
Lessig: Why Washington is corrupt - jv22222
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/07/opinion/lessig-washington-corruption/
======
notatoad
From a nearby foreigner's perspective, the strangest thing about US politics
to me is the prominence of elections. It's a never-ending media spectacle that
candidates have to participate in. The problem isn't the way campaigns are
funded, it's how much funding a campaign actually needs. It is obscene that it
is even possible to spend so much money campaigning.

I look back to the last federal election here in Canada - it was triggered by
a vote of no-confidence over the budget, and 5 weeks later the whole process
was done. the candidates only had _5 weeks_ to spend money. no matter how much
money you are legally allowed to donate to a campaign, the candidate can only
spend so much in such a small time frame. It doesn't matter if you're a
billionaire or not, it's impossible to garner much influence when the campaign
period is so short.

of course, our voter turnout is miserable and the guy we managed to elect is
pretty terrible, i'm not trying to say our system is perfect. but the year-
and-a-half long campaign with elections every two years just seems so
ridiculous.

~~~
saraid216
I wonder if it's our competitiveness. We're more interested in winning a seat
than we are in _using_ that seat.

------
drostie
The US problem is actually a perfect storm formed by the collision of at least
two smaller storms that each forms its own problems. Combined together they
self-reinforce and make the system worse.

The first storm is what Lessig mentioned: simply getting the money or in-party
approval to be on the ballot and run the necessary ads. If your first promises
have to be directed towards any group of "Lesters", e.g. the exceedingly
wealthy, then you're starting off on a bad foot.

The second storm is that the Framers of the Constitution set up our system to
vote for individual politicians in individual seats by first-past-the-post
voting. This has been elegantly covered by C.G.P. Grey in this video:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo> . The problem here is that we
have a two-party system in the first place, because that is a fixed point of
the voting process and the system converges to its fixed point over iterated
voting.

Just to see why this is one of The Big Problems, a fillibuster rule would
actually make sense if we had, say, 4-5 parties occupying the Senate. It would
say that you need a 60% majority if some of the minority parties were so
strongly opposed to the idea they'd filibuster it; in effect you can force the
status quo with only a 40% vote, which allows a sort of "minority coalition"
to come together on really hot-topic matters. This really gives a great deal
more voice to minority parties than is seen in normal coalition governments.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> The second storm is that the Framers of the Constitution set up our system
> to vote for individual politicians in individual seats by first-past-the-
> post voting.

> The problem here is that we have a two-party system in the first place,
> because that is a fixed point of the voting process and the system converges
> to its fixed point over iterated voting.

For more details on this: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law>

"plurality rule elections structured within single-member districts tends to
favor a two-party system"

We could fix so many problems with a sane voting system, but it remains one of
the most difficult things to change. Between the current system having elected
everyone in a position to change it, the public perception of "one person one
vote" as the most fair rather than one of the worst systems in common use, and
the most popular alternative system being one of the only worse ones, I don't
know if we'll ever manage to move to a better system on any large scale.

~~~
dougk16
One system that I've been pondering lately (maybe it has an official name), is
that you directly choose where a portion of your tax dollars go. So on your
tax return, 50% (just pulling a random number here) automatically goes to the
government as it does now, to spend as they see fit. The other 50% is yours to
spend, so to speak, within the constraints of maybe a few dozen pre-selected
options. If you want it all to go to the military, then that's your call. Some
to infrastructure, and some to healthcare, then, boom, done. In an ideal
system, you'd have 100% control, but you can only trust the public so far.

Which brings up the point of whether one of the basic theories of "pure"
democracy is sound: that the public can rationally govern itself. I don't
think current democracies really prove it one way or another, but if the
theory doesn't hold water, then my idea would probably be a disaster. Fine-
tuning the percentages could yield some interesting results though,
effectively reducing the importance of who gets elected in the first place.

~~~
mortenjorck
What you're proposing is a specific implementation of direct democracy. It
sounds nice, but it's fraught with the very same problems that representative
elections face; every tax option would have its own campaigns with distortion-
filled ads, people would likely vote to funnel vast amounts of money toward
things that actually don't need it based on emotionally manipulative ads they
saw... I'd rather try to fix representative democracy than experiment with
direct democracy.

~~~
dougk16
I don't see it as necessarily replacing representative democracy, but
complimenting it, giving people more of a say in how things are done on top of
traditional voting. If I could explicitly choose how even 5% of my taxes were
spent, that would give me a very tangible feeling of influence that I just
don't get from voting, at least at the higher levels of government (as an
american). It would also push me to do my homework about issues a lot more,
but that might not translate to the public at large.

