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A Comment on Campaign Finance Reform

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/28/2005

The Athenian model of representative participatory democracy was both exclusive and direct. It excluded women and slaves but it allowed the rest to actively, constantly, and consistently contribute to decision making processes on all levels and of all kinds (including juridical). This was (barely) manageable in a town 20,000 strong.

The application of this model to bigger polities is rather more problematic and leads to serious and ominous failures.

The problem of the gathering and processing of information - a logistical constraint - is likely to be completely, satisfactorily, and comprehensively resolved by the application of of computer networks to voting. Even with existing technologies, election results (regardless of the size of the electorate), can be announced with great accuracy within hours.

Yet, computer networks are unlikely to overcome the second obstacle - the problem of the large constituency.

Political candidates in a direct participatory democracy need to keep each and every member of their constituency (potential voter) informed about their platform, (if incumbent) their achievements, their person, and what distinguishes them from their rivals. This is a huge amount of information. Its dissemination to large constituencies requires outlandish amounts of money (tens of millions of dollars per campaign).

Politicians end up spending a lot of their time in office (and out of it) raising funds through "contributions" which place them in hock to "contributing" individuals and corporations. This anomaly cannot be solved by tinkering with campaign finance laws. It reflects the real costs of packaging and disseminating information. To restrict these activities would be a disservice to democracy and to voters.

Campaign finance reform in its current (myriad) forms, is, thus, largely anti-democratic: it limits access to information (by reducing the money available to the candidates to spread their message). By doing so, it restricts choice and it tilts the electoral machinery in favor of the haves. Voters with money and education are able to obtain the information they need by themselves and at their own expense. The haves-not, who rely exclusively on information dished out by the candidates, are likely to be severely disadvantaged by any form of campaign finance reform.

The solution is to reduce the size of the constituencies. This can be done only by adopting an indirect, non-participatory form of democracy, perhaps by abolishing the direct election (and campaigning) of most currently elected office holders. Direct elections in manageable constituencies will be confined to multi-tiered, self-dissolving ("sunset") "electoral colleges" composed exclusively of volunteers.