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Treating Money as Free Speech
MONEY, by definition, is a medium that can be exchanged for goods and services and is used as a measure of their values in the market. We are taught that the value of some things, such as our integrity as individuals, our privacy, and our right to free expression, cannot be expressed in monetary terms.
But in the United States today, we apply this principle inconsistently -- and generally in ways that undermine democracy and favor wealthy people and special interests.
The US Supreme Court, in its 1976 decision in the case Buckley v. Valeo, essentially concluded that free expression can be counted in dollars. Money spent to influence elections, the court concluded, is a form of constitutionally protected free speech.
Most of the money raised by candidates goes toward gaining access to the public airways; candidates for president spend 60 percent or more of their campaign money on television and radio ads. All this money is spent as if Rupert Murdoch and billionaires like him owned the airwaves. But it is really you who own the airwaves. All licensed TV and radio stations are defined by law as public trustees, committed to serve the public interest during eight-year terms. These broadcasters are just granted use on your spectrum, for which they pay nothing.
In reality, commercial TV and radio stations are also businesses that primarily sell advertising, including campaign ads, for profit. Perhaps this is what the court really means when it said that money is free speech. If you have enough money you can get an exclusive free license to speak on public airwaves.
Other Western democracies presume political speech and access to airwaves are priceless. So France, for example, requires all media to provide an equal forum to all candidates, if it is provided to one. Free access to broadcasting's mass audiences is wholly consistent with democracy and the public interest. Moreover, the FCC already has sufficient authority to make this a condition to hold an otherwise free broadcast license as a public trust. Without the requirement to spend huge amounts of money to access instant mass audiences, candidates could instead focus on issues of concern to the American people, and the cost of elections would decrease.
But perhaps the United States instead will continue to act as if basic rights can be bought, sold, and owned. President Bush is on record saying that we ought to create an "ownership society." If so, we ought to go all the way. Let's do that by giving individuals a property right in their own names and personal identifiable information.
This reform would not protect individual privacy from undue government surveillance. But it would begin to limit the amount of personal data collected, maintained, and processed by commercial firms that seek to sell us political candidates -- not to mention goods and services -- based on our spending habits, consumer and political preferences, and psychographic makeup.
Suppose all Americans had a copyright or trademark in their personal information and profile; the actual monetary value could be as little as 1/1000th of a cent. A business would first have to get permission to use an individual's intellectual property and to compensate him or her for any commercial use and benefit. Not to do so would be a trespass, illegal appropriation, or copyright violation. Under this copyright system, individuals would be able to track who is using personal information about then and for what purposes.
Yet, instead of enhancing Americans' ability to maintain control -- individually or collectively -- of their own lives, Congress has scaled it back. To monitor what is happening with new technologies that allow private banks and big mortgage companies to make money off our private data, we all should insist, for instance, that Congress reestablish and adequately fund the defunct Office of Technology Assessment. The office was established in 1972 to provide congressional committees with nonpartisan, trusted analysis of emerging, difficult, and often highly complex technical issues that affect our society. But in September 1995, Congress shut it down. Since then, members have made science and technology policy without fully knowing about the possible benefits and downsides.
If we are keen on truly becoming an ownership society, the most important thing the people must own is their democracy -- which implies owning their government and their own identities.
Nolan Bowie, a guest columnist, is an adjunct lecturer in public policy and a senior fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
© 2007 The Boston Globe
21 Comments so far
Show AllLegalized bribery = special interests pay to play
On the one, as a libertarian, hand I agree that people should be able to spend their money any way they choose, even on political campaigns.
On the other hand, it's quite clear that private campaign financing has destroyed our political system by essentially selling politicians to the highest bidder, which ends up being those with the deepest pockets, such as the rich and corporations. That's not very democratic.
So in light of the ruinous effect private campaign financing has had, I'm willing to make an exception in this case and require all campaign financing to be provided by the taxpayers.
