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Elections
Money and Politics by Robert M. Liu "We must reform campaign financing -- too much money in politics is not a good thing," is what I occasionally hear on TV talk-shows these days. It reminds me of what Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader told his supporters during the 2000 election -- a remark that he re-iterated in 2004. He said that America’s two major political parties (the Republican Party and the Democratic Party) were two big corporations that ran their election campaigns with millions of dollars of donations from special interest groups. Those words of his were really straight talk from the bottom of his heart. However, I would add that Mr. Nader’s Green Party is also a corporation, albeit a small ragtag corporation with too little capital to do effective business. That is why the Green Party did not win in 2000. As in business, any politician who plans to launch a credible challenge to his opponent needs to raise sufficient funds first. Like it or not, money talks while the public watches. If a politician fails to raise a respectable amount of money, it signals to the public that he cannot convince society’s mainstream to commit to his cause. It is nothing to be proud of. It is fatal to his career. Such is the reality that anyone who makes a living in politics should ask himself whether he is a realist or an idealist. A realist, in my opinion, is a person who sees reality as the result of nature’s laws and accepts it as it is. An idealist, again in my opinion, is a person who refuses to accept reality as it is because he does not like it, or rather because reality does not serve his best interests. Consequently, he wants to change reality according to his wishes. He is either unwilling or unable to realize that reality is the result of nature’s laws and so is hard to change. For example, if a politician calls for "campaign financing reform", it is because he cannot raise as much money as his opponent -- a reality which does not serve the best interests of his career. He wants to limit the amount of money his opponent is allowed to raise. In other words, he wants to tie his opponent’s hands, so that he can have a better chance to advance his own career. It is as simple as that for all the sour grapes. I agree with Mr. Nader that America’s two major political parties are like two big political services corporations. In my view, that is quite all right, because politics is a business. It is a trade where only a very few dominant companies can flourish, as is the case in any other industry. In short, politics is one of the sectors of the economy. In a free country like America, political parties operate in a free market called democracy. That is to say, democracy is a free political services market, whereas dictatorship is not. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are like two big management companies vying with each other for a contact to manage a big mansion called The United States of America. The residents inside must hire a management company to look after the mansion and pay maintenance fees (in the form of taxes) to ensure that the mansion is kept in good condition. As consumers, the residents have a choice in this free market (i.e. democracy). They need to figure out which management company charges less but provides better services before they decide which one to hire. On the other hand, in a totalitarian country like the former Soviet Union or China, the political services market is forever controlled by the only-one ruling party, which operates like a monopoly franchise. The people (i.e. the consumers of political services) have no choice but to accept (i.e. to obey) the monopoly, whether they like it or not. No matter where one lives, one should understand that as is business, politics is about money, about the control of resources. It is a game of the money, for the money and driven by the money, for all the wonderful lip service some politicians want the public to swallow: "Oh, I care for you"; "I feel your pain"; "I hear your voice"; "I have always been an advocate of the common people’s interests"; and "I will fight for you, your family and your future." For all this hot air, politics remains a high-stakes game where special interest groups make their bets (i.e. political donations) because they want a piece of the action -- the money. That is exactly what makes thhe game dynamic and exciting. If there is no money in the game, why should we play it at all? A little bit of history might help illustrate my point that it is impossible to separate money from politics. Before 1949, China was a poor country with a corrupt government controlled by the Nationalist Party which came into power in 1927. It certainly was not a democracy. Corruption was rampant and social injustice evident everywhere. But there was a free market economy, and the Nationalist government did not confiscate Chinese citizens’ private properties. In 1921, dissatisfied with the reality, China’s liberal intellectuals (i.e. left-wing socialists) launched their own business (The Chinese Communist Party) with assistance from the Communist International movement (the Comintern, 1919-1943), an organization under the control of Nikolai Lenin (1870-1924) and Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) of Communist Russia. The Comintern not only provided funds to the CCP, but also sent its political advisers to help the Chinese Communists run the CCP. In fact, the Comintern regarded the CCP as one of its branches around the world. When Japan invaded China in 1937, an enormous window of opportunity was opened for the Communists’ military forces to grow with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet assistance. By 1945 when Japan surrendered, the Communist army was as strong as a fierce tiger -- too strong for the Nationalist government to suppress. Although the Democratic administration in the United States provided some aid to the Nationalists, it was too little, too late. The Nationalist government lost the civil war and relocated in Taiwan. The consequences of this loss to America were the Korea War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1964-1975), both of which cost