Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Constitutional Amendment to combat “regulatory capture”, “electoral capture”, and Citizens United |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2012-01-19
Political power in the USA has slipped almost entirely into the hands of the “1%”—very, very rich individuals and large corporations. This is profoundly undemocratic, as the voices of the rest of us, the “99%”, have become almost entirely irrelevant to the direction of the country. [T]he overall dynamics of capitalism under neoliberalism, both nationally and internationally, were determined by new class objectives that worked to the benefit of the highest income brackets, capitalist owners, and the upper fractions of management. The greater concentration of income in favor of a privileged minority was a crucial achievement of the new social order. In this respect, a social order is also a power configuration, and implicit in this latter notion is “class” power * * * Not only class relations are involved, but also imperial hierarchies, a permanent feature of capitalism. The conflict between the 1% and the 99% is not merely a matter of most of the money rushing in a flood (not a trickle) up to the top 1%, as we read in Capitalism’s Barren Landscape. Technological advances, particularly since the 1970s, have massively and rapidly altered the capitalist system in one crucial respect. As Hobsbawm suggested, computers and robots have created a large surplus of people around the globe. And capitalism, which is about growth, profit and speed of production, is unable and unwilling to deal with the surplus of humans. Although ownership of wealth matters a great deal, the possession of political power matters even more. The very rich are very rich in large part because they control legislation, regulation, taxation, and the administration of the laws—in short, justice. It is by now a commonplace that the economy’s recent crash was the result of de-regulation of the banking industry brought about (or “bought”) by the banking lobby—BIG-BANKs, as was the subsequent bail-out. Similarly, the USA’s new mandatory health insurance law (“ObamaCare”) was largely drafted to satisfy demands of BIG-PHARMA and BIG-HEALTH-INSURANCE. The USA’s recent wars are regarded as manifestations of the political power of the military-industrial-complex (BIG-WAR and BIG-ARMS) as well, perhaps, by the oil lobby, BIG-OIL, which has also secured a right to drill for oil offshore, the recent BP oil-spill notwithstanding. The system of government by a few very wealthy manipulators, government by the BIGs, has long been known, and even has a name. It is called “oligarchy”. Oligarchy of this sort has been decried since America’s earliest days: Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States democratic system, said “I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”.(Jefferson quotations).[From wikipedia.] We Americans “enjoy” oligarchic government, government by the BIGs—not democracy. It’s time for a profound change. I present the following “draft constitutional amendment” as an ideal, a distant goal, perhaps unattainable today, but a sine qua non for ending American oligarchy. For so long as big money is allowed to manipulate politics in America, for so long will democracy in America be a dead letter. Some people may ask, what’s so bad about oligarchy, anyway? Surely it’s better than allowing the people to run their own government—some may say. Here’s my answer. Oligarchy is bad (from the point of view of ordinary Americans) for two reasons: First, the vast majority of the people have almost no effective voice in politics, so that their particular needs go unmet. Among other problems, primary electoral campaigns are so effectively controlled by “big money” that by the time the November election occurs, the two party candidates have been pre-screened for acceptability to the big-money interests. Both candidates will be big-business candidates. In short, oligarchy is undemocratic. Second, the oligarchs, especially the corporations, have very short time-lines of concern, and have shown themselves incapable of working usefully on long-term problems, such as overpopulation, impending water shortages, global warming, and various pollution issues. They have acted anti-environmentally and anti-labor because they perceive profits for themselves to depend significantly in not having to pay for costly externalities (pollution, industrial accidents to workers). Seeking to escape taxation for themselves and for their highly paid employees, they have not done a very good job on the National Debt, either. Most people are aware of the problem of corporate (and fat-cat) control of the electoral process—what might be called “electoral capture”. Beside “electoral capture”, another problem arises from oligarchy. Most people are not aware of the problem, arising from lobbying as well as from electoral capture—the problem of corporate and fat-cat capture and control of administrative agencies, a phenomenon called “agency capture” or ”regulatory capture”. Merely fixing the Citizens United decision will not end either “electoral capture” or “regulatory capture”. Something more is needed. A Constitutional Amendment is Needed to Cure these Problems: What Should it Say? Most people agree that this sad state of American politics cannot be revised without a constitutional amendment. The question is, however, what should be the substance of that amendment? Some people have already tried their hands at suggesting fixes for the problems of oligarchy, or some of them. These proposals do not seem to deal with “regulatory capture”. [1] Most proposals have been limited to undoing recent Supreme Court decisions, “Citizens United” and others, which have held (in