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When people make the counter-intuitive argument about access != influence I'm reminded of the heady days when I would get shouted down for pointing out that marketing influences all of our decision making. The proof? We pour more and more money into it every year just to keep up. Same with access. Former Congressmen, staff, aides lobbyists and so on - and all the campaign money spent and all the state and local positions gobbled up by the tentacles of national campaigns - all this isn't happening as a guess about the outcome. Sure, there are some weirdo ideologues out there with single issue nutbar stuff. There's Bill Maher tossing $1MM at Obama to prove a point, but that's not what's really under discussion when we talk about influence. Access absolutely results in the ability to change the way laws are written, executed and judged as well as the ability to get things funded or de-funded, investigated or squashed and so on and that access is gained by direct monetary support or by buying off people who already have access. If this isn't true then the situation of the explosion in contracting, lobbying, consulting and so on - and the concordant ascent of DC and the surrounding counties from a middle class nothing (or in some cases shitholes) to the richest part of the country - would be completely counterintuitive, but if there's anything that growing up through almost 40 years of ideologically conservative counterintuitive arguments has taught me (e.g. "lowering taxes spurs growth that raises tax revenue, period!" or "if we just get the government out of [industry] then the market will be freed up and consumers will benefit!") it's that they usually sound wrong because they usually are wrong, not because my intuition is wrong. Hell, I have friends who are Congressional staff and researchers and things who've then gone on to become lobbyists. They'll paper over it a bit, but they pretty freely admit that the reason they can make the leap is that they can get access for other people and that their networks of access with people they're connected to have value. Knowledge of process and other things are also important, of course, I wouldn't deny that obviously, but without the connections you're just someone who knows how stuff works.
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Apr 18, 2014 19:20
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Kalman posted:Just going to throw out here that Adelson wasn't the only one making noise about using the word "occupied" and Christie retracted it because he didn't want the people who fundraise for him to be irritable. Also going to throw out there that retracting a statement is very different from changing policy - does anyone really think that Christie was going to back the PA over Israel and only decided not to because Adelson made noise? My point wasn't that Adelson is attempting to make policy with this, but that it is a clear example of how money buys influence. Christie needs Adelson's money to have any sort of a chance at even a solid run for president. It is almost silly to think that Adelson would be able to get Christie to retract a statement but would have no influence on the policies that Christie would put forward. Another example is Newt Gingrich. He was backed almost entirely by a single donor. Are we honestly supposed to believe that donor wouldn't have massively outside influence when he got into office?
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Apr 18, 2014 19:25
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ReindeerF posted:Hell, I have friends who are Congressional staff and researchers and things who've then gone on to become lobbyists. They'll paper over it a bit, but they pretty freely admit that the reason they can make the leap is that they can get access for other people and that their networks of access with people they're connected to have value. Knowledge of process and other things are also important, of course, I wouldn't deny that obviously, but without the connections you're just someone who knows how stuff works. That sort of access is qualitatively different from the access that campaign donations obtains, and far more valuable. And also essentially impossible to ban. Like I said, good luck banning knowing someone.
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Apr 18, 2014 20:37
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Kalman posted:(That said, I know nothing more than anyone here does about presidential politics and the interaction of money and policy there. I know a decent amount about how it works in the Senate, and some about how it works in the House. There may be differences in the presidential, state, and local contexts.) That's the thing, though. When people on this board talk about the corrupting influence of money in politics, they aren't just talking about the U.S. Senate and House. A Chemical Spill in West Virginia quote:Unger recalled the first time that a lobbyist for a chemical company asked him to vote on a bill. “I said, ‘I don’t sign on to anything until I read it.’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s not the way it works around here.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know how it works down here, but that’s the way I work.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t learn to get along, when it comes to your reelection, we’ll stick a fork in you.’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Sir, with no due disrespect to you, but you weren’t for me when I got elected, and I got elected!’ ”
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Apr 18, 2014 20:40
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ReindeerF posted:When people make the counter-intuitive argument about access != influence I'm reminded of the heady days when I would get shouted down for pointing out that marketing influences all of our decision making. The proof? We pour more and more money into it every year just to keep up. Same with access. Former Congressmen, staff, aides lobbyists and so on - and all the campaign money spent and all the state and local positions gobbled up by the tentacles of national campaigns - all this isn't happening as a guess about the outcome. Sure, there are some weirdo ideologues out there with single issue nutbar stuff. There's Bill Maher tossing $1MM at Obama to prove a point, but that's not what's really under discussion when we talk about influence. Access absolutely results in the ability to change the way laws are written, executed and judged as well as the ability to get things funded or de-funded, investigated or squashed and so on and that access is gained by direct monetary support or by buying off people who already have access. I don't usually like to make a base argument, but any time I hear things like money doesn't equal access I am very tempted to use the argumentum ad comeonareyoufuckingkiddingme fallacy.