America lots of money and lives. (Communist China was behind both North Korea and North Vietnam.) It is worth noting that war is an extreme form of politics -- it costs money and is about money. After the CCP took over the Chinese mainland in 1949, it confiscated Chinese citizens’ private properties in the name of "Socialist revolution". But what was "Socialist revolution" (another form of politics) all about? Again, it was about money, about the control of China’s resources. Any difference between "Socialist revolution" and robbery? Yes. "Socialist revolution" was more thorough than robbery. It was a sweepstake -- where winner (Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong) took all. It also killed the Chinese economy, triggering a severe famine (1959-1962), during which, more than 30 million Chinese peasants died of hunger. It was not until China’s late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) came into power, launching his market-oriented capitalistic economic reforms in the late 1970s that China’s economy began to come back to life. The 2003 Iraq War gave rise to strong suspicions on the political left that George W. Bush launched the war because he wanted to control Iraq’s oil resources. This means those on the left agree that war (i.e. an extreme form of politics) is about resources (i.e. money). But if you regard yourself as a citizen of the Free World, you should want to see Iraq’s oil reserves under the control of a government friendly toward the Free World, shouldn’t you? Iraq’s ex-dictator Saddam Hussein used his oil money to support Palestinian terrorist suicide bombings against Israel. Now that he is in U.S. custody, the amount of money flowing into Palestinian terrorism is declining, reducing the strength of anti-Israel terrorism, thereby improving the prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. So, what is wrong about George W. Bush "wanting to control Iraq’s oil resources"? Another example of the relationship between money and politics is the on-going Iraqi insurgency. According to the interim Iraqi government, an estimated 20,000 Baathist-terrorist insurgents are currently active in Iraq. They receive financial support and political and military directions from certain senior members of the former Saddam Hussein regime now hiding in Syria. It appears that anti-U.S. elements in Syria (or even in the Syrian government) are harboring the core leadership of the Stalinist Iraqi insurgency (i.e. the Politburo of the underground Iraqi Baath Socialist Party). The U.S.-led coalition and the interim Iraqi government need to find a way to disrupt the financial and material support that keeps flowing from Syria into the Baathist insurgency in Iraq, if the Iraqi situation is to be stabilized. As you can see, whatever idealistic rhetoric politicians may come up with, MONEY is the reason why there is politics. It is an important factor affecting the result of any form of political struggle, wars and elections included. Another important factor in politics is people since it is people who fight for their own interests -- money. In order to convince people to support him, a politician has to keep his campaign machine (or spin machine) running at full speed. He has to put out his TV campaign advertisements to influence voters’ thinking. That costs lots of money. Whatever a political pundit writes, he is on somebody’s payroll. That has to do with money. In the final analysis, whether they are right-wing or left-wing, all politicians use money or promises of rewards (i.e. money too) to influence voters’ decisions. In Communist phraseology, the operation of a spin machine is called "propaganda". It repeats itself again and again to "help" people do the thinking. The term "brainwashing" by itself suggests that people’s brains are capable of being "washed" (i.e. manipulated). It means not everybody is good at independent thinking. People rely on the sources within their reach for information and rely on "experts" for "information analysis". "Experts" are people with political affiliations who project facts from their "special angles". Life is not easy. People are busy trying to earn enough money to make ends meet. How many of us major in political studies? Not many, I guess. That is why the media are very important in politics -- they impact the thinking of the public. For instance, The New York Times is apparently a liberal (i.e. left-wing or socialist-oriented) newspaper catering to those hoping for government aid. It endorsed Al Gore’s "class warfare" during the 2000 presidential election and purports to know where the common people’s interests lie. On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal is definitely a conservative financial publication attempting to help investors (including 401k and IRA portfolio holders) to figure out which side their bread is buttered. In a democracy like America, politicians must raise lots of money in order to stay in business and win elections. It has always been that way and is likely to remain that way. That is the reality. "Campaign financing reform" portrayed as an effort to make politics "clean" by restricting the flow of money into politics sounds wonderful but is unrealistic, because for every rule designed to limit the amount donated, there may be ten ways to get round it. It will tie honest politicians’ hands and put them out of business, as dishonest politicians break rules and raise illegal money. "Campaign financing reform" could make politics even dirtier. (Just look at those 527s that claim to be "independent" of either major party but were able to raise millions of dollars to help their favorite candidates in the 2004 presidential campaign.) I grew up in Shanghai, China, a country with the most rules and regulations to restrict people’s freedoms in their everyday life. Yet, by early 1986 when I left China, I was aware that everybody was talking about the magic of "the back door". "Smart" Chinese got what they wanted by using "the back door" (i.e. special connections to the bureaucracy) to get around the rules that the government had put in place to restrict their conduct. Today, for all its rules and regulations, China is one of the Asian countries with the most corruption. The problem with