Agreed about the potential for the system to be hacked by powerful entities
though, perhaps even worse than it is now...tough to get around that one.

~~~
jiggy2011
The closest you have to that is making charity donations and offsetting that
against tax. In that case you are diverting money away from central government
and putting it elsewhere.

Many government projects require a certain level of investment over a number
of years or even decades. It wouldn't be efficient to start say a fighter jet
development program if you might have to ditch it half way through because
public opinion changed.

~~~
dougk16
True, it wouldn't apply well in all situations, but if you tweak the
percentages correctly, only giving the people X% of control over their taxes
(maybe relative to some metric like income or education), then maybe the
government could have enough of a buffer to protect against swings in public
opinion for sensitive or critical projects.

But your point about the fighter jet program could actually be an argument
_for_ this type of direct democracy. Let's say the public found out that the
program was causing, or somehow will cause, the deaths of thousands of
innocent people in a third world country. The military could then face
spending cuts, directly dictated by the people, that would threaten the
program, and rightly so.

~~~
jiggy2011
That would last until the first terrorist attack or economic crisis and then
tend towards 0, because "we _really_ need this money".

Besides you would probably be able to work around this with creative
accounting. Let's say everyone wants to defund the military and put more funds
into education; military training establishments now show up on the budget as
"defence studies schools" because they are issuing general educational
certificates to soldiers.

I think fundamentally if you think some particular government is going to just
waste large amounts of tax money you should really just not vote for them. You
vote in a government because you want them to make sensible choices in how to
allocate resources for public projects so you can concentrate on your startup
or whatever.

Sometimes this stuff can work on a local level. For example schools can have
governing bodies of volunteers (usually parents) who get some say over how the
school budget is used.

------
jacoblyles
And as someone who supports primarily insurgent candidates from outside the
mainstream, the Citizens United decision was a godsend. There is no better way
to enshrine the status quo for eternity than limiting outside fundraising.

Lessig keeps pounding this drum, but Washington corruption goes a lot deeper
than campaigns. Who do your representatives talk to every month? Who does
their research for them? Who is a big fish in their home communities?

I don't know what the right policy is to address Washington inside dealing.
But lets not pretend that limiting campaign money (thereby gutting independent
campaigns) is the answer.

~~~
apendleton
But when you say "independent campaigns," what you're really talking about is
"independent campaigns that happen to attract the attention of very rich
people." Most would-be independent candidates don't get that, and are
consequently unable to compete against the candidates (independent or
otherwise) who do attract high-dollar donors. There's an undeniable bias in
which candidates ultimately get selected as a consequence.

If that bias favors the kinds of insurgent candidates you tend to favor, lucky
for you I guess, but I'm not sure how that supports the argument that this is
good for democratic processes generally.

~~~
jacoblyles
I'm talking about Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Justin Amash, really. Along with a
dozen or so other guys that didn't win.

It has always been legal for very rich people like Mitt Romney to spend their
own money on campaigns. McCain-Feingold didn't hurt them, it hurt guys like
Ron Paul in 2007. We had tens of thousands of people ready to chip in $10k or
more, but they were limited to $3k by the law.

------
jarrett
The free speech issues here should not be underestimated. It's true that money
and speech are not identical. But we must consider the right to _spend_ money
broadcasting one's speech. For example, what if I'm allowed to _speak_ about
patent reform, but I'm forbidden to make a documentary about, simply because
that documentary will cost a certain amount of money? We need to consider
these kinds of scenarios when we talk about any restrictions on money in
politics. I do think there's a proper balance to be struck. My point is just
that it's not as easy as saying "money is not speech."

~~~
moultano
That's what's clever about his proposal. You get matching funds from the
government if you accept limitations on the contributions you receive.

~~~
dantheman
But what if I, an individual, do not want one of the candidates to win. I
should be able to do anything in my power to cause them to lose - write books,
op-eds, documentaries, commercials etc. Additionally, what limits do we put on
newspapers, famous people, unions, employees, news programs?

"In the final week of the 2012 election, MSNBC ran no negative stories about
President Barack Obama and no positive stories about Republican nominee Mitt
Romney, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center's
Project for Excellence in Journalism. "[1]

It seems that any restriction starts to favor certain groups. For instance,
unions organizing volunteers

"The A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president, Richard Trumka, said on Thursday that the
nation’s labor unions would have 128,000 volunteers working on the “final four
days” of the 2012 campaign, saying these volunteers would knock on 5.5 million
doors and make 5.2 million phone calls." [2]

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/msnbc-obama-
coverag...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/msnbc-obama-
coverage_n_2170065.html)

[2] [http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/labor-
unions-t...](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/labor-unions-to-
have-128000-campaign-volunteers/)

~~~
rayiner
It should be noted, of course, that Citizens United itself was a hit-piece on
Hilary Clinton. Is that really the kind of thing everyone wants to suppress?

