I didn't mean to say "dedicated minorities should be ignored"! The problem is that if you design a system that lets oppressed minorities protect themselves, it'll also allow non-oppressed minorities to protect themselves. And since they're not oppressed, they'll use the mechanism more than the real oppressed groups. I think this is an acceptable tradeoff. I didn't mean to say that we should restrict special interest groups. I meant to say that it's pretty much inevitable in a free country that special interests will have outsized influence.
The most notorious special interest in America is midwestern farmers, who have left us with farm subsidies that are, as near as I can tell, indefensible on social, ecological, or economic grounds. But farmers aren't poor, but they're not at all "absurdly rich". Even ADM isn't all that rich compared to the set of people who buy food.
You could certainly hand public money to candidates, though I don't see why allowing incumbent politicians to control campaign finance would necessary improve democracy.
The reason why I brought up private expenditures and "independent" expenditures on behalf of candidates is that there isn't much point in barring direct expenditures on behalf of candidates if the people with the money can just spend it "independently." Moving campaign spending from the parties to independent 527 groups is only a limited benefit. So any serious reform along the lines Lessig is proposing really does need to restrict independent private expenditures. I assumed that was taken for granted.
no subject
The most notorious special interest in America is midwestern farmers, who have left us with farm subsidies that are, as near as I can tell, indefensible on social, ecological, or economic grounds. But farmers aren't poor, but they're not at all "absurdly rich". Even ADM isn't all that rich compared to the set of people who buy food.
You could certainly hand public money to candidates, though I don't see why allowing incumbent politicians to control campaign finance would necessary improve democracy.
The reason why I brought up private expenditures and "independent" expenditures on behalf of candidates is that there isn't much point in barring direct expenditures on behalf of candidates if the people with the money can just spend it "independently." Moving campaign spending from the parties to independent 527 groups is only a limited benefit. So any serious reform along the lines Lessig is proposing really does need to restrict independent private expenditures. I assumed that was taken for granted.