Speaking Money, Not Truth, To Power

C.N. Todd has an analysis of the issue of campaign finance that is brilliant in its simplicity and logic:

Consider the Supreme Court majority opinion in Buckley v. Valeo which wrote that federal campaign finance limits were an acceptable limit on speech since it "serve[d] the basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process."

In short, the Supreme Court recognized that unless limits were placed on individual's or group's ability to make political contributions, the federal government risked letting those hierarchical structures inflict the entire electoral system.

Contrary to the "one person, one vote" premise, those with greater power would have a greater voice, and hence the outcome of elections would represent that structure of power.

As expected, the wealth/power correlation has inflicted the U.S. political system since its very inception. George Washington didn't just happen to be the wealthiest man in the 13 colonies. And in recent political memory the field of candidates in both national and local elections has been flooded with multi-millionaires. It would seem, the political system favors those who already have an unequal share of power. (Don't get me started on New York City.)

Interestingly enough, the debate about campaign finance reform helps to reveal one of the fundamental contradictions in right-libertarian ideology: the right-libertarians loathe the concentration of power in a big, centralized federal government, yet they have no problem if so-called "market forces" concentrate power in the hands of a few, private individuals. What the right-libertarians fail to see is that the concentration of power restricts freedom whether it is in private or public hands. And consequently, they miss the fact that such concentration actually undermines the democratic process. At the end of the day, the concentration of power in private hands enables those individuals to seize control of public power.

Translation? Not only ought campaign contributions from individuals be restricted, but total campaign expenditures ought to be restricted as well to prevent individuals from spending vast amounts of their own resources.

His logic is unassailable. Trouble is, it doesn't impact on the right-libertarian psychology which is that, however irrationally, each expects himself to rise to be one of the individuals that wealth and power gets concentrated into. Of course, the people with the wealth and power encourage the delusion.