Jeffrey Sachs has written this in the FT this morning:
America's two political parties depend on wealthy contributors to finance their presidential campaigns. These donors want and expect their taxes to stay low. As a result, social divisions, broken infrastructure, laggard educational attainments, high carbon emissions and chronic budget deficits are likely to continue no matter who is elected, even though the public supports higher taxes on corporations and the rich.
That's capture of the state.
Call it corruption, if you like, for that is what it is.
As he says:
Only a big political realignment, perhaps spurred by a third party bold enough to campaign on free social media rather than expensive television advertising, is likely to break the status quo. Until then, the demise of public goods and services will continue apace.
And that's not just true of the USA.
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Really good article from Sachs. I’m increasingly of the opinion that only a completely new political party, not based on the discredited model of funding by corporations and high-value donors but on a true grassroots movement, would be able to effect real progressive change in the US or the UK. The Democrats in the US and the Labour Party in the UK are just too compromised and wired into the status quo. The nearest thing to a new political force on the left in the UK at the moment is the Green Party but it is still at only about 2-3% in national opinion polls, which is depressing… but there is a clear upward trend in evidence even if progress is slow.
There are many days – more days than not – when I agree with you
Stella Creasy is the latest Labour MP to evidence that the party offers no hope
That’s interesting for the UK, where all business groups and most of the press backed the Tory Party in 2010, ignoring the Libs and Labour – and the Tories got 37% only of those voting. I wrote a psephological note at the time which said: ‘Tories 2010 election did not get rise in voters from 2005 from the middle class, but from the skilled and semi-skilled working class voters. Prepare for ugliness, as the Sun reader and Daily Mail reader alliance will be anti-tax, anti-debt, anti-social security, anti-house buildinganti-union, and anti-public sector.’
And now in the New Statesman ‘Exclusive: Osborne’s supporters turn on him:Leading economists who formerly backed Osborne urge him to change course’, George Eaton, 15 August 2012.
How Labour and the Lib Dems react up to 2015 will say a lot about our political culture.
Congressman Denis Kucinich has set up an online donation site to back those candidates not funded by the wealthy. Optimistic that DK says there are ‘good’ honest candidates wanting to run!
One step in the right direction would be the state funding of political parties based on number of votes received at the previous election. This has been suggested in the past and the public reaction has been ‘I don’t want my taxes to fund those b******s. If you want to support a party, pay for it yourself’. A lack of joined up thinking, methinks.
Trouble is that does support the status quo….
I think it helps, but not whole solution
Amongst other problems with the present system – if the Tories had had to go it alone as a minority government, they would have called another election within a short period of time and would have been the only party with the money to fight it.