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Apr 18, 2014 20:45
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Are there people here arguing against that study that was just put out, or something else entirely? I can't exactly tell.
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Apr 18, 2014 20:57
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Wrong-thread
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Apr 18, 2014 21:01
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This seems pretty relevant.quote:"The offices who just thought they were being asked to meet with normal constituents, we almost never got a meeting with a member of Congress, or a chief of staff or a legislative director — the most powerful people in congressional offices," says Broockman. "On the other hand, when we reveal that the attendees were donors, they were more than three times as likely to get those meetings." PDF of the experiment Money buys you access. But so does lying. Therefore both are equally bad.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:09
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Reality posted:This seems pretty relevant. But not as bad as the science in that article. http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2014/03/on-money-buying-access.html
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Apr 18, 2014 21:15
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Reality posted:This seems pretty relevant. In light of Kalman's post and discussion thereof, I see this almost more as an analog to how a number of companies engaging in direct customer (or broader corporate) support function, especially with regard to the "whale" types of customers. There is a functional system in place in which you speak to a first tier of support (the aides), and they escalate you upward depending on the nature of your issue as well as shielding the representative from the more mundane/idiotic complaints from constituents. In the simpler cases, the aides maybe resolve the problem directly, depending on what agency they happen to have. Where it breaks down in government is the same place it breaks down in private business; if the "whale" customer calls to complain, they get a third or fourth tier support person almost immediately (or maybe a VP if the complaint is broad enough), where it might take you, as the normal customer, a month to get there (if at all). On the one hand, a political "whale" might be some piece of poo poo who gets all uppity about the use of common vernacular terms regarding Israel. On the other hand, maybe the "whale" is the head of the NAACP, since money isn't the only token of power. I'm not saying this is a good thing (I feel like breaking it down such that citizens are "customers" is a dangerous path to go down), but it does seem to be a similar process, and personally, I'm happier to learn it works this way as opposed to how my cynical mind assumes it does (just a bunch of rich white guys playing golf and discussing how to gently caress over the common man). EDIT: Clarity of verbeage George RR Fartin fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 21:23
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Kalman posted:But not as bad as the science in that article. quote:While I applaud the cleverness of this experimental design, and experimental designs have the potential to solve causal puzzles, in this case it is not clear that the experiment has addressed the question of spurious correlation. It could still be the case that the offices that accepted high-level meetings have an underlying commonality with the group, or that the signal of being a donor is suggestive of some other common attribute. As the authors themselves acknowledge in their exchange with John Sides (but not in the paper) it could be that offices expect donors to be more informed or more likely to vote or to mobilize voters. quote:A local constituent can also be a donor; these are not mutually exclusive categories. Moreover, whether or not a request was made by a donor is a matter of public record and one that a staffer can easily look-up or double check. Therefore, the random "treatment" of receiving a message from a true donor is suspect, since a constituent could also be a donor, and staff could verify this information which would nullify its effect as an experimental treatment. quote:This experiment was conducted in June, July, and August; however, there is not an equal probability of "winning" high-level meetings across this time period because Congress goes on recess in August. In August, it's much less likely to get a meeting with member and may be more likely to get a meeting with an Legislative Director, for example. How do we know that the calendar didn't determine the meeting? quote:The authors of this study show that 2 of 86 meetings were high-level for constituents, while 10 of 86 were high-level for donors; but it's unclear if this difference is statistically significant and whether its reasonable to generalize from this limited sample.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:46
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Inferior Third Season posted:This "criticism" is far worse than anything in the original article. Let's go through his own points: I note you ignored the "and other research has come up with completely opposite results" part of that post.