the worshiper of rules is that rules which are difficult to enforce bring about unforeseeable consequences. Instead of making things better, they tend to make things worse. "Campaign financing reform" has the potential to change the nature of America’s traditional free-market democracy as it is. Its implications for American politics are hard to fathom right now. The premise for "campaign financing reform" that "too much money in politics is not a good thing" is questionable. In my opinion, rather than limit the amount of money in politics, "campaign financing reform" if any should encourage more money to flow into American politics, because today the stakes in politics are much higher than before. The U.S. economy is much larger than before, so the amount of tax revenue collected by the government is much larger than before. That means the stakes in politics are much higher than before too. America’s two major political parties should try to raise more, not less, money from their supporters, whether "hard money" or "soft money". Special interest groups should donate more, not less, money if they want to get what they want. Like they say, you get what you pay for. As an industry, American politics is part of the economy. It feeds a lot of people including politicians, political pundits, political talking heads, political party workers, political public relations companies, political party PR personnel, political spin doctors, politicians’ lawyers, those who work for political-oriented newspapers and radio stations, the spin machines etc. They all need money, more money, to survive and stay in business. As a special form of investment, campaign donations will eventually flow into the economy and help create jobs. More money flowing into politics means more business for the media industry and more jobs created for "the common people". It is a wonderful thing. Restrictions on campaign donations will hurt the media industry and may very well be in contravention of the spirit of the free market, which thrives on free money flow, not on restrictions. If foreign money flowing into American politics is illegal, then, honest politicians should stay away from it. But it would be naive to believe that just because they are illegal, foreign donations will not flow into American politics. In the free world, money can be laundered easily. There must be ways to evade campaign financing rules. Those stories about Clinton friends’ (i.e. Johnnie Chung’s and Charlie Trie’s) China connections reported by the media in the late 1990s may have exposed only the tip of the iceberg. Is there anyone who can guarantee that similar cases of illegal political donations are not happening right now? Politics is a business; politicians are business people. It is only reasonable for politicians to raise as much money as possible and invest it in their campaign businesses. "Campaign financing reform", as currently described, is idealistic rhetoric at best. It may fool some naive voters, but not experienced politicians. At worst, it can become a trap to snare honest politicians. Now, suppose there are numerous seemingly ironclad campaign financing rules to limit "soft money", "hard money", "Buddhist Temple money", "Communist money", "foreign money" or whatever money. The question is how to enforce them. If you are a politician, can you sleep well with absolute certainty that your opponent will honor all the rules? Even if a campaign financing violation is detected, it is difficult to find your opponent guilty of anything, because he can always say, "I didn’t know," which fact means the temptation to break the rules is strong. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton "didn’t know" where Johnnie Chung had gotten the money he donated to Clinton’s 1996 campaign coffers. Of course, they "didn’t know" because they never asked. Why should they ask for information that could incriminate them? Nor did they suspect anything, smart as they are. Al Gore "didn’t know" the Buddhist Temple gathering was a fund-raiser. Of course, he "didn’t know" because he didn’t ask and because nobody ever told him. Why should he ask? And why should his associates give him information that could incriminate him? Mr. Al Gore just simply and honestly didn’t suspect anything wrong, either. If investigations are used to deter campaign financing violations, they will certainly cost taxpayers tons of money. If excessive campaign financing rules and regulations prevent politicians from raising sufficient funds for their campaign businesses, they may have to introduce more rules and regulations to force TV networks to charge much lower rates for political TV advertisements. Needless to say, that would be very unfair to the TV network industry. TV ad rates are set according to the law of supply and demand. If demand for TV time slots is strong, TV ad rates rise. If demand is weak, TV ad rates are down. That is how business in a free-market economy is supposed to transpire. How can it be justified if the TV network industry is forced to bear the burden of politicians’ campaign business expenses? If "campaign financing reform" leads lawmakers to regulate political TV ad rates, it will have a negative impact on the economy because it sends a scary signal to investors that America’s business environment is deteriorating. Politics is an industry that needs more, not less, investment. "Campaign financing reform" if any should facilitate higher, not lower, cash flow into American politics, because campaign donations eventually flow into the economy and help create jobs. The more money flows into politics, the better. Instead of saying "too much money in politics is not a good thing," I am quite sure that too little money in politics is not a good thing, because it betrays a lack of voter commitment to America’s political future. For that matter, too little money flowing into any industry is not a good thing -- it points to a dangerous dry-up of investor confidence. By the same token, America’s political campaign industry must swallow more (not less) investment dollars, if it is to grow and flourish in step with the dynamic overall U.S. economy. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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