| I hear/read your first argument quite a bit. It's a fantastic piece of social engineering, because it both reduces and reinforces a fundamental cognitive dissonance: Bribes are used to coerce; politicians shouldn't be corrupt and accept bribes; politicians accept vast amounts of campaign money. To ease this dissonance, equating campaign/PAC contributions to celebrity endorsement is amazingly well suited: how could Oprah possibly have that much sway over, say, a piece of federal pork for a dioxin spewing chemical company? The basic difference, of course, is that social capital is very much different than monetary capital. One is used to buy things, and the other is used to boost signals. One can be taken away by the same individuals who gave it in the first place; the other is taken away at a publicly specified rate, but can be given away freely or traded for goods and services. Oprah can use her celebrity voice to endorse one or ten or one hundred candidates. There are diminishing returns, of course: how much of a signal boost would it be if Oprah endorsed just everyone? The only time she loses her influence is if she spends too much of it in the same category too quickly, or if the signal she chooses to boost is disagreed with by those who lend her credence and give her the social capital in the first place. As a signal multiplier, its function is fundamentally different than the signal multiplier of money. When money is spent, if enough money is available, it can be used to endorse one or ten or one hundred candidates with none of the same diminishing returns. It does not lose its effectiveness if it is spent too quickly on too many different things. If this were about a companies publicly endorsing candidates (and by doing so, putting their brand's reputation on the line) it would be one thing. But this is about companies (or individuals) being able to disproportionately influence policy without risking their own reputation by being associated with the crafting of that policy. 2. If you want to curtail the size of the federal government, one thing you might be interested in is campaign finance reform - so your elected politicians aren't as interested in doing favors for <AARP|Dow Chemical|The Teamsters|Focus on the Family|Goldman Sachs> and are more interested in the plight of their actual constituents. 3. It could be, but you're dreaming if that would ever happen with the number of favors owed the private sector by congress. He's nailed the arguments, but I don't think new law is ever going to fix it. The only way to fix it is by making money irrelevant to re-election. (edit: let me put it in a different way than all that stuff about cognitive dissonance and social capital. You ask what the difference is between an Oprah endorsement and a campaign contribution; I'll ask you: what is the difference between a Facebook status update that gets shared 1,000 times and a Facebook status update the author of which pays for it to show up on 1,000 timelines?) |