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Apr 18, 2014 22:49
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Kalman posted:There's plenty of literature out there on how access rarely equals influence on the issues people care about enough that there's significant discussion; where access is influence is on issues where only one side cares enough to speak, so there's no counter-information to be had. Yeah, but in that case Comcast/GLAAD can turn around and given their money to those Senators challengers, who probably do agree with them or are at least persuadable. The end result is the same - the money guys are disproportionately more likely to get what they want than I am. Now I suppose you could go further and say "yeah, but it's not like Bringing Back Slavery PAC can buy their way to policy success - no politician (candidate or incumbent) would sign on no matter how much green" and that's true. But there's a wide range of policies that it is feasible for America to take and for money to push us to, and that's not exactly good just because "Literally Abolish Democracy" or something isn't in that range. Kalman posted:I note you ignored the "and other research has come up with completely opposite results" part of that post. That's true of most things in the social sciences. Also I'm less likely to take the reading advice of a guy who can't find the section on statistical significance in the paper he's allegedly critiquing. The paywall there makes it pretty hard to discuss or critique the claims of the papers. But generally I'm skeptical that research originally run in 1996 and re-run in the mid-2000s (the 2000 and 2008 are publication dates, not experiment dates) has a lot of relevance in a world like campaign finance where we've seen the ground dramatically shift every 2-4 years in terms of how campaigns are financed and organized and run. I can't read much about the experiments because of the access-wall, but I'm also somewhat concerned by the idea that apparently they used volunteer congressional schedulers who knew they were being tested on something? That sets off a lot of alarm bells for me in terms of design, but then I don't really know since I can't read the full papers. anonumos posted:This direction of discussion also does not address groups like ALEC of our political system, which write word-for-word legislation and then literally (not figuratively) bribe their favorite politicians to promote it/vote for it without even reading the text. These groups would never have the influence they have without money exchanging hands. Lots of money. Ungodly amounts of money. Honestly, politicians crave respect and you could probably get pretty far by skipping the campaign contributions and just keeping the complete soup-to-nuts policy & propaganda wing - if Fox News is blaring about something and respected conservative magazines are pushing it and you have papers from "prestigious" think tanks and you're getting the MSM to take the idea seriously, you're pretty far towards getting it enacted before you're writing campaign checks. Get a bunch of business moguls to suck up to the politicos about it and you're almost golden. Of course, moving all those mountains I just listed takes money too. Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 22:51
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This direction of discussion also does not address groups like ALEC inour political system, which write word-for-word legislation and then literally (not figuratively) bribe their favorite politicians to promote it/vote for it without even reading the text. These groups would never have the influence they have without money exchanging hands. Lots of money. Ungodly amounts of money.
anonumos fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 23:00
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anonumos posted:This direction of discussion also does not address groups like ALEC of our political system, which write word-for-word legislation and then literally (not figuratively) bribe their favorite politicians to promote it/vote for it without even reading the text. These groups would never have the influence they have without money exchanging hands. Lots of money. Ungodly amounts of money.
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Apr 18, 2014 23:05
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Kalman posted:I note you ignored the "and other research has come up with completely opposite results" part of that post.