Anybody who qualified to run for office - by obtaining a requisite number of voter signatures - would be granted a campaign budget. This budget could be spent however the candidate wished, but once it's gone, that's it. This approach would give each candidate the same amount of money. It would permit anyone - not just the rich - to run for office. But most importantly, once elected, the politicians could serve the public rather than their private donors.
Dave
I have a friend from the Netherlands who told me they won't allow anyone to campaign more than 2 months before an election. Everyone who qualifies as a candidate (signatures, & donations too, I wonder?) gets equal air time. Candidates are not allowed to speak ill of others, but rather only tell us what they will do. That way any re-election is a true referendum on what they intended to deliver, and not on: See I told you Mr. x was a scurvy dog!
Money is NOT free speech, and anyone who says otherwise: A, has money, and B, will use it any way they see fit in order to get their way.
As long as
I have a friend from the Netherlands who told me they won't allow anyone to campaign more than 2 months before an election. Why, because in the meantime (Bush, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Kerry, McCain and every other incumbent politico in our system) we elected you to do a job. And contrary to your misguided belief, that job is not to get re-elected at any cost!
In The Netherlands, everyone who qualifies as a candidate (signatures, & donations too, I wonder?) gets equal air time on the public air waves. Candidates are not allowed to speak ill of others, but rather only tell us what they will do. That way any re-election is a true referendum on what they intended to deliver, and not on: See I told you Mr. x was a scurvy dog!
Money is NOT free speech. It never truly was, and never will be. Anyone who says otherwise: A, has money, and B, will use it any way they see fit in order to get their way. And you probably won't like their way.
As long as this is the case in the US, we will never have free and fair elections, nor will we have candidates worthy of leading "we the people". Especially when I might be willing to pay someone else to lie for me about my opponent (you "Swift Boat Veterans for... Lies" (because we can buy time to tell them) scum!) You'll never hear the truth from them because they don't know it.
Our system is plainly Un-American. At least as far as free and fair elections are concerned.
Spending inordinate amounts of money in campaigns for candidates or to convince the electorate to favor one policy over another is NOT free speech. It is flood speech, as the purpose is to flood the market so that other alternatives will not be visible.
So, the Supreme Court should rule that there is a right to free speech, but there is no right to flood speech.
I have posted several times: Either the airwaves should be free to the license holders, PROVIDED they furnish free time to candidates, or they be required to buy 3- or 5-year licenses by auction, meet the highest bid for renewal, and revenue from the auctions used to buy free time for candidates.
It is a never-ending battle to wrest away your rights as a citizen from the hands of those that want all the power for themselves. Not taking part in that effort makes a mockery of the ideals that many have sacrificed for. Citizens, you ARE worthy!
I see no problem with allowing corporations the same free speech rights as any private citizen in Amerika - corraled between baracades and vicious paramilitary police forces slavering to initiate violence at any hint of provocation OR lack thereof miles from the event without so much as a mention from the press apart from an occasional sneer or accusation of treason.
Add regular pepper spraying of corporate officers with an occasional swift kick to the nuts and you have true free speech Amerikan style for all.
Recipe for disaster:
- 1 Ruling that Campaign Donations are free speech.
- 1 Ruling that Corporations are Legal Persons, protected by the Bill of Rights.
- Assorted precedents that campaign contributions and revolving door employment by lobbyists do not constitute bribery.
Gradually remove social responsibility from Corporate Charters, creating a sociopathic legal entity. Concentrate wealth in large corporations. As corporate influence displaces public interest in legislative and executive branches, fold in more lobbyists until corporate kleptocracy is achieved.
Serves approximately 1% of 300 Million.
One dollar, one vote. One million dollars, one political whore.
Jon Stewart said it very well. The reason money and speech are not the same is this: If you have one guy who is telling you the most wonderful ideas, and one guy handing out $10,000.00 checks, who do you think is going to get the votes? It isn't the guy with the ideas.
