One dollar, one vote?

Let me start today by admitting that I am not an unabashed supporter of democracy. As every other form of government, it has advantages (arguably many) but it also has some disadvantages, among which I am going to cite three: vote suppression/gerrymandering means that the elected politicians can tweak the electoral law to give some votes more values than others, or even to warrant or deny the right to vote to certain groups that might be favorable or adversarial; populists can convince citizens to vote for a representative that will not be able or interested in defending their interests; and the lack of engagement means that some citizens do not value the power of their votes and might be open to selling their vote (or their abstention) to one of the factions in exchange for immediate benefits.

Imperfect as it is, democracy is the form of government that we have given ourselves is most western countries and it is the duty of the institutions and the citizens together to police democracy to ensure that it works as well as technically possible. Already in the 1880, trade unionist George Howell used the motto "One man, one vote" to defend equal rights, which has later been revised to "one person, one vote" as women achieved voting rights. And even if there is still some leeway in the discussion of what "one person" means (what should be the legal voting age? are convicted felons allowed to vote? how about people with varying degrees of incapacitation?), the principle has mostly held throughout the last century in what affects the elections themselves. However, the previous step of opinion building, where citizens inform themselves to decide which way they are going to vote, the arena is far from level.

Photo: Hedda Gabler

There are many salient examples of people of money who enter a political career just because they can afford it and, through generous campaign spending, reach a certain amount of relevance. Ross Perot run for president as an independent candidate in 1992 and got almost 19% of the popular vote even if that did not net him any electoral college vote. Donald Trump was already a millionaire and TV personality when he entered the republican primary for the 2016 election and we all know how that ended. Arguably, all this advertising is irrelevant unless it manages to convince a sufficiently high number of voters, but it is obvious that you need money (your own or from donations) to make your message heard.

In that sense, one of the darkest moments of democracy in recent years has been the victory of Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell in the Citizens United vs. FEC case, essentially removing any limit in corporate spending on political campaigns by corporations: if your friends have pockets that are deep enough, you are essentially guaranteed re-election by out-spending your rival in campaign advertising, thus the title of the article, because what determines the electoral power is not the number of people who believe in you, but the number of votes you can muster and that is inextricably linked to the amount of money you spend on advertising (with a few honorable exceptions).

However, there is yet another frequently underestimated example of plutocracy that does not even have to go through the ballot: charitable organizations. In a well-established well-funded situation, the government identifies the needs of the population based on the mandate they are given and act to meet these needs: if public education becomes a common demand, the elected government should, in all honesty, make an effort to improve it. But the same applies to other hot social topics, like freedom of speech, gay marriage, social security, gun control vs. right to bear arms, etc. A frequent problem in the U.S. compared to other western democracy is that the federal government is either underfunded or does not have jurisdiction to act on some of these issues. So charitable organizations raise to the challenge and fill the gap that the government cannot fill... with an agenda. For instance pro-life organization might provide healthcare to impoverished populations in exchange for an explicit refusal to undergo abortions. A union of soy growers might fund (or help fund) the school district on the condition of the school cafeterias serving tofu at least two days per week. And the number of similar manipulation cases is only limited by your imagination. Are these not political actions that go completely under the radar and are not subject of the ellections?

The saddest part of this manipulation is that in many cases it is unwillingly funded by all the taxpayers. When a non-profit organization is exempt from paying taxes, all the citizens have to make up for that money either by getting less services or by higher fiscal rates, so these associations with a political agenda end up being allowed to operate mostly without our consent and also with very limited control of their ideological undertakings.

You will not be surprised if I end up stating that, in my opinion, it is much better to encourage a democratically elected government to listen to the citizens and to try to serve their demands with the taxes they levy than relying on potentially rogue organizations that act on the political agendas of their powerful patrons, outside the control of the citizens at large. I just hope that today's rand did not carry echoes of a conspiracy theory, because that was not the way it was intended. Just think about who is better suited to distribute the money next time you plan to make a donation. Enjoy your evening.