The Launch of the Mayday Citizens' SuperPAC
lessig.tumblr.com
lessig.tumblr.com
Most Americans also think we spend 10x as much money on foreign aid than we do. The cause of the current economic malaise is a factual issue, not a matter of public opinion.
I have a sincere question for the people who support Lessig's statement quoted above: how can America's current woes not be easily explained by deindustrialization and automation reducing the need for labor, thus putting labor in a disadvantageous position relative to capital?
I go into CVS or Wal-Mart, and see everyone using automated checkout machines with a few cashiers hanging around in case anything goes wrong. Ten years ago, those didn't exist, and there would be a long row of cashiers. Is campaign finance really responsible for the woes of the middle and lower class, or is it technology (and other factors that make Americans of average skill more fungible)?
I wonder if the focus on campaign financing doesn't mistake correlation for causation. I think people mistake the degree to political decisions are caused by the money, rather than the preferences being communicated through the money. For example, if you're a big corporation with hundreds of employees in a Congressman's district, you might advertise in support of him, to communicate the message that raising taxes will lead to reduced employment. What causes that Congressman to vote against raising taxes? The money that was spent, or the message that was communicated with that money?
I guess the bottom line is that rich people and corporations don't need to bribe politicians. In the modern economy, where they can replace most workers with machines or outsource most work to China, or even renounce their citizenship and live as an expatriate in Hong Kong, they have all the leverage. They use the money to communicate their preferences to politicians afraid of contravening those preferences.
My preferred solution would be to stop taxing good things (income and investment) and start taxing not-so-good things (luxuries, frivolities, dangerous but legal products, etc.).
It's also not that stable of a form of government revenue. Vices tend to be inelastic, but luxury spending will often drop precipitously in a downturn.
And, yes, governments should budget with shifting revenue levels in mind. But I think we already have that problem at the state and local level, and I'm certain that our current taxes on income and capital gains are not the only way to mitigate those risks.
If the problem is that people don't have enough to live on, attack that problem (I like earned income tax credits). Don't make new ones by discouraging progress.
It also has to do with the popular feeling that the rich got rich at the expense of their labor and sweat (and hey, it's the truth - it's this way thanks to modern day rentier capitalism). I have this theory that if equality in wealth and income got slightly more even across the board - even if there was no marked improvement in quality of life, people would feel better -- they wouldn't feel powerless, they wouldn't feel they lost the game because it was rigged.
It has been demonstrated that people feel better if they are closer to the top, even if it means impoverishing everyone.[1][2] I do not think this is the type of base urge which people should use the power of the government to indulge in.
[1] http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic212792.files/Indi...
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3315638/Rela...
I pledged.
I think people get who they vote for. It's not like there's an exchange where you can literally buy votes for dollars.
I'm more upset with the electorate for having under-informed or unexamined political opinions.
I think the first step is for Americans to find a way to disagree about politics in a congenial way. As long as it's rude to talk about politics, people will continue to get their information from ads, talk radio, yard signs, comedy shows, and hack blogs.
This is unavoidable. Your vote doesn't matter - the probability of it altering the outcome are infinitesimally (read: too small to represent with a double) small.
Unless you derive entertainment value from informing yourself, why would you waste any time on informing yourself or thinking carefully?
That's nice sounding cynicism, but it's not obvious that the math actually comes out that way. Consider: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/01/yes-it-can-be-r.html
I have no idea where this assumption comes from. To me the more natural one is to assume a binomial distribution - everyone else has a certain chance P of voting for Obama. Then do the normal approximation, and you realize the odds of your vote mattering are vastly smaller (i.e., exp(- delta^2) rather than 1/delta).
People are unwilling to be the person others vote for. You can see this time and again on HN; every time someone points out, "This is a democracy; if you have a problem with it, you can run for office and do better," the response is a mindless, "Well, I can't afford it."
On Hacker News, news aggregator for people without money starting up businesses.
> I think the first step is for Americans to find a way to disagree about politics in a congenial way. As long as it's rude to talk about politics, people will continue to get their information from ads, talk radio, yard signs, comedy shows, and hack blogs.
Agreed. One of the nice deliberative democracy ideas was that we would set aside time and space for discussing politics. I'd like to see more of that, even though I don't fully agree with the entire gamut of that philosophy.