------
SiVal
If Larry really wanted to fight government corruption, he would be campaigning
to reverse the centralization of government decision-making power in
Washington bureaucrats, returning it to as close as possible to the people who
are governed. The people have the most influence over decisions they make for
themselves, and less and less as the decision-making power moves to the local
community, then to the state, then the elected feds, and by the time you reach
the unelected federal bureaucrats, the people have essentially no influence at
all. The farther from the people you go, the less individual people get to
decide for themselves and the more things are decided by whoever gets the most
political favoritism.

Since he shows no interest in moving decision-making power back toward the
people themselves, I conclude that he's not unhappy that people (as
individuals) don't have enough power over their own lives; he's unhappy that
the system he and his Harvard friends have built for the elite to rule The
People (as a mass) doesn't yet have as much unrestrained power to do so as
they would like.

~~~
rayiner
The problem with this theory is that it is entirely not borne out in practice.
Local governments are generally far more corrupt and dysfunctional than the
federal government. See, e.g., San Francisco.

~~~
dllthomas
Or Bell, CA!

Or Detroit, Chicago...

... and those are just some obvious ones.

~~~
rayiner
Or LA or NYC. American municipalities offer you the full dystopian spectrum.
From overburdened socialist welfare state (San Francisco), to repressive
authoritarian dictatorships (New York), to banana republics (Wilmington, DE),
to post-apocalyptic free-fire zones (Camden). Take your pick!

~~~
SiVal
I agree completely. There are also some great small communities that aren't
socialist dystopias. So, yes, I would like to be able to take my pick.

As long as the power of Chicago's socialists is limited to Chicago, you can
escape the dystopia that emerges from their absurd policies by escaping their
jurisdiction. But if all (US) power can be centralized in Washington, then the
same people who produced socialist dystopias in Detroit, Chicago, or San
Francisco, will impose them on everyone in the country. I will no longer be
able to take my pick by leaving their jurisdiction, and that's what they
define as "progress."

------
kevinpet
I flagged this article.

"Off Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

Lessig's geek-relevant copyright background does not magically make his every
political opinion relevant. There's nothing in the article or the comments
about technology or intellectual property (or anything else that would make
this relevant).

------
curtis
The way we fund campaigns in this country is definitely a big, big problem,
but I don't think it's the only one. Many big donors are not driven so much by
self-interest as the are by ideology, and in the "second" election, many
voters vote based on prejudice rather than their own self-interest. I'm sure
this situation has always been true, but it's much more extreme than it used
to be. As a supporting point, I'd argue that the current impasse over the
budget doesn't actually serve anyone's financial interests (wealthy or
otherwise), although it may serve some people's ideological interests.

~~~
mayneack
The impasse of the budget doesn't necessarily need to server anyone's
interests. It just has to be enough better than the opposition's proposal to
lead to a stalemate. If there's no policy that both the Senate and House
prefer to the status quo, we get the status quo, even if both sides oppose the
status quo.

------
InclinedPlane
I'd disagree, I'd say these are not the underlying problem, they're symptoms.

The underlying problem is the disengagement of the electorate and the horrible
process of running a campaign. There are lots of reasons for those things but
if you want one big villain to point a finger at, then it should be the media.
The media have turned elections into a scandal-driven celebrity-driven mess,
almost completely divorced from the issues. Sane people avoid running for
office partly because of the horrible negative impact the media will have on
their lives.

And then you get a process where good candidates are actively driven away
early and where nothing of substance is seriously discussed in the media. And
we wonder why the system is full of narcissistic glory seekers who think they
can get away with anything.

