A Comment on Campaign Finance Reform
By: Sam Vaknin | Posted: 26th August 2005
A Comment on Campaign Finance Reform
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
The Athenian model of representative participatory democracy was
both exclusive and direct. It excluded women and slaves but it
allowed the rest to actively, constantly, and consistently
contribute to decision making processes on all levels and of all
kinds (including juridical). This was (barely) manageable in a town
20,000 strong.
The application of this model to bigger polities is rather more
problematic and leads to serious and ominous failures.
The problem of the gathering and processing of information - a
logistical constraint - is likely to be completely, satisfactorily,
and comprehensively resolved by the application of of computer
networks to voting. Even with existing technologies, election
results (regardless of the size of the electorate), can be announced
with great accuracy within hours.
Yet, computer networks are unlikely to overcome the second obstacle - the problem of the large constituency.
Political candidates in a direct participatory democracy need to
keep each and every member of their constituency (potential voter)
informed about their platform, (if incumbent) their achievements,
their person, and what distinguishes them from their rivals. This is
a huge amount of information. Its dissemination to large
constituencies requires outlandish amounts of money (tens of
millions of dollars per campaign).
Politicians end up spending a lot of their time in office (and out
of it) raising funds through "contributions" which place them in
hock to "contributing" individuals and corporations. This anomaly
cannot be solved by tinkering with campaign finance laws. It
reflects the real costs of packaging and disseminating information.
To restrict these activities would be a disservice to democracy and
to voters.
Campaign finance reform in its current (myriad) forms, is, thus,
largely anti-democratic: it limits access to information (by
reducing the money available to the candidates to spread their
message). By doing so, it restricts choice and it tilts the
electoral machinery in favor of the haves. Voters with money and
education are able to obtain the information they need by themselves
and at their own expense. The haves-not, who rely exclusively on
information dished out by the candidates, are likely to be severely
disadvantaged by any form of campaign finance reform.
The solution is to reduce the size of the constituencies. This can
be done only by adopting an indirect, non-participatory form of
democracy, perhaps by abolishing the direct election (and
campaigning) of most currently elected office holders. Direct
elections in manageable constituencies will be confined to multi- tiered, self-dissolving ("sunset") "electoral colleges" composed
exclusively of volunteers.
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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,
PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and
Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
About the Author
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Tags: disservice, obstacle, rivals, political candidates, constraint, electorate, computer networks, slaves, sam vaknin, malignant self love, hock, constituency, anomaly, dissemination