Agreed. However, whether we like it or not, the evidence is overwhelming that money is extremely effective in garnering votes and winning elections.
> I'm more upset with the electorate for having under-informed or unexamined political opinions.
How much work does it take to become a well informed and reasoned voter? How much value will it garner someone to change their vote? It's hard to blame someone, especially people barely scraping by, from rationally choosing to spend their time in other ways. We do need to work on helping voters be better informed. But we should also work on pragmatic approaches that recognize the current influence that money has.
I wasn't disputing whether that's true. I was disputing that it's the money's fault and not the voters'.
> How much work does it take to become a well informed and reasoned voter?
One solution is to increase the information level of voters. Another is to lower the information requirements.
At a certain point, having complex tax codes, complex regulatory systems, and complex power structures becomes a justice issue because it's not fair to expect the average voter to be informed about how carried interest works or how one qualifies for social security disability.
The average voter does not care to keep their government local, accountable, and easy to understand. And I think it's perfectly fair to say they're getting what they voted for.
Actually there is very little evidence that more money correlates with more electoral success. For example the Sunlight Foundation found that outside spending had no discernible impact on election outcomes in 2012. And that was after the Citizens United ruling.
In politics there is an "ante"--an amount of money necessary to run a basic credible campaign--but beyond that, more money does not necessarily get you anything.
It's often worse with smart people. It's similar to my ideas on how people want to do hiring[1], since I've witnessed this pattern in person dozens of times
1. I am a smart person.
2. I have political idea X.
3. Therefore, other smart people should also have idea X.
4. If they don't, they aren't smart, or I need to spend a lot of time fixing their ignorance.
I'm not blind enough to exclude myself. I have lots of beliefs that I think are true in things like the economy, health care, and so on, but lots of smart people disagree with me. They might be right, and it's easy to lose track of that.
For lots of people, politics isn't about finding the best policy, but rather about signalling group status.
"No, this political debate is really super important!" is what you will hear from every single-issue voter.
Two solutions to that issue include:
1. Modify campaign finance laws so that people just give to candidates instead of third-party organizations.
2. Somehow restrict the funding levels or free speech rights of third-party organizations (and maybe campaigns too).
It's not really about what kind of government we want. It's about whether there's a right to buy a bigger megaphone.
My point above was that if people had normal conversations with normal people about politics, they would at least have more information about America and Americans outside of the giant megaphones of the world, helping to mitigate the effectiveness of cash in politics.
I don't think it's even that simple. The policies that are pitched by politicians who are voted into office are often different than the policies they end up supporting after pressure from moneyed interests is applied. Obama's 180 reversal on dozens of things is a perfect example (net neutrality being the most recent).
The reality is, it's almost impossible for politicians to do anything other than vote with the money (evidence shows this statement to be true). In such a system, the only solution is to remove the money. Lessig is attempting to do that.
This TED talk from Lessig gives more background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
The focus of this video isn't the bad economy, it's the obstruction of democracy in our system of government. This is the Princeton study to which he's referring, and which likely played a role in inspiring this campaign:
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...
The results of the study can be summarized as "because of the role of money in politics, we are living in an oligarchy, not a democracy."
Therefore, this campaign has nothing to do with "where did the jobs go" and everything to do with how our system of government is heavily distorted in favor of the ultra-rich, rather than being reflective of popular opinion.
I'll give you that many people would probably link our current economic problems to this failure of our government, but the campaign isn't saying that they're the same thing.
How this point went sailing over your head and apparently the heads of everybody who upvoted your comment is somewhat baffling.
But let's talk about where you're spot on. Lessig sucks at rhetoric. Most liberals do. It's the one point where I feel shame at being a liberal.
If you take a look at his blog post, it's all about money. The only words that talk about the problem are "fundamental change." And while "change" can work as a rhetorical grounding, it is overplayed, and he's not using it well.
No he needs to demonize the opposition and create a sense of unity in his community of supporters. To one degree or another this is how all political change happens.
Here's what I'd do.
Buying our Freedom.
Abraham Lincoln, when faced with the impossible evil of Slavery, sought not war, but peace. He sought to buy the freedom of slaves, to pay fair for the freedom of men. Today we are faced with the equally impossible evil of democracy bought and sold in the halls of washington. Corporations hold enslaved our senators and congressmen and they do it through money. Campaign contributions, superpacs, the corruption of greed grips our government, and government for the people has become degrading servitude to big money.
Lincoln and the good people who believed in freedom and unity for this country were eventually forced into war, but first there was the attempt at reason, at working with those who purchased and survived on evil. Today we are on the same path. The evil of money entwined with politics cannot stand. It divides this nation into have's and have nots. It deprives the average man of his vote and gives it to the rich man. History will judge the evil of this time as a sad chapter in American history, just as we judge the period of slavery, but before History can pass judgment we must act.
Today we will attempt reason, and the language the corrupt understand. We will raise money. We will spend money. And we will do this in defense of democracy, not to control it, but to free it, and give it back to the people.
The men and women in washington do not want to be slaves to big money. No one does. But they have no champions, they have no defense. We will be their champions and we will rise up to protect them. We will raise money, and we spend money as a hammer large enough to smash their chains.
In the next month we will raise such money and spend such money as to show "big" money where power in America really lies. It is in the hands of the people, and the hands of the people are reaching out to take their government back.
In one month we will raise $1 million dollars. Donate now to show them. In 5 months we will raise $5 million dollars. Donate now to free our democracy. And in two years we will raise an army of dollars such that Congress can once and for all throw off its chains. We will buy our freedom, we will have our freedom, or, if forced to it by greed of rich men, we will fight.
Donate now.
Then maybe temper that with something about how people need to be able to stand for their own moral compass/conscience on issues of politics, and only by keeping huge and loud monetary interests out can we hear their individual voices.
If you're looking for but-for causation then they're obviously both responsible, as is the capitalist economic model, world geography and natural resource distribution, biological evolution, etc. Which is why that isn't an interesting question.
The better question is, would fixing campaign finance improve the situation? Which it probably would. For example, there is no rational reason why we shouldn't spend less on defense and more on non-fossil energy research grants, but the campaign finance related reasons are so obvious they don't even need to be described.
> What causes that Congressman to vote against raising taxes? The money that was spent, or the message that was communicated with that money?
The flaw in this logic is it assumes that ability to contribute meaningful amounts to a friendly politician correlates strongly with the objective merit of the politician's policy positions.
I strongly disagree. I support defense spending for a number of reasons: 1) I don't think Americans really want to live in a world where America doesn't have an overwhelming military advantage over everyone else; 2) Historically, defense spending has been the core of our public R&D spending; 3) Defense spending creates jobs in the U.S. that are difficult to outsource.
I think these are "rational" reasons.
> The flaw in this logic is it assumes that ability to contribute meaningful amounts to a friendly politician correlates strongly with the objective merit of the politician's policy positions.
No, it doesn't assume that at all. Go back to the defense spending example above. Would it be objectively meritorious to spend less on defense and more on alternative energy? Maybe. Would it be politically advantageous to spend less on defense and more on alternative energy? Not if you're a politician in Maryland or Georgia or Texas or Alabama whose constituents depend on the jobs created by that spending.
The point I'm trying to make is that people interpret contributions as rich people using money as leverage, when in fact they are often rich people using money to remind politicians they have leverage. The Senator from Georgia doesn't vote in favor of more defense spending because Lockheed-Martin's CEO made a big donation. The Senator from Georgia votes in favor of more defense spending because Lockheed-Martin CEO reminded him, using donations and lobbying, that he employs thousands of middle class people in his state.
There is a lot of defense spending which doesn't actually contribute to that at all. It's just pork that can't be cut because defense spending is a sacred cow, because defense contractors are huge campaign contributors. Otherwise we could cut the fat and leave the meat.
> Historically, defense spending has been the core of our public R&D spending
I don't see how this is an argument for defense spending. There is no requirement that R&D be done under the auspices of the military. And at a given level of R&D spending, classifying it as defense spending leads to more funding for extravagant weapons systems and less funding for fusion power and solar thermal and other actually useful things.
> Defense spending creates jobs in the U.S. that are difficult to outsource.
This is similarly not an argument for defense spending, it's an argument for federal programs that employ Americans. Why not pay people the same money to repair the infrastructure at home instead of blowing up the infrastructure in the middle east?
> Would it be politically advantageous to spend less on defense and more on alternative energy? Not if you're a politician in Maryland or Georgia or Texas or Alabama whose constituents depend on the jobs created by that spending.
But you're not spending less money, you're just spending it on different things. Why should a Senator from Texas prefer allocating a billion dollars to a defense contractor in Texas over allocating the same billion dollars and hiring the same number of people for alternative energy research also in Texas, except that the defense contractor has more money to donate to his campaign than the university?
Obviously a Senator from one state will be unhappy to see money moved from that state to a different one, but that comes out in the wash. Either the Senator from Texas loses a defense contract and gains an experimental fusion reactor site, or the money goes from e.g. Texas to California and the bill passes with the vote of the Senator from California instead of the Senator from Texas.
> The Senator from Georgia votes in favor of more defense spending because Lockheed-Martin CEO reminded him, using donations and lobbying, that he employs thousands of middle class people in his state.
Do you not see how that can distort the policies adopted? The effects of some policies are diffuse and affect people not naturally organized to defend their interests. Allowing campaign contributions to determine policy creates a preference for organized special interests over the general public and for large organizations over smaller ones.
Here's the naked extreme example: Paul wants the government to tax a hundred million people one dollar each and give it all to Paul. Absent campaign contributions, no representatives pay any attention to Paul because that's a ridiculous policy. Enter campaign contributions, Paul pays a couple million dollars to several representatives in exchange for a hundred million dollar return, and the people being fleeced are too busy to concern themselves with such a small amount of money at the individual level, so the representatives benefit from passing Paul's policy. Repeat thousands of times with various degrees of rationalization for the corruption and you get the Federal budget.
One thing I really don't understand about this movement to get money out of politics is what the alternative is? No money in politics? Well clearly someone has to put money into politics or you'd never see signs up, you wouldn't see commercials, politicians wouldn't have websites to post their platforms on, etc.
It seems to me like what people actually want is better politicians and the influence of money is the current reason to see politicians as poor. People have always hated politicians though, didn't we have Nixon before this big money kick? What about Herbert Hoover? Surely he'd be accused of some corporatist agenda today for his blunders.
It seems to me if you don't like how politicians behave and are influenced that the solution is to reduce their power and influence. If, and it's a big if, money is the problem, the money will stop flowing if the benefit of spending it drops. The larger government gets, the more power we give our politicians, and the more beneficial spending that money becomes. Remove the incentives and this problem will fix itself. That probably means many more complaints about why we don't have specific social programs, research programs, defense budget and whatever else we spend money on, but it'll fix the issue of the influence of money.
Can corporations run ads to support a candidate? If not, what's the difference between that and a New York Times (Inc.) editorial?
First of all, who says politicians need to be running expensive advertising campaigns? There are plenty of "pull" channels that don't cost anything. There's not much of a benefit to democracy for politicians to be buying TV airtime and putting up signs everywhere. Presumably people want to hear what a Presidential candidate has to say.
Second, as long as budgets are small it shouldn't be a problem to fund it from any number of sources. Some countries have system for using public money. You could limit presidential campaigns to $1m from deposits totaling no more that $100-$1000.
This isn't even a hard problem.
The solution isn't hard, but getting there is very hard indeed. The system is entrenched.
The first goal is $1M in 30 days, the second is $5M in 30 more days. In both cases the funds will be matched, so they already have $6M near hand, and realistically there isn't that much more you can do with $12M that you can't do with $6M.
I suspect May is to get the first little news articles in the press (Kickstarter meets Elections, underdog to use super pac against super pacs). The June goal is for the follow up articles that should get more widespread coverage.
I'm all for putting campaign finance reform at the front of 2014 and 2016. I'm in.
###ALERT### Check for SSL before donating. As of now the page is not secured.
Edit: Broken autofill on the donation page? Come on, make it easy. I had to type characters and access my memory to make this happen instead of just clicking.
Maybe naive, but that's a showstopper for me.
If you try to use SSL you will find a certificate mismatch with the host as well.
Ok. Don't donate, put a reminder in your planner to come back and try to change the world next week.
I submitted a comment on their feedback form letting them know, but I'm very surprised that Stripe would be involved and not help them avoid such a significant goof-up.
We have decided upon using Stripe as our payment processor. Stripe has offered us a very competitive rate (for which we thank them), and Stripe is compliant with PCI requirements and no sensitive data hits our servers. When you enter in your credit card information, it is not stored on the mayone.us site and goes directly to Stripe via the Stripe.js API.
Or in short: Yes, your money and info are safe. "
They are relying on the stripe.js code to abort the standard form submission and submit via SSL to Stripe's server. What you said still stands though and it is possible for that JS to be circumvented by design or by accident which could cause the information to be sent over an unsecured connection where it could be intercepted.
https://twitter.com/Boyko4TX/status/461902353105317891
EDIT: forgot to link the tweet.
The HTML of the form shows as POSTing to the same page, but the Stripe JS captures the submit event and cancels it, then makes an API call to Stripe's server via a secure connection. It works, but it is still somewhat vulnerable to MitM attacks.
I like @lessig's latest response. Much more firm and reassuring:
https://mayone.us/fec_compliance/
Sincere thanks to everybody who complained to them about this - I wouldn't have donated without HTTPS.
I'm hoping they'll fix this soon.
EDIT: They've added SSL, so go ahead and pledge!
If this Superpac is successful(1), it will only prove that throwing money at the right problem in the right way actually works.
1) Given that the major changes have lately been Supreme Court decisions, this may actually require an amendment to the Constitution, so I am extremely skeptical that success is possible.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/30/john-paul-...
It's plausible $1-10 million could sway a few votes in the Senate if an amendment came to a vote.
How can they collaborate for the "good of the people", when they come from a position of having to pass new legislation to protect the interests of their donors one way or another. When you look at it from this point of view, you realize why so many refuse to compromise on their positions. Maybe they could compromise on ideology a bit, especially if some solution seems to be getting the consensus approval, but it's a lot harder to compromise on what your donors want, and you have to deliver on their wishes if you want to keep the money coming to your re-election.
I dont have a problem with unlimited money in politics so long as there is daylight - If you want to spend money performing what amounts to electioneering, I think your name should go public with the amount of your donation.
Daylight by far is the best nostrum for corruption.
That's because America is a poor country, and doesn't really want democracy. Compare to Russia - no, compare to Moscow:
http://navalny.livejournal.com/845180.html
76 million (unrevocable) rubles in 2 months, with about 32 rubles per dollar exchange rate. Summer 2013, Moscow mayoral race. For the candidate opposing Putin regime.
At the time of this comment, this post has 105 points, 79 comments, and was submitted 2 hours ago. Despite having more points and being younger than many posts on the front page, this post is on the second page. Is it due to the fact that this post is political in nature?
I'm sure a lot of HNers who haven't been on the site in the past 2 hours would appreciate this submission, so it's unsettling to see that it's no longer on the front page.
It's not so easy to fix public policy just by making something illegal that people are strongly motivated to do--a proposition that HN participants understand very well when we talk about drug policy, for instance. To better control the influence of people with a lot of money on a political system that also governs people who don't have much money takes a lot more than this SuperPAC. I'm not sure that it even represents me.
[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21569692...
Billionaires buy media companies that lose money (Jeff Bezos is just the latest one). why? because they want to influence culture/elections/policy. The media has way more influence in elections than crappy ads. But I don't people running around talking about the 0.1% controlling the media in America or doing anything to address that.
Here is the problem: Most voters are dumb / don't care. Rich people can spend money to influence dumb, apathetic people.
Solve that problem and you can get money out of US politics. Focusing on campaign money / lobbyist jobs is just a microcosm of the problem, and will only result in the money being moved to other ways of influencing elections/policy (whack-a-mole).
Show me a solution that prevents rich people from creating the stage for Bill O'Reilly and Rachel Madow.
" What payment processor do you use? Are my money and information safe?
We have decided upon using Stripe as our payment processor. Stripe has offered us a very competitive rate (for which we thank them), and Stripe is compliant with PCI requirements and no sensitive data hits our servers. When you enter in your credit card information, it is not stored on the mayone.us site and goes directly to Stripe via the Stripe.js API.
Or in short: Yes, your money and info are safe. "
http://mayone.us/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Maybe I am missing something about how stripe works?
Say hello to trillions of $.