~~~
wvenable
What you're saying is the underlying problem is human nature. I could agree
with that. But you are not going to change human nature.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Hardly. What I'm describing is a dynamics problem. Right now we are at one
equilibrium point due to various factors, many of them related to the
particular nature of the popular media today. However, there are other
equilibrium points (many of them more desirable) which are within our reach if
certain changes happen.

~~~
wvenable
The media reflects human desire. Elections are a scandal-driven celebrity-
driven mess because that's what people watch. This is not unique to our time
in human history either. But, like all things these days, media so much more
efficient, centralized, and responsive.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That's a simplistic way of looking at it, and it's not entirely untrue, but
it's also not the whole truth. The media represents a reflection of human
desire filtered and lensed through the particular business models and
technological limitations that reign. And the distortion that has been caused
by those things, especially ad driven broadcast media, has had a huge impact.
I don't excuse the electorate their responsibility in this either but the
impact that the media has had on the process has been enormous and in most
ways largely negative, especially over the last half century or so. As
technology changes, as business models change, as expectations change we may
see some big differences in the interface between candidate campgaigns and the
electorate but it's too soon to tell how all that will shake out and whether
it will lead to an improvement or worsening in matters.

------
trotsky
The huge amounts spent on campaigns are merely the result of the ruling class
having optimized the equation of how to get your guys in office. If you
somehow totally eliminated the role of money in campaigns, the next most
efficient solution would be found - be it control of the media, procedural
changes, slash and burn smear campaigns, whatever.

Voting via net worth is just the easy equilibrium we found.

------
rayiner
I have a couple of reactions to this, none of them positive:

1) Calling Washington corrupt devalues the word "corrupt." Dhaka is corrupt.
Moscow is corrupt. Washington is dysfunctional, but not corrupt. Americans
couldn't even process what an actually corrupt government would look like.
They have no frame of reference. There is an important reason to not throw the
word "corrupt" around willy nilly. If you convince Americans that this is as
bad as it gets, they will become apathetic. After all, what's the point of
doing anything if the government is already in such a huge hole there is no
climbing out? Overplaying the "corruptness" of Washington draws eyeballs, but
it ultimately undermines your overall goal.

2) Blaming money is a diversion. Talking about how "money corrupts the
political system" ignores the problem. And the problem is this: the people
agree with the corporations. On nearly any substantial political issue you'd
like to name, there is not just money but votes on the pro-corporate side. If
you want to shut down heavily-polluting and destructive coal power in this
country, you have to fight not just the corporations, but all of the people
for whom coal is a way of life. When Obama and Romney got on stage during the
last debate to see who could get the coal industry's dick the deepest down
their throat, they didn't do it because of the money the coal industry donated
to their campaigns.[1] They did it because ordinary Pennsylvanians,[2] treat
attacks on the coal industry as an attack on their livelihoods and their way
of life. If you want to break up or regulate big corporations, you can find
plenty of ordinary people to say: "the government shouldn't be messing with
those businesses."

The only things that attract broad political opposition are things that don't
matter (e.g. "earmarks" which account for approximately 0% of the budget). The
only things that attract universal condemnation are wiggle-words like
"corruption" and "pork" and "wasteful spending" on which everyone can project
their own viewpoint and still act like they are in agreement with everyone
else.

Lessig goes wrong from the very first sentence of this article: "We Americans
are disgusted with our government." The basic issue is that people aren't
discontent with our government. Sure they have a general distaste for it in
the same way they have a general distaste for going to the dentist, but if you
sit down and really look at the issues, the big questions of governance, there
is no collective consensus about doing anything important differently. Bigger
military or smaller military? Tougher on crime or more protective of
individual rights? Less religion in the public sphere or more? More taxes or
less taxes? More privatization or less privatization? More regulation or less
regulation? If you get out of Boston or San Francisco, you can find tons of
ordinary people around you to take either side of each of these debates.

What you can't find much if any of are substantial, meaningful issues that
everyone agrees should be changed, in a specific way, but which are
nonetheless held to the status quo by our "corrupt" government. That is real
corruption.

[1] People dramatically overestimate how much money corporations actually give
out. First, it's illegal for corporations to donate directly to candidates.
Second, both Obama and Romney raised more direct contributions than the amount
of money spent on their behalf by PAC's and non-profit organizations. And
direct contributions can and are limited and not affected by Citizens United.

[2] And Pennsylvanians are really important! There is a joke: why did God put
all of _our_ oil under Saudi Arabia? Well, god put all of our swing votes in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, etc.

~~~
mshron
1) I think Lessig makes a fair case that we should broaden our notion of
corruption. Congress folk spend 30-70% of their time raising money. Roughly
half of congress goes in to lobbying after their terms end, with an average
pay hike of about 14x. You think that doesn't "corrupt" their loyalties? Okay,
it's not Dhaka. But I don't live in Bangladesh, I live in America, and I have
different expectations for one than the other. I don't buy your claim that
calling grossly perverse incentives corruption somehow lumps Washington in
with Moscow.

