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Scott has a new post on AI and money in politics. I'd like to take a step back and talk about how we got here.
In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that there are essentially no constitutional limits on political spending and advertising. At the time, it was widely anticipated that this would turn American politics into the wild west of corruption, crony capitalism, and corporate propaganda. But in the years after the decision, the feared corporate catastrophe failed to materialize. Trump didn't win in 2016 because of corporate support. In the primary, he bragged that he was self-funding his campaign and so wasn't beholden to special interests. On the Democrat side, Bernie Sanders got a lot of milage out of constantly reminding people that he didn't have a SuperPac.
In 2019, Scott wrote the prophetic Too Much Dark Money in Almonds, in which he pointed out that wealthy actors are probably underspending on politics and then brainstormed ways to turn money into political influence. By 2022, we started to see serious attempts at using previously-unheard-of amounts of money to systematically affect the political process. Sam Bankman-Fried was too-clever-by-half donating money he didn't technically own, but Elon Musk's aquisition of Twitter ended wokeness overnight and likely won Trump the 2024 election. If Scott is to be believed, the cryptocurrency and AI industries are well on their way to fulfilling SBF's dream of rooting the state.
Why did it take 10+ years for this to happen? My hypothesis: cultural inertia (and shame).
Despite being purported as the main beneficiaries of Citizens United, big corporations weren't really trying to spend large sums of money on politics. Exxon Mobil didn't park an oil tanker full of cash in the Chesapeake waiting for the signal to shower Washington in oil money as part of their dastardly plan. That just wasn't how buisinesses operated. It took time to develop both a theoretical framework for how to turn an abritrarily large amount of money into political power (it's a lot more complicated than simply buying ads), and to develop a philosophical framework for why this isn't cartoonishly evil.
I think a big reason money in politics didn't manifest the way the doomers predicted is because money in politics just isn't that effective when employed the way envisioned by the doomers. Taking out hundreds of hours of ads just doesn't move the needle all that much. Instead, as Elon showed, what actually matters is institutions. Buying twitter isn't really something exxon or disney is realistically going to do.
The question is, for political purposes, is any of this affordable? Can you buy Harvard and the rest of the Ivy league? Probably not. Can you buy disney, youtube, etc? For most people, the answer is going to be no. And even if you can, like Bezos did with the Washington Times*, you'll discover your ability to influence the influence your institution wields is still limited by staff.
Edit: Meant the Post.
It is easier than that. Journalists are basically rehashing press releases and are doing little actual reporting. Start a think tank and start producing press releases and your "reporting" will seep into the media as factual news. Buying entire institutions is obviously the most powerful tool but there are many less powerful tools that are cheap. Get social media influencers to promote your cause.
The Kochs have been funding libertarian think tanks for decades, it has been ineffective at making libertarian economics a winning political position.
Libertarianism with a small l is a much more powerful force in America than in other Anglo countries. You could credit the Kochs with some part in keeping it viable if you wanted to.
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They have done an excellent job att providing oligarch friendly policies.
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