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Apr 18, 2014 23:17
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Stream of consciousness highlights from the Princeton study, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, linked in the article Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy cited on previous page:quote:Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics – which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism – offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented. quote:The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. quote:Recent research by Larry Bartels and by one of the present authors (Gilens), which explicitly brings the preferences of “affluent” Americans into the analysis along with the preferences of those lower in the income distribution, indicates that the apparent connection between public policy and the preferences of the average citizen may indeed be largely or entirely spurious.7 quote:As to empirical evidence concerning interest groups, it is well established that organized groups regularly lobby and fraternize with public officials; move through revolving doors between public and private employment; provide self-serving information to officials; draft legislation; and spend a great deal of money on election campaigns.21 Moreover, in harmony with theories of biased pluralism, the evidence clearly indicates that most U.S. interest groups and lobbyists represent business firms or professionals. Relatively few represent the poor or even the economic interests of ordinary workers, particularly now that the U.S. labor movement has become so weak.22 quote:Gilens and a small army of research assistants29 gathered data on a large, diverse set of policy cases: 1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor/oppose question about a proposed policy change. A total of 1,923 cases met four criteria: dichotomous pro/con responses, specificity about policy, relevance to federal government decisions, and categorical rather than conditional phrasing. Of those 1,923 original cases, 1,779 cases also met the criteria of providing income breakdowns for respondents, not involving a Constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling (which might entail a quite different policy making process), and involving a clear, as opposed to partial or ambiguous, actual presence or absence of policy change. These 1,779 cases do not constitute a sample from the universe of all possible policy alternatives (this is hardly conceivable), but we see them as particularly relevant to assessing the public’s influence on policy. The included policies are not restricted to the narrow Washington “policy agenda.” At the same time – since they were seen as worth asking poll questions about – they tend to concern matters of relatively high salience, about which it is plausible that average citizens may have real opinions and may exert some political influence.30 quote:Taken as a whole, then, our evidence strongly indicates that theories of Biased Pluralism are more descriptive of political reality than are theories of Majoritarian Pluralism. It is simply not the case that a host of diverse, broadly based interest groups take policy stands – and bring about actual policies – that reflect what the general public wants. Interest groups as a whole do not seek the same policies as average citizens do. “Potential groups” do not fill the gap. Relatively few mass-based interest groups are active, they do not (in the aggregate) represent the public very well, and they have less collective impact on policy than do business-oriented groups – whose stands tend to be negatively related to the preferences of average citizens. These business groups are far more numerous and active; they spend much more money; and they tend to get their way. quote:What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. radical meme fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 23:45
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Hey now quote the study that he said disagreed with it because that could be the one that's correct! The truth is in the middle. If we didn't pay the politicians a lot of money then how would they eat food or buy a house smart guy. Imagine poor Kalman in the office like 'man this campaign finance is making my life really good since I work in a politician's office... is it really bad?... maybe...' Cool Bear fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 23:46
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SumYungGui posted:It's unfortunately easy to understand how money has turned elections into an Oligarchy free-for-all, with politicians and their election campaigns being regarded as a line-item investments for international mega-corporations. How does that happen for the Supreme Court though? They're not elected and they're in for life, yet every few months we get another 'Gee aren't mega-corporations swell guys? We should give them THIS legal protection' ruling. Money hasn't "turned" elections into that, that's how elections have always been in the US. Some people might feel that the old days of "you have to have money to even vote" was more honest, of course.
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Apr 19, 2014 00:01
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Kalman posted:I note you ignored the "and other research has come up with completely opposite results" part of that post. Probably the same people funding lobbyists funded those studies that say lobbying has no effect. (I'm joking, but they'll do this next.)
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Apr 19, 2014 00:33
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Install Windows posted:Money hasn't "turned" elections into that, that's how elections have always been in the US. Some people might feel that the old days of "you have to have money to even vote" was more honest, of course. At least in the old days the machine would help out it's members in exchange for their loyalty. Even if you didn't get a job you at least got money/beer for voting. And you could do it more than once.
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Apr 19, 2014 02:10
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Kalman posted:I note you ignored the "and other research has come up with completely opposite results" part of that post. Kalman what senator did you work for so I can go look up their voting record/FEC filings and find some quid pro quo?
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Apr 19, 2014 05:51
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Jagchosis posted:Kalman what senator did you work for so I can go look up their voting record/FEC filings and find some quid pro quo? You can't actually show quid pro quo from it 
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Apr 19, 2014 05:53
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:You can't actually show quid pro quo from it
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Apr 19, 2014 05:54
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Install Windows posted:Money hasn't "turned" elections into that, that's how elections have always been in the US. Some people might feel that the old days of "you have to have money to even vote" was more honest, of course. Everything that I want to say is bad re- edit: I said here something about how I think money always wins. I thought it was trite or overplayed and pointless. I have been quoted, though and I own all quotes. Sorry for the confusion. Cool Bear fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 05:55
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Cool Bear posted:I wish I knew stories of when money failed, and the will of the people won It's interesting that you make the assumption that will of the people and the preferences of the moneyed classes never coincide.