2) Most of what the government does is _not_ big issues, it's small ones that
actually have the biggest effect on our lives. How should airlines, financial
firms, telecommunications, etc., be regulated? Most people have very vague
ideas about what they want, and are strongly swayed by poll wording.
Organizations being regulated, however, have very strong ideas about what
should and shouldn't happen. In theory, they should be one voice of many; in
practice, we get regulatory capture.

~~~
rayiner
> I think Lessig makes a fair case that we should broaden our notion of
> corruption.

Broadening can also imply diluting.

> Roughly half of congress goes in to lobbying after their terms end, with an
> average pay hike of about 14x. You think that doesn't "corrupt" their
> loyalties?

So let's make their salaries $2.5 million per year. It'd be a drop in the
bucket.

> How should airlines, financial firms, telecommunications, etc., be
> regulated?

I bet you couldn't even get people on Hacker News to agree to answers to those
questions.

> Organizations being regulated, however, have very strong ideas about what
> should and shouldn't happen.

The organizations being regulated are also the only ones who have any idea
what is going on. Regulatory capture is the inescapable result of a basic
problem: people who aren't in, e.g. the finance industry don't understand how
it works, so the only people who can regulate it are the people who go through
the revolving door. No amount of "taking money out of elections" is going to
change that. (Isn't the battle cry here that people who don't understand the
tech sector shouldn't be legislating on it?")

If you're opposed to regulatory capture, then you need to get rid of
regulatory agencies. But even here on Hacker News I don't imagine you'd get
overwhelming consensus in favor of that sort of action (it'd devolve into some
fundamentally philosophical debate).

~~~
dllthomas
> If you're opposed to regulatory capture, then you need to get rid of
> regulatory agencies.

This presumes that the unregulated results will be better. This may be the
case, but doesn't automatically follow. An alternative is to watch carefully
and object loudly when you see problems, ideally with structural supports to
check agendas and realign incentives. Of course there will still be failures;
they may or may not be worse or more frequent than in the deregulated case - I
would expect this to vary substantially by field and particular systems
involved.

~~~
rayiner
> This presumes that the unregulated results will be better.

I'm not saying it would be better, I'm saying that if the goal is to get rid
of regulatory capture (and that's your only goal), you need to get rid of the
regulatory apparatus.

If you do have regulation, you need to accept that capture is a characteristic
of it and design around that. It's engineering. If you use a particular type
of metal for a pipe, it has advantages and disadvantages and you have to
design around them. Just wishing for the perfect pipe doesn't get you
anywhere.

~~~
dllthomas
Sounds like we very much agree, then: it's a practical question of
governmental engineering.

------
white_devil
Now, the next step would be to realize that the underlying problem here is the
existence of Government itself.

It's an arrangement where a small group of people:

    
    
      - Is in a position to accept bribes in exchange for influence.
      - Decides everything for 300 million *individuals*.
      - Uses other people's money (or conjures more out of thin air).
      - Is not responsible for their actions.
    

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
jellicle
Good idea. The U.S. should emulate governmentless Somalia, because it has
worked so well.

~~~
white_devil
Ah yes, the classic Somalia-strawman.

~~~
jellicle
You seem confused. Arguing against a strawman involves describing an
opponent's argument falsely and then attacking it.

In this case you, who are apparently an extreme idiot, have written a diatribe
saying that the "underlying problem here is the existence of Government
itself."

It is not, in fact, a strawman to describe your argument as being for the
dissolution of the U.S. Government entirely, and currently Somalia is well-
known for the absence of any effective government.

~~~
white_devil
Somalia is often trotted out as some kind of pseudo-argument against
anarchism, as if it were an example of what would happen without a government.
I can see at least a couple of problems with that:

\- Somalia has _a_ government, regadless of how "effective" it is, and that
alone makes it an invalid comparison.

\- The absence of government means the absence of coercion, and that
everything would be based on voluntary trade. It does not automatically follow
that every place without a government would be a hellish shithole. _That_ soup
requires other ingredients besides "no government-controlled police force".

> You seem confused. Arguing against a strawman involves describing an
> opponent's argument falsely and then attacking it.

\- I pointed out that the existence of Government is a problem.

\- You implied I was advocating emulating Somalia (originally calling it
"governmentless", but now covering your ass by adding "effective").

"Strawman" seems appropriate. Who was the idiot again?

------
kzrdude
He began with copyright reform, and ended up here when he realized the broader
underlying problems with trying to have sensible reform in washington.

