We don’t need money out of politics. We need politics out of money.

A Response to Dylan Ratigan

Keith Farrell

A popular liberal mantra is that we need to get the money out of politics.  This, they believe, is the source of all the government’s failures.

The insinuation is clear: politicians are for sale to highest bidder, and the only way to maintain honesty in government is to restrict the flow of money between business and government. The problem with this argument is that it is not only impractical, but it is an argument for more government control over the lives of Americans.

Last week MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan lashed out angrily at what he called a “bought Congress.”  In a rant that has circulated the internet, Ratigan lamented money in politics, and blamed the government deadlock and shutdown on corporate interests.  Government is unable to pass meaningful legislation concerning things like health care and housing, Ratigan explained, because Congress is owned by corporate interests.

Setting aside his inaccuracies regarding the cause of the shutdown, what Ratigan fails to realize is that his desire to inject government into markets such as health care and housing is the root cause of corporations and special interest groups attempting to influence legislation.

Ratigan hits on some valid points here… for the first 2 minutes, then he takes a sharp left turn —

What many Americans don’t understand is that by involving government in any market you are inadvertently politicizing that market.  Americans have such disdain for politics that it’s likely that if many truly understood this argument for more government intervention, it would lose appeal.

Big money only has an interest in the political process because the political process will affect the markets that big money operates in.

For example, government involvement in health insurance means that companies like Aetna and Blue Cross now have incentive to lobby congress to make sure the laws written are not harmful to them.  Knowing other insurance companies will be doing the same, competition for influence now begins, with companies vying for special positioning with lawmakers.

Soon a comfortable relationship with a lawmaker and their major contributors develops and the insurance companies realize they don’t have to stop with merely lobbying for their own protection, they can lobby for policies which will hurt their competition.

corporatismThis is corporatism; a system of mutual benefit and protection between the State and its select cronies.

Imagine that you and your fellow neighborhood friends decide to start a leaf raking business to make some extra cash this fall.  Across town another group of entrepreneurs begins doing the same thing, only they have some more pricey equipment and they have donated money to the local town council.

The town council rules that only leaf raking businesses with proper equipment may operate in the town, thus forfeiting your business to your competitors because you don’t have the capital needed to buy the equipment the town has declared you need.  Not deterred, you lobby the town council yourself and you are able to sway them at their next session to loosen regulations. You also lobby to impose a tax on large-scale leaf removal equipment, thus adding expenses to your competitor and raising their costs.

The analogy is basic, but the mechanisms of corporatism work the same on any scale.  Even a simple matter such as leaf removal will become politicized if government is involved.  But what if we removed money from politics, as Mr. Ratigan suggests?  Could we perhaps avoid these calamities with regulation?

The problem with this money out of politics mantra is that it is actually targeting individual economic and political freedom. 

Politics involves a great deal of speech in areas of campaigning, opining on and debating laws and proposing policy, etc. While you may not be making that speech, it is your right to support that speech any way you choose, including financially.  You may donate money to any politician you agree with as a way to advance that speech.  This is not only your freedom of speech, it is your right to spend your money as you choose.  It doesn’t matter if you are a single mother or the president of a fortune 500 company, you have the right to spend your money to advance to ideas and speech you support.

What would a political system without money look like?  In actuality, when the left say we should get money out of politics, what they really mean is we should get private sector money out of politics.  Elections will still need to be held and campaigns will still cost money.  Many on the left feel tax payer funded elections are the answer.  This takes power out of the hands of Americans who can choose who to support based on their own values and instead makes Americans fund campaigns whether they agree with them or not.

The free market allows Americans to support candidates they agree with and by exercising that power they determine which candidates are able to have a larger soap box for their ideas.  This is not only fair, it is more democratic than having bureaucrats deciding which candidates will receive what.  Do we really want a system where political speech needs to be government approved and aired only in government-mandated time slots?

Do some politicians sell influence to their donors?  Unquestionably; human nature would tell us this is more than probable.  Is the solution to empower an already burdensome government and regulate American freedom or would it be better to remove the incentive altogether?  If our government exercised power only within its constitutionally defined purview, and free markets were allowed to function in all other areas, law makers would have very minimal influence and thus corporate interests would have no reason to try to buy that influence.  More regulation will not improve our political process–where the system has failed us, only freedom can save us.

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