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Apr 19, 2014 06:02
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:You can't actually show quid pro quo from it I don't mean in the "bribery beyond a reasonable doubt" sense and more of the "Gosh I wonder why Senator Dickbutt voted that way?" sense. For example, the "Legal?" section in the following article: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/diaz/article/Sen-Leland-Yee-case-illustrates-culture-of-5377678.php quote:Legal? It would be a real treasure to find something that obvious, though Yee is kind of a dipshit.
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Apr 19, 2014 06:03
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Cool Bear posted:I wish I knew stories of when money failed, and the will of the people won  It did take two elections and is definitely not a boring story. quote:edit: *at the same time *and the people weren't bad and ruined it *and it was democratic *ghost che guevara save us Oh, well, um...
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Apr 19, 2014 06:04
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Install Windows posted:It's interesting that you make the assumption that will of the people and the preferences of the moneyed classes never coincide. I define "will" as what they actually want, and you define it as what they stupidly idiotly vote for
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Apr 19, 2014 06:05
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Gyges posted:
In the case of A.J., did the money LOSE? edit: I think the money won. The people may voted stupidly and idiotly, but the money won that is for sure, with A.J. the fucker Cool Bear fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 06:08
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Cool Bear posted:I define "will" as what they actually want, and you define it as what they stupidly idiotly vote for The California Proposition system is an excellent example of the true will of the people also being stupid and great for the moneyed interests. 
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Apr 19, 2014 06:08
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Install Windows posted:The California Proposition system is an excellent example of the true will of the people also being stupid and great for the moneyed interests. If someone with a bunch of money didn't lie to them every single time, then the props would be a perfect democracy
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Apr 19, 2014 06:11
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For example, the CEO of Mozilla aka Firefox recently stepped down because he donated one single thousand of dollars to the gently caress the faggots foundation
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Apr 19, 2014 06:13
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Cool Bear posted:In the case of A.J., did the money LOSE? AJ paid off the national debt, shook up the patronage system, and destroyed the National Bank. Sure it was good for some money, but I don't think anyone could ever seriously argue that Andrew Jackson ever did a single thing that wasn't either out of love for Rebecca or black hatred for virtually everyone else. If you tried to buy him I'm quite sure he would have shot you, assuming you were out of caning range. Edit: Reagen may have been working toward space lasers, but Andrew Jackson is our one true supervillain president. Gyges fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 06:13
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Cool Bear posted:If someone with a bunch of money didn't lie to them every single time, then the props would be a perfect democracy This is basically religous thinking.
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Apr 19, 2014 06:15
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Cool Bear posted:If someone with a bunch of money didn't lie to them every single time, then the props would be a perfect democracy Prop 8 is a pretty good example of something the people actually wanted (to be horrible bigots) winning out despite more money being raised by its opponents.
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Apr 19, 2014 06:16
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Gyges posted:AJ paid off the national debt, shook up the patronage system, and destroyed the National Bank. Sure it was good for some money, but I Destroying the national bank sounds extremely helpful to me. I work in finance irl
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Apr 19, 2014 06:16
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radical meme posted:Funny that you should be talking about oligarchy today. Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy. What bothers me even more is that the next stop on the Plato government cycle train is tyranny. 
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Apr 19, 2014 06:19
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VitalSigns posted:Prop 8 is a pretty good example of something the people actually wanted (to be horrible bigots) winning out despite more money being raised by its opponents. Sounds like you need a new state for your north if you think the majority of your idiots want to ban the gays. I live next to Philadelphia I know your pain. edit: everyone should see the map of america which shows each county or electoral district two dimensionally the colors, red and blue of which president they voted for, and then vertically shows a big bar going up for how much population is in there. All big bars up are blue and flatland is red.... not this but something like this:  ....naw look at all that blue in california what the fuckdid you do wrong with the gay vote?! now I have to wiki it... Cool Bear fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 06:19
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I say let them have their horrible rural states. Let them secede. For like two years until they starve. edit no I'm wrong, pending research Cool Bear fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 06:21
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