~~~
Symmetry
The real underlying problem, though, is that pretty much the only people who
are going to change who they vote for in an election based on copyright reform
are the people who feel their livelihoods depend on the current system.

------
spoiledtechie
I adore, that's right Adore Lessig for his work against this corrupt thing we
call a government. I suggest many more folks get behind this man. The thing
that turned me on to him was his Google Talk about political finance.

Lessig will be considered one of the greats when we look back on this
generation and ask our selves what they did. He in fact will be known as the
man who struck at the very Root of our so called Republic. If your not
following him, or know nothing about him, I would extremely and utterly
suggest you take the hour and watch his Google Talk. He knows corruption and
he has my dedication.

------
cletus
From the start it seems Lessig is attacking the symptom rather than the cause.

The problem with the US government is a tragedy of the commons (ie the
district-by-district and state-by-state pork barrelling).

The original intent of the Founding Fathers and the view held by libertarians
and traditional conservatives (rather than the neoconservatives and religious
conservatives that dominate today) is one of limited Federal government for
specifically this reason. A minimal government is one not worth buying. A big
and intrusive government is one totally worth buying.

Representatives and Senators raise so much money to get elected because the
payoff is huge. Both in terms of direct power and the indirect financial
reward (many become lobbyists for huge incomes). Lobbying isn't the problem;
it's a symptom (of government being worth buying).

Davy Crockett [1] is oft-quoted on this subject.

This is why I found the "living document" "ideology" so subversive. I say
"ideology" because I find myself agreeing with Justice Scalia that it is no
ideology at all. The Constitution doesn't say whatever you want it to say. It
says what it says. If you want pass laws or amendments otherwise well there
are processes for that and it's the job of the legislative not the judicial
branch to create new law.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think the bigger problem in US politics is that the country itself is
divided and so many people think the means justify the ends.

Take how elections are organized. It's clear that some states seek to suppress
traditionally Democratic votes in the names of striking convicted felons off
the electoral rolls. Other states try and manipulate the vote by the density
of polling places and the hours they are open.

I compare this to Australia, which holds elections on a Saturday, and those
elections are organized by the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission). Voting
is mandatory not optional and the duty of the AEC is to ensure that everyone
has ample opportunity to vote. It seems that some combination of cultural
factors, the smaller size of the Australian population and mandatory voting
has made this a largely nonpartisan endeavour and voting has only ever taken
me 10 minutes. On Saturdays they just set up in schools and other public
spaces.

Redistricting too is a hugely political issue but the big problem here is that
voting patterns are so predictable that you can buy maps telling you how
specific city blocks vote.

Half the country votes. Of that half, 40% always vote Republican. 40% always
vote Democrat. The remaining 20% (meaning 10% of the population) actually
determinate the outcome of the election. The largest electoral victories in US
history (Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84) each only captured ~60% of the
populate vote.

You see the effects of this on Congress with reelection rates [2]. Being a
Representative is now a career and that (IMHO) is a problem.

"Winning" on issues for many has trumped the rule of law and the Republic
itself (again, IMHO) and that more than anything is the most dangerous thing.

[1]: <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1221671/posts>

[2]: <http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php>

~~~
backprojection
> A minimal government is one not worth buying. A big and intrusive government
> is one totally worth buying.

I get what you're saying. If a government barely has any powers, they yes,
it's not worth corrupting, but I really don't think we're headed in that
direction any time soon. Surely even a medium sized-government would still be
worth corrupting?

Moreover, why can't we have both? A government with smaller influence, but
still freer of money-influence than today's.

It seems to me that the current political reality is that Lesig's proposals
would be much easier to achieve than bringing our government's influence to a
level more agreeable to a libertarian.

I would speculate that democracies like our own _broadly_ tend coverage to the
middle of extreme views. If that's the case, then we won't achieve a
libertarain-sized government, unless you convince a good majority of voters.
Hence, it seems clear that we should focus more on the quality of government,
right now.

~~~
nthj
> Moreover, why can't we have both? A government with smaller influence, but
> still freer of money-influence than today's.

That feels like asking, "why can't we have both a simpler software codebase,
with less abstraction and code, while adding all this code & logic over here
to try to squash the symptoms of having too much abstraction?"

