Campaign Finance Law and Corruption

Our government has a long history of subsidizing, stimulating, and doing favors in general for private citizens or groups of citizens. Many of these favors go to businesses and corporations that, in effect, bribe congressmen. This has created an environment where businessmen offer money and or support to politicians in exchange for government favors.  This is called Crony Capitalism at best and Fascism at worst: government working in collusion with corporations in exchange for favors at the expense of private citizens.

In order to prevent corporations from influencing government policy and favor distribution, many people advocate for laws banning corporate campaign contributions—to silence the corporate voice.  This would allow individual voters to determine government policy, rather than corporations who buy congressmen.

In my view the problem of corruption is a symptom of the unhealthy marriage between the business and state.  History provides numerous examples of corrupt government and business relationships— from the railroad tycoons of the 19^th century to the financial institutions of today. The corruption is unintentionally caused in part by the encouragement of government/business partnerships.  In some cases the partnership is formed in an attempt to speed up progress.

The marriage of business and state is similar to the marriage between church and state in a fundamental respect.   The church was indistinguishable from the government for over thousand years in Europe. The government-church collected taxes by force and used the money to favor the church.  Therefore there was an incentive for the church to put and keep its members in the government. In our current system of Crony Capitalism, taxes are taken by force and given to business and special interests in an attempt to speed up progress. Therefore there is incentive for corporations and special interest groups to put and keep lobbyists in government.

Regulating corporate political speech will not solve the problem of corruption. It will only make the problem worse. Under fear of government force many potentially influential and intelligent voices will remain silent rather than risk penalty for violation of ambiguous laws.  The corrupt element of society will continue to sneak, cheat and fraud the citizens of the United States.   Sadly, by default, Crony Capitalism will emerge as the lone voice just like the Churches of the Middle Ages.

The solution to corruption requires a constitutional amendment that separates business and state, prohibiting government from subsidizing corporations, farms, special interest groups or private citizens.  Then corporations will have no more influence on government than religion.  It would much be easier to distinguish between the honest and the fraudulent people if the government prohibited all favors.

The argument for regulating free speech through campaign finance laws attacks corruption, a symptom caused by the encouragement of government/business partnerships.  This method of attack misses the mark as is demonstrated by the failure of 100 years of campaign finance laws to prevent corruption. Government interference with the economy is a major cause of corruption. The legal separation of business and economics is the cure.