cwaldeck2 1 year ago
Will's argument is a red herring. That spending big $ doesn't always result in a winning candidate is obvious and not the main problem. There are 2 bigger concerns: 1) Special interests (i.e. corporations) are able to inundate media to get their message to the people. Their strategy is to gradually change public opinion via massive advertising campaigns. 2) If a candidate owes his office to special interest donors then it is likely that that candidate will do the bidding of his investors.
canteluna 1 year ago
Corporations only care about Washington insofar as Washington cares about them. Microsoft use to BRAG that they had only one lobbyist in Washington -- until Sun very nearly succeeded in having Washington write legislation breaking up Microsoft. Now they spend billions on lobbyists.
Government regulation is what produces lobbyists. Deregulate, and nearly every corporate lobbyist will leave Washington.
philWynk 2 years ago