effect) that spending money on politics is equivalent to political speech, that political spending may not be limited for most purposes, and that corporations have a right to free speech, each of these a dubious proposition. Taken together, the Court has said that corporations and the very, very wealthy (as well as every other person, even those earning below poverty level) may spend as much money as they care to to achieve political purposes. And these decisions, from the perspective of all the rest of us (the “99%”), are a bit like saying, as someone once said, comparing the rich to the homeless, that “The rich and the poor alike may sleep under bridges”. Here is a proposed constitutional amendment to achieve what I see as the main requirements of such democratic restoration: 1. Political action (defined below: roughly, lobbying and electoral campaigning) shall be undertaken only by individual human beings and by PAOs—Political Action Organizations (defined below)—that is, by organizations established for the declared purpose of doing political action and subject to important restrictions on funding. 2. Each person (attn: Supreme Court, by this I mean human being) shall be restricted as to the total amount of money he/she may in any one calendar year, cumulatively, spend on all political action and/or give to all PAOs. 3. No non-person entity (such as a corporation, labor union) other than another PAO may transfer any funds to a PAO. What would these three simple proposals accomplish? First, no corporation or other non-person entity other than a PAO would be allowed to transfer funds to any PAO or to take any political action whatever: no lobbying, no electioneering, no contributing to parties or campaigns. No “free speech” as to politics. None. (This would be a profound change!) Corporations were not mentioned in the Constitution, were not foreseen in their present form (or with their present immense power) in 1787, and should play no role in politics. If a corporation owns a press, then freedom of the press arises due to the press, not due to the corporation. (I don’t present here a “fix” for this problem, or for the concentration of power in major corporations that own many TV stations and newspapers.) Second, wealthy people would still have a political advantage over ordinary people because, if the annual limit were $1000, they would have the disposable wealth to pay the entire $1000 to PAOs, whereas ordinary people might do no more than send $25 to a particular campaign (PAO!) or two. However, there is a difference between a wealthy man spending $1000 a year on politics and spending $1,000,000 a year on politics. There are problems with this plan. Preserving free speech and free press are large within them. Ah, well. A trip of a thousand miles begins with a single step—as does the trip which lands me on my face. Read on! (revised 6/18/2012)
How do I imagine all this working in practice? I imagine that the various interest groups will create PAOs. A corporation might, for instance, create its own (or perhaps an industry-wide) PAO, such as the “BIG-OIL-PAO”. The corporation would advise shareholders and employees of the existence and purpose of the PAO and would invite them to give a portion of their annual “political action money” to it. Purposes of the BIG-OIL-PAO would presumably include trying to secure election of pro-BIG-OIL candidates, passage of pro-BIG-OIL tax codes and other legislation, and adoption of pro-BIG-OIL administrative rules and regulations. Similarly, environmentalists would create such PAOs as “Save-the-Water-PAO” and “Save-the-Air-PAO” and so on, and all Americans concerned with clean air and clean water would be invited to give a portion of their annual “political action money” to try to secure election, legislation, and administrative decisions protective of clean air and clean water. The NRA would transform itself into the NRA-PAO. The gun-control folks would create “Gun-Control-PAO”. Pro and anti-abortion folks would do the same. The trick, here, is that none of these PAOs would receive any money at all directly from corporations, churches, labor unions, and so on, and would receive far less money than they do today from very rich individuals. What we’d have would be a lot closer to democracy than what we have now. Politicians would have to get electoral campaign money from ordinary people, for the most part, and from PAOs funded—also—by ordinary people. For the most part. Who knows what might happen next? Electioneering might be conducted mostly via the internet, essentially for free (as matters are today). Or the politicians might decide to “nationalize” radio and TV during electoral season (and shorten that season, perhaps!) on the argument that the “people” own the airwaves and merely “lease” them to the broadcasters—and that political advertising should be free during the month or two before each election. It would be an experiment. What I intend is that the corporations conduct commerce and keep their hands out of politics. I am afraid that they would find ways to intrude into politics, anyhow. They always have and presumably always will. But what I propose would be a good start. We’d have done what we could and would have to trust the courts and honest law enforcement to prevent corporate and fat-cat end-runs around the new amendment. ----------- [1] Some people believe that a mere statute can unseat the oligarchs. For example, Congressman Sanders has introduced a bill with these provisions: `Section 1. The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, or other private entities established for business purposes or to promote business interests under the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state. |
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