Capitalism V. Democracy: Money in Politics and the Free Market Constitution - Hardcover

Kuhner, Timothy K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804780668 ISBN 13: 9780804780667

Verlag: Stanford University Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

As of the latest national elections, it costs approximately $1 billion to become president, $10 million to become a Senator, and $1 million to become a Member of the House. High-priced campaigns, an elite class of donors and spenders, superPACs, and increasing corporate political power have become the new normal in American politics. In Capitalism v. Democracy, Timothy Kuhner explains how these conditions have corrupted American democracy, turning it into a system of rule that favors the wealthy and marginalizes ordinary citizens. Kuhner maintains that these conditions have corrupted capitalism as well, routing economic competition through political channels and allowing politically powerful companies to evade market forces. The Supreme Court has brought about both forms of corruption by striking down campaign finance reforms that limited the role of money in politics. Exposing the extreme economic worldview that pollutes constitutional interpretation, Kuhner shows how the Court became the architect of American plutocracy.

Capitalism v. Democracy offers the key to understanding why corporations are now citizens, money is political speech, limits on corporate spending are a form of censorship, democracy is a free market, and political equality and democratic integrity are unconstitutional constraints on money in politics. Supreme Court opinions have dictated these conditions in the name of the Constitution, as though the Constitution itself required the privatization of democracy. Kuhner explores the reasons behind these opinions, reveals that they form a blueprint for free market democracy, and demonstrates that this design corrupts both politics and markets. He argues that nothing short of a constitutional amendment can set the necessary boundaries between capitalism and democracy.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Timothy K. Kuhner is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Auckland.

Timothy K. Kuhner is Associate Professor at Georgia State University College of Law. He teaches mainly in the areas of international and comparative law. Before moving to Atlanta, Tim spent three years as Associate Professor of Anglo-American Law at the University of Navarra in Spain. During this time, he researched the role of money in politics in Western European democracies. Educated at Bowdoin College and Duke Law School, but inspired by foreign viewpoints, Tim brings a wide-ranging, critical perspective to the study of democratic integrity.

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Capitalism v. Democracy

Money in Politics and the Free Market Constitution

By Timothy K. Kuhner

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-8066-7

Contents

Preface, 
1. The Question Raised by America's Design, 
2. Free Market Democracy, 
3. Corporations Speak, 
4. Consumer Sovereignty, 
5. Why Capitalism Governs Democracy, 
6. Plutocracy, 
7. Capitalism and Democracy Reconciled, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The Question Raised by America's Design

THE PRESENT MOMENT HAS ACQUIRED A RARE CONSTITUTIONAL quality, as though the essence of the country has become unstable and is on the verge of being redefined. Some say this is eternally the case—that citizens in a democracy can always exercise their political rights to bring about the changes they desire, and that a degree of instability is in the nature of a system of elected lawmakers. This view fails to admit that these fundamental ingredients—"citizens," "political rights," and "political representation"—are vulnerable to radical shifts, their meanings dependent upon the ideologies of those in power. Democracy is heading towards new meanings whose contours run deep in the waters ahead.

Sensational threats to democracy spring up to the surface and clamor for attention, but a different focus is now required. This is not the time to marvel at the faces of the FBI agents who found $90,000 in Congressman William Jefferson's freezer. Nor is it the time to compare Jack Abramoff's boyish, admiring grin as he shook hands with President Reagan with his disdainful scowl years later as he strode into federal court, prepared to plead guilty to the corruption of public officials. It would be useless to inspect the private wine lockers at the Capitol Hill Club where an engraved plaque once read, "Brent Wilkes"—Wilkes, the defense contractor who contributed to the more than $2.4 million in bribes that Representative Randy Cunningham accepted. Focusing on bribery and other obvious forms of corruption—the rule breakers—recalls the bromide "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