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I feel like you're asking us to get to
simplicity by adding more rules, which isn't really how simplicity works.

~~~
backprojection
I see your idea, that going after money-influence in politics might always end
up consisting of simply adding more rules, and thus complicating and expanding
government further.

I would take the idea more seriously if its something that can be rigorously
demonstrated; i.e. there is no way to amend the US government without adding
so many rules as to frustrate the situation even further.

That being said, any government that consists of human beings is going to have
an emergent agenda of some sort or the other. It seems to me that job number
one of any government would be to police it self so that that agenda is
generally in the people's favor, first. I would have thought that that's
really what democracy means, maybe I'm wrong.

Surely even a more libertarian government would have policies in place to
fight its corruption?

~~~
nthj
> I would take the idea more seriously if its something that can be rigorously
> demonstrated; i.e. there is no way to amend the US government without adding
> so many rules as to frustrate the situation even further.

I cannot scientifically prove this hypothesis, as I am not dictator of the
world, or even of a small island. (Technically, I'd have to be dictator of
multiple worlds to prove my hypothesis, as I understand the scientific
method.) Most political debates have this problem, so I'm not inclined to lose
sleep over it. Of course, I don't expect you to accept the idea wholesale,
either. I just threw it out there for discussion.

> That being said, any government that consists of human beings is going to
> have an emergent agenda of some sort or the other. It seems to me that job
> number one of any government would be to police it self so that that agenda
> is generally in the people's favor, first.

It's my understanding this is why we have 3 branches of government, yes. Even
a relatively simple system can still verify results with other parts of the
system (for example, setting up a Pingdom account to verify that yes, the
website is returning HTTP 200)

> Surely even a more libertarian government would have policies in place to
> fight its corruption?

(a) I extrapolate my experience with architecting complex software systems to
political systems. Perhaps what applies to the one is entirely different from
what applies to another. Software is what I know, politics is an interesting
mind game for me, and it seems like some lessons may carry over. Also,
applying software architecture disciplines to business procedures has brought
me continued success over the past few years, so I'm inclined to think that
some/most of these principles may apply across all complicated systems,
including political ones. But again, I can't prove it.

(b) I think there is a difference between letting multiple systems "battle it
out" (e.g. Pingdom verifying an HTTP 200 response and perhaps even rebooting
the server automatically if it is down), and a multitude of automatic failover
rules within a system. For example, how many times have we seen recap blog
posts from AWS or other large, abstract cloud systems which identify the root
cause as "a system we wrote to automatically heal our main system screwed
everything up?"

All that said, I agree with your original post's main point: sometimes you've
just gotta throw duct tape on stuff yesterday, or in this case, add rules to
limit political corruption. I think my point is simply that planning for both
long-term seems conflicting: you throw the duct tape on today, but you don't
plan to leave it there forever.

The eventual plan is to refactor to a simpler system and get rid of the duct
tape.

~~~
backprojection
> The eventual plan is to refactor to a simpler system and get rid of the duct
> tape.

Yeah, we're on the same page.

I think the critical thing with the software/systems-analogy is that it's far
easier for us to understand these technologies, and more over, the
technologies generally lend them selves to reproducible experiments. You can
collect 'lessons learned' and do experiments, and based on that knowledge,
refactor. It's much harder in politics for the reasons you mentioned.

The whole reason we have 'free' markets is that we lack the knowledge that
would be required to efficiently run a command-economy, so we let the market
decide, and apply duck-tape where appropriate. Same goes with democracy: we
lack the knowledge to build a benevolent dictator which maximizes its people's
happiness.

So I guess democracy + duck-tape is the best we can do, for now.

------
ereckers
There's a sentence in the 3rd paragraph talking about what people are calling,
"money in politics". He says, "They therefore don't point us to a plausible
solution to the problem of our political system today.".

I figured I'd read through the article to get the solution. This is how it
ends, "We need to find a way back to Madison's original design, so that we can
find a way to restore again a government that works. Leaving Lesterland is the
critical first step." Thanks Mr. Lessig.

~~~
xal
Watch the video. He endorses many different plans which tackle the same issue.
This is not a new idea - he is just ratcheting up the urgency and quite
successfully so:

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking
at the root." - Henry David Thoreau

Lessig endorses the idea that this is the root issue of modern (US) times.

------
walshemj
1 Switching to having proper parties with members and using OMOV one member
one vote and doing away totally with the primary system and saving all that
money would be a better start.

2 Have strict limits on campaign costs and have public service party political
broadcasts carried on the major tv channels.

3 Remove all patronage civil service jobs from the president no nice jollies
as ambassador for your buddies.

4 Implement better rules of debate no more slipping pork in as an unrelated
rider.

5 Have independent speakers of house and congress.

Rather than some half assed version of what you have now.

------
jacobmarble
It would be fun to gather metrics about fund-raising quotas, funds raised,
time spent, etc, per elected official. But, that information belongs to
parties, not to the people.

------
wahsd
Unfortunately, although that is a quite obvious to those who pay attention, it
is also just the tip of the iceberg in the events that led to the sinking of
the titanic. The point is that, obviously the visible tip of the iceberg is
the most obvious danger, the real, immediate danger is the portion of the
iceberg just below the surface of the water. But that is also just the most
shallow consideration of all the factors and events that ended up with the
sinking of the titanic. Events and circumstances that were in place before the
impact, and those revealed and as a consequence of the impact.

For example, a huge part of the corruption of our government comes from
Congress' micro-management of the economy, which should not be happening. The
legislature is supposed to put broad, systemic foundations into place that
work universally, not this inept and incompetent meddling in the smallest
details of how a dime is spent or not spent. That body of our government lacks
universal principles that can be tested against to validate their actions.

That manifests itself in the blatant, overt corruption of bribery and
favoritism; not to even touch on the subtle forms of corruption which make up
the forest we can't see for all the trees.

addendum:

Something else that is a rather touchy subject but also a relevant one is that
we are operating with a hobbled-together framework that was meant for a whole
different era of humanity. Universal suffrage in its current state is
corrosive and inadequate. There really need to be qualifications for voting
and the power and influence through access of the legislative and executive
should solely rest in those who qualify.

Now, before you get all upset; it should be a qualification that is
universally accessible, e.g., spending time rather than money. Everyone has a
more equitable amount of time available for themselves. Some poor will find it
difficult to find the time to spend, but so will the wealthy who, e.g., have
no interest in putting in time spent with the poor in community forums and
colloquium, i.e., the more time you spend attending and participating in
public discussions across all economic and political spectrum the more access
you have to legislators and the executive.

It's fair, its universal, and it's equitable; which is why the wealthy and
those who have perverted the current system in their overwhelming favor will
vilify and fight dirty to the death to preserve the current con job they have
going.

------
javert
This is an absolutely vicious attack on free speech.

~~~
Anechoic
Downvoters, this is something to consider. I'm no fan of money in politics,
but I have a real difficult time trying to figure out how to get money out of
elections without stifling the ability of folks (rich or otherwise) to
advocate for their issues.

~~~
alexqgb
If you don't see any difference between advocacy (on your own dime) and
literally handing a check to a person with regulatory power over your
commercial interests, then you are well and truly lost to reason.

The Constitution guarantees the right to petition the government. It says
nothing about the "freedom" to deliver those petitions in briefcases full of
cash (slight hyperbole, but you get the idea).

Personally, I'd be willing to live with Citizens United if (a) the less
debatable parts of election rigging were struck (i.e. gerrymandering, closed
primaries, and private campaign finance) and (b) the rule against direct
coordination between "independent" producers and campaigns they assist were
extended to a ban on hiring anyone who had worked on a campaign for at least
five years.

As it stands, people who have been deeply enmeshed with a campaign, who know
all the players, and who know the strategy cold, can "quit", go to work for an
"unrelated" PAC, and proceed to produce media that "happens" to mesh with the
"unrelated" campaign.

It's bullshit, floor to ceiling. Truly independent political speech is one
thing. The current reality is something else.

~~~
Anechoic
_If you don't see any difference between advocacy (on your own dime) and
literally handing a check to a person with regulatory power over your
commercial interests, then you are well and truly lost to reason._

So I guess we're not going to discuss this like adults?

Like I wrote, I am no fan of money in politics, but if there is money in
politics, there is always going to be a way to use that money to the advantage
of someone else, by means other than "literally handing a check to a person
with regulatory power over your commercial interests" - the only way to
prevent that is take money entirely out of politics, but that does affect free
speech.

 _Truly independent political speech is one thing. The current reality is
something else._

Agreed. Now, how to you get one without the other without impacting one's
right to free expression?

------
ninetenel
It could be worse, I do think that if people spent a bit more of their time
thinking about they would like to change locally rather then nationally (which
is also important) they would feel much less disenfranchised .. but that plays
less into various ideological world views and such which people tend to fixate
on