Here is my suggestion:
1) NO private money, Period.
2) A fund is set up to alot a certain amount per candidate, per election. More for the more important offices, but equal for each office runner in any given race.
3) The airwaves, being free to those who hold the licenses, but being owned by the US Citizen, is to afford each candidate equal time for each office, up to a certain amount of time. This will be seen as part of their civic duty, and part of the price for being given a license to print money, which is what those permits are.
4) There will be NO allowed party money for any candidate.
5) NO LYING IN ANY CANDIDACY WILL BE ALLOWED.
6) ANYONE caught violating the finance part of this will be sentenced to jail, whether on the giving or the receiving side. NO EXCEPTIONS.
I don't remember if there are any othere things I've come up with but that is essentially it. If you can't live within the framework as it's set up under this system, then we don't want you as president in the first place. If you can't win on the strength of your ideas, then you have no business running.
Until we get rid of the effects of private money on elections, we will never make any headway on any of the problems that confront us as a nation. We are dooming ourselves to extreme mediocrity with this foolsihness.
Our current form of government can not be called a democracy. It is not 1 person = 1 vote, as it should be. Rather it is something like $100,000 = 1 vote.
No wonder our both parties and the government are primarily interested in advancing interests of big money and big corporations.
Good bye good old America.
What about "personal incorporation?" Then we could all be two people - a real, breathing human and a cold, heartless "corporate personhood." Anyone wishing corporate information may submit a request with the Media Relations office. Use of corporate information without permission is a felony.
The easy solution to all of this is, of course, for candidates to simply renounce the system and run "clean." Resistance to greed is fertile.
Money expended like this may be an expression of free will, but it is NOT free speech.
It says nothing, it indirectly expresses nothing more than the idea that:
"I chose to do this because I am wealthy enough and I expect something in return for it."
I can see money as speech in terms of voting with your dollars when it comes to consumerism, for example. But when we are talking elections, allowing one to cast their vote with their dollars undermines the whole notion of one man, one vote. Might as well just do, as the Yes Men showed in their movie, put our votes up for sale on e-bay. At least we the people would get the benefit of the disgusting amoung of money spent on elections instead of the corporatocracy. (I'm kidding -- clean elections is the only way. Look at all the politicians they rounded up in India because they accepted money -- what we call campaign financing, everywhere else (just about) calls criminal bribery.) If it costs tens of millions of dollars to run a "successful" campaign, who are we kidding that we live in a democracy?
We need to adopt the Dutch system. We shouldn't even know who is running for president yet, let alone should the media be able to say who is going to win and attempt to draft their desired winners into running.
The homeless are free to send $100,000 checks to any candidate of their choice
Daniel Borgstrom: Good one! That's Republican spirituality and economic policy in a nut shell!
Who has more free speech, you or Bill Gates?
Corporate 'personhood' is at the root of so much that is wrong in the US (not to mention globally), and it keeps biting us in the behind when we try to fix any particular issue (global warming, health care).
Before we can achieve any of our goals as citizens of a democracy, we have to UN-CITIZEN the corporations with no right to OUR rights.
I'd love to make corporate 'personhood' the #1 campaign issue, but that ain't gonna happen. But between you, me, and the fencepost, we're not gonna get anything REAL done until we pass a constitutional amendment specifying that constitutional rights are for human beings, not for legally-created entities.
When is Money speech? When it's bought the frikkin' Supreme Court.
Preachin' it,
Peach McD in Durham NC
The "business of America is business" this is almost as "sacred" as the Constitution, so why should one be surprised to find, contrary to what the author said, that everything has a price tag. As we are taught, anything less is godless communism at the worst or at least socialism and that is agin everything american.
Congress won't do anything to cut off the "food chain" for its members, it can't even impeach the eminently impeachable held captive by the hands that feed them. Money is above free speech, above any ideal that used to be taught.