The gravity of the moment is a function of what is legal, not what is illegal. In order to perceive democracy's vulnerability, we must leave the criminals aside, as colorful as they are, and train our eyes on the nation's present course. What sorts of citizens are becoming most influential and how do they exercise their political rights? Just one couple, the Adelsons, single-handedly prolonged Newt Gingrich's 2012 presidential primary run through $20 million in donations to a pro-Gingrich superPAC. The Adelsons went on to donate an additional $130 million to other political organizations, roughly the same amount that each presidential campaign spent in the 2000 election. One hundred and fifty-nine other individuals, corporations, and interest groups have followed the Adelson playbook, giving $1 million or more. Other, more creative spenders, such as the Koch brothers, have propelled their preferred causes and candidates to prominence through funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into a variety of organizations and candidates. Meanwhile, one nonprofit association, ALEC, has succeeded in having thousands of bills based on its model legislation introduced in state legislatures. Noting that approximately 17 percent of its bills get passed, ALEC bragged to its members that their donations were "a good investment," adding that "nowhere else can you get a return that high." In 2010, AT&T, Pfizer, and Reynolds American agreed, contributing between $130,000 and $398,000 each to ALEC's treasury.

And what about the course that lawmakers are setting for political representation? During the 2009 debate on health care legislation in the House of Representatives, more than a dozen officeholders gave speeches ghostwritten by lobbyists who bundle contributions for their reelection campaigns. In a time of tornados, record-setting heat, and melting icecaps, lawmakers postpone emissions regulations and weaken environmental protections at the behest of entrenched companies. As with natural disasters, so too with financial ones. On the same day they voted on the financial overhaul bill, legislators collected campaign money from the financial firms with the strongest interest in the outcome. The same pattern occurs in other policy areas, as members of important congressional committees tend to take in 10 percent to 30 percent more donations during their tenure, "rais[ing] money from many of the same industries affected by their work."

All of this is perfectly normal, predictable even. Everyone is doing exactly what the system encourages them to do, propelled forward by its momentum and incentives. Because political parties, campaigns, and political speech are almost exclusively privately financed, politicians and parties compete for funds, and the private sources contributing those funds exploit the situation in order to press their interests. As of the 2012 elections, it costs approximately $1 billion to become president, $10 million to become a senator, and $1 million to become a member of the House. Candidates and officeholders depend on friendly donations and outside spending; and to the same severe extent, they fear unfriendly donations and spending. So long as such dependency and fear are operative, the political power of wealthy donors and spenders, corporations, superPACs, lobbyists, and special-interest groups is secure.

Beyond casting donors and spenders in the role of political master, however, candidates and officeholders' tremendous demand for political funds casts donors and spenders in the role of slave. A growing body of evidence shows that limits on donations and expenditures are, in essence, limits on the amount of money that politicians will extort from citizens and businesses. Even former senators have confessed that "donors ... feel shaken down" and that some dynamics behind money in politics are "more like extortion than ... bribery." The discovery that donors and spenders are both political predators and political victims strengthens the cause of campaign finance reform.

Whether they are spending money to pressure officeholders to enact favorable policies or spending money to appease officeholders who might otherwise punish them with unfavorable policies, donors and spenders feel tremendously insecure. What is to stop their competitors from outspending them? How do they know when they have employed sufficient funds to successfully press or protect their interests? Candidates face similar insecurity. How can they be sure that their cash reserves and campaign spending are sufficient to beat out their opponents? Because there is no limit to the total amount of money that campaigns or outside groups can raise and spend, an arms race ensues.

Spending on U.S. congressional and presidential campaigns topped $6 billion in 2012, up from $5.3 billion in 2008, and $4.2 billion in 2004. While each presidential campaign raised over $1 billion in 2012, Obama and McCain raised little more than $1 billion together in 2008. And yet that amount set a record in its time, outstripping the $646.7 million raised by Bush and Kerry in 2004, and more than tripling the $325 million raised by Bush and Gore in 2000. A similar dynamic attends congressional elections. The $448 million spent in House and Senate races in 1988, for example, was six times greater than the amount spent in 1976. And still,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804780668
• ISBN 13: 9780804780667
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 376
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande