Professional Documents
Culture Documents
When writing this book in 1999, I had no idea that Ralph Nader
would rely on my manuscript to rebrand the U.S. Green Party as
"the
party of the new populism" and mount a presidential campaign
using
its themes. Nor did I imagine that I would be a candidate in a
special
election for Georgia'S U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of
Senator Paul Coverdell. Nor did I anticipate that I would be
roughed
up and arrested for requesting admission to a debate for a
federal race
in which I was on the ballot. Yet, in retrospect, that too is
consistent
with the steady rise in antidemocratic forces identified in these
pages.
Democracy is rapidly mutating into something dramatically
different
from what the founders envisioned.
Though Democrat Al Gore attempted (as predicted) to portray
himself a populist, he failed miserably (as predicted). Certainly
the
rich-get-richer policies advanced by him and by Bill Clinton
undercut
any credible claim to that mantle, except in comparison with the
poli
cies espoused by Republican George W. ("Dubya") Bush. Both par
ties have long embraced a policy mix that further enriches the
few
while leaving most everyone else behind-as I document. As critics
were quick to note, both Bush and Gore were "corporate
candidates"
happy to espouse policies far more relevant to financiers than to
fam
ilies.
The Non-Election
We didn't have a presidential election in 2000. Elections are
meant to
be periodic efforts to guide our progress in this 225-year-old
experi
ment in the pursuit of happiness. Their purpose is to
periodically con
sider, tease out, and identify policy alternatives, confident
that citi
zens possess the critical capacity to make an informed choice.
That's
why a system designed to endure "for the ages" requires ongoing
ro
bustness in its political discourse to ensure that we confront
our
problems instead of passing them on to future generations. Only
the
enemies of liberty would suggest otherwise. And that, I fear, is
what
we now face.
The creative use of policy can tap market forces to nudge media
in
a more democratic direction. A change in the rules could make it
costly for broadcasters to decline access to legitimate political
candi
dates. We could, for instance, deny business advertisers a tax
deduc
tion for the cost of their ads unless the ads are carried on open
-access
media. We could raise their costs by stretching out the period
over
which closed-access firms are required to write off the cost of
their
broadcast equipment. Make closed-access media financially less
com
petitive, and they'll become democratically more responsible. If
we
rewrite the rules to favor locally owned, open-access firms,
market
forces can help rein in the rest. As we craft those initial rule
changes,
we'll get a better idea of the optimum ownership structure
required
for responsible media in the wired age.
Two other reforms could also help revive the robustness of elec
tions. First, ensure that "none of the above" appears as a voter
op
tion for every slate of candidates. That alone could turn out
reluc
tant voters in droves. Many voters view abstention as their civic
duty, the only means now available for registering disgust at the
consolidation of these political parties, their matched-set
candi
dates, and their resolve to avoid widely held concerns. Second,
we
should adopt instant runoff voting, which would allow voters to
rank candidates as their first choice, second choice, third, and
so on.
That way, if a candidate fails to receive a clear majority on the
first
count, the ballots are retabulated, and the candidate with the
fewest
first-place ballots is eliminated. Voters who had chosen the
elimi
nated candidate would see their vote transferred to their second
choice, just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round
runoff.
The process would continue until a candidate received more than
50 percent of the vote. In addition to ensuring majority rule
(versus
candidates who win with only plurality), experience confirms what
common sense suggests: Voter turnout goes up when voters have a
wider range of choices.
Who, in fact, gains from its repeal? Half the benefit would flow
to
the nation's richest 2,400 families, who account for the bulk of
the
largest campaign contributors and who would each save on average
$10 million. To evaluate Bush's claim as the "education
president,"
commentator Matt Miller suggests that we compare the estate tax
savings per well-to-do family with the $235 outlay that Bush pro
poses for each of the nation's 3 million U.S. schoolteachers-for
training, recruitment, and reimbursement for teaching supplies
that
teachers now pay for themselves. Dividing the average estate tax
sav
ings for a wealthy family ($10 million) by the average outlay for
a
teacher ($235) gives what Miller calls the hypocrisy index-in
this
case, a whopping 42,553. In other words, the index reflects a
policy
mix that gives to an already wealthy family about $43,000
compared
with the one dollar it gives to a schoolteacher-and, by
implication,
to schoolkids.
Recovering Democracy
With more than $17 trillion now in the hands of U.S. money man
agers, today's blindly mechanistic pursuit of financial value has
be
come certifiably perilous-to people, to places, and to nature-as
I
document in this book. A similar phenomenon now infects politics.
The trend, based on a 1976 Supreme Court opinion (mentioned ear
lier) that funds spent in support of a political campaign-
regardless of
quantity-are a form of constitutionally protected free speech
effec
tively ensures that ever-increasing quantities of money would
play an
ever-increasing role in politics, changing the very quality of
democ
racy. Happily, because "the system" is flawed by design, its
shortcom
ings can be remedied by design. That's cause for keen optimism
be
cause in a democracy, we are the architects and, as I
demonstrate, we
can design new rules.
February 2001