Lawrence Lessig may be the greatest radical at work in America today. Lessig a polymath professor at Harvard Law School is no ivory tower type. He is a radical someone who strikes at the root of things in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. His latest book The USA is Lesterland breathes intelligent courageous-to-the-point-of-heroic radicalism from every pore. The USA is Lesterland is the most important political book of 2014.
Lessigs core proposition:
… I offer a simple way to understand the nature of the corruption that is the United States Congress today. I also sketch out a strategy to fix it. That corruption isnt illegal corruption. Its not the bad behavior of bad souls. It is instead the ordinary behavior of good souls within a corrupted system. Its legal corruption and it has infected and poisoned our government. Like a magnet beside a compass or molasses in a gearbox or a wheel not aligned: This is a system of influence that corrupts the government of our Republic. And it is a bi-partisan equal opportunity corruption. It blocks the Left. It blocks the Right. It blocks both in the sense that it makes it harder (maybe impossible) for either side to get the principled reform that each side would push.Lessig creates a sort of fairy tale to make his point simple and compelling. Rather than Alice in Wonderland we get Lessig in Lesterland with Lessig casting himself more Cheshire Cat than Alice. However in light of the gravity of the problem this is more epic David and Goliath than fairy tale. Once upon a time" his book opens there was a place called Lesterland. He uses as a literary device the fact that 150000 Americans are named Lester. And that 150000 people fund Congressional elections. He develops a winsome extended metaphor. What if candidates had to gain the support of many preferably a majority of the 150000 Lesters … before the rest of us got to vote? That would give the Lesters disproportionate influence on elections. Lessig then notes that candidates do have to raise enough money to run from 150000 self-selected campaign contributors. Lessig does not present this as an attack on the rich or on capitalism. It is an attack on a campaign financing system that gives disproportionate influence to around a quarter of one percent of the electorate (themselves a minute fraction of the rich" few of whom make political contributions). Lessigs demand for a system that creates as a non-coercive option without muzzling big donors a bigger presence for rank-and-file voters is consistent with arguments that this right-wing columnist elsewhere has made about the crucial vitality of citizen engagement. Since about twice as many Americans consistently describe ourselves as conservative than we do liberal it is slightly indecipherable that so many conservatives are diffident about Lessigs proposition. Restoring consent of the governed" is not about Right versus Left. It is about setting up a system to restore control of Congress to us outsiders the people over the insiders the special interests by creating an incentive for us to contribute and an incentive for candidates to take our contributions in preference to those of the special interests. And most Congressional campaign donors are special interests if only because they are victims of a Congressional extortion racket. Lessig a man of the Left is not propounding a system to privilege Progressives (although some of his Progressive admirers are appropriating and corrupting his work to their own ends). He offers 200-proof pure constitutional populism. His proposition is as consonant with Conservative principles as it is with Progressive ones. He does not advocate violence against the First Amendments guarantee of free speech by proposing limits on independent expenditures. As much as he detests Citizens United and the power of SuperPACs he recognizes the terrible danger posed by government censorship of political speech: If I thought that the only way to end the corruption of our government was to risk this type of censorship Id think long and hard about whether to risk it." Lessig is eloquent about how the current financing system hurts the Right at least as much as it does the Left.
The Right wants a smaller federal government. But the current system for funding elections only gives the Congress an interest in keeping a large and invasive government. For example when Al Gore was Vice President his team had an idea for deregulating a significant portion of the telecommunications industry. They took the idea to Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill wasnt impressed. Hell no" was the response described to me. If we deregulate these guys how are we going to raise money from them?" The need to raise money thus tilts Congress members the preserving the extortion-like power that only a regulator (or thug) can leverage. … Or think of the Rights desire for a simpler tax system Herman Cains call for a 9-9-9 plan" for example or Rick Perrys call for a 20 percent flat tax. The motivation here is not hard to understand. … So … the existing system for funding campaigns tilts Congress away from a simpler tax system in part because complexity makes it easier for them to raise money.What then is Lessigs solution?
How could we end this corruption and make it possible for We the People to move on to the issues that we must address sensibly? The analytics are not hard. -IF- The problem is a system that forces candidates to: (a) spend too much time raising money from (b) too small a slice of America (aka the Funders") -THEN- The solution is a system that (a) demands less time raising money and raises its money from (b) a wider slice of America (aka the People").This is not Leninism. This is constitutional populism. Lessig lays out the problem his strategy and his proposed tactics in The USA is Lesterland following a TED talk that has drawn well over a million views and now is coupled with a new million dollar SuperPAC MayOne.US designed without irony to end the disproportionate influence of all SuperPACs. Most politics is engaged with maintaining the status quo or making tiny incremental changes. Lessig proposes a radical change. As Jefferson famously wrote in Americas fundamental mission statement the Declaration of Independence Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. Lessig thus bears a burden of proof. Are our current evils sufferable? The political status quo really is bad. How bad? America is well into its fourth decade of wage stagnation. Many of the elements of our cost of living are inexorably rising. The real price of gas at the pump has approximately tripled from 10 years ago. Our wages have been flat. Stagnation really began when President Nixon took America off the Bretton Woods international gold-exchange standard. Promptly thereafter median family income which had been rising smartly flat-lined. Meanwhile the rich get richer" went into overdrive. This writer has called our stagnation the The Little Dark Age." Democrats call this predicament income inequality." Republicans call this inequitable prosperity." Or should. We workers are struggling to make ends meet. 40 years is a long time. Our officials are not listening or when listening are offering trivial often bad solutions. Could this be a symptom as Lessig declares of a corrupt Congressional election financing system that is to blame for distracting our elected Representatives? Will The USA is Lesterland succeed in rousing America? Will its proposed solution survive robust public debate? Will Lessig and his allies develop more credible tactics than peer-to-peer conversations; than the underpowered rootstrikers.org; than calling upon nonprofit groups to tithe into his cause; than praying for a wave of non-politician politicians; than romantically hoping for a Regent presidential candidate to run ... and if elected resign as soon as this is enacted? Or even a SuperPAC to take out those who do not subscribe to his agenda.... Lessig gets populism beautifully… but in this old politicos view doesnt get politicians or politics. Quixotic mechanisms deriving from a certain blindness to the human element of politics weaken prospects for achieving a noble goal. To succeed Lessig as David needs five far smoother stones than these.... Will Lessig catch lightning in a bottle? Will he succeed in birthing a financing system for Congressional elections that demands less time raising money and raises its money from a wider slice of America? If so will it bring about the transformation in government responsiveness he promises? As former Federal Reserve Governor Henry Wallich once said Experience is the name we give to our past mistakes reform that which we give to future ones." Wikipedia notes that the first PAC was created by the CIO in response to the Taft-Hartley Act prohibiting campaign contributions by labor unions. PACs really took off in response to amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act restricting the amount of money that could be given directly to a Congressional campaign. Thats neither a snarky aside nor counsel of despair. This could succeed. Is this good code? The Devil Lessig is in the details. Meanwhile … The USA is Lesterland belongs at the center of our immediate and future politics. It belongs in your mind. Welcome to Lesterland. Welcome to the most radical project in America today.