Posted by Andy
To paraphrase Lord Acton, all political money tends to corrupt; absolute
money corrupts absolutely. And of course you and the loathsome Ralph Nader are
right: Big money is a distorting influence on the political economy. But alas, it
was ever so, and unless power is to flow exclusively from the barrel of a gun
or a benevolent socialist politburo it always will be. It also could be
worse. The Big Boys who pour money into politics are anything but monolithic;
conflicting interests are usually if not always in play. The trial lawyers vs. the
pharmaceutical and medical industries for instance.
As it happens, the conventional wisdom about the need for some regulation
of free markets–fetters if you will–is neither liberal nor conservative,
simply a truism. It’s obviously a matter of choice and degree, but some rules and
oversight are absolutely essential to avert economic chaos; only a
sentimental, utterly laissez-faire anarchist could think otherwise. The SEC, to cite
only one of many examples, is hardly designed to serve corporate greed or protect
corporate monopolies.
Of course, in our gloriously sloppy democratic system, stupid and
destructive laws get enacted, and the pernicious influence of big money in big
politics is undeniable. But while there is no way to eliminate it completely, in a
representative capitalist democracy, it can be, and to some degree is,
mitigated, over time, through the political process. More transparency might help, but
probably not much. Much disclosure is already legally required, and the
mainstream media as well as the blogosphere are full of transparency as it is; you
can’t read a legislative story in the New York Times or the Washington Post
without finding out in detail who’s giving what to whom, which special interest
wants this or that piece of legislation, what politician took favors from
what interested party. We’re already bombarded with a surfeit of information. Of
course big money does influence the public dialogue and in some, though by no
means all, cases can in effect buy elections or favorable treatment. But a lot
of voters–perhaps most–don’t really care that much about the source of
contributions; people vote mostly for other reasons, like perceived personal or
societal interest, however the battle lines are publicly arrayed. Bush, by the
way, went along with the steel tariff (later rescinded) and the huge
agricultural subsidies (which he’s now trying to reduce) primarily for reasons of
electoral politics, the affections of steel workers and farmers and the local
economies that depend on them, not because he was paid off by Big Steel or Big
Agriculture.
I don’t doubt your informed and no doubt well-warranted indictment of the
music industry, but I’m a little perplexed by your fervent opposition to the
bankrupcy bill. It sounds as though your general espousal of unfettered free
markets would not preclude “fair regulation of the abuses of the credit
industry.” But you seem to oppose any reform of the bankruptcy laws to curb the
obvious abuses on the other side, on grounds that the bankruptcy epidemic is an
effective antidote to the depredations of Visa and Mastercard. It sounds to me
like another manifestation of the culture of victimology: People who get in
over their heads are helpless pawns. And the distillers are responsible for
alcoholism, the tobacco companies are responsible for people who undermine their
health by freely choosing to smoke, a municipality is responsible for somebody
who slips and falls on the sidewalk or a kid who hurts himself in a
playground, bartenders are responsible for a patron who gets drunk and kills somebody in
an auto accident, etc. etc. etc.
So the credit card companies lure the unwary into a morass of debt by
cynical offers of excessive credit. An ethical shortcoming, no doubt, but snake
oil salesmen will always be with us, and caveat emptor: You don’t have to be
Alan Greenspan to understand the hazards of piling up mountains of debt or
figuring out what you’re likely to be able to repay. It’s true that unforseeable
crises, like huge medical bills, can devastate a family’s finances, but the
bankruptcy reform by no means eliminates the option, just tightens the rules to
curb the most egregious abuses and, as you note, quite reasonably requires some
repayment by more affluent debtors. You don’t even have to be poor to void a
debt entirely. Advocates of easy bankruptcy, like your incongruous bedfellow
Teddy Kennedy, are only encouraging the flight from personal responsibility. And
whether or not the credit card companies and banks and retailers are big bad
wolves, when they’re forced to eat bad debts the costs are necessarily passed
on to the over-all economy, i.e., the rest of us.
I checked out Reynolds, and found that he enlisted a former student who
happens to be a bankrupcy lawyer to help make the case against the reform,
which seemed to me rather like asking a medical malpractice lawyer what he thinks
about a cap on pain-and-suffering awards.