(Example is based on US politics, but could apply to any equally corrupt government) In this day and age, it’s clear that rampant corruption is abound with mega corporations buying up politicians with relative pennies they found under their couches.
When words and calls to action fail. Why are there no crowdfunded grassroots movements that actively try to play the same bribery game. If anything, to finally shine a light on how broken the system is.
If the dollar has a voice, why not let the people’s dollars speak?
Of course, this is clearly a terrible idea long term for any system to work like this, plus a bit of a race to the bottom.
The question is more along the line of: Has anyone actually tried this? If so, why/why not?
Be civil please.
Even large groups of people can’t put together enough money.
It also costs a lot of money to organise that kind of thing.
If you look at wealth distribution, it becomes very obvious that the top can always pay more.
OP has a point. You might be surprised how little money it takes to influence legislation. ABSCAM showed just how cheaply political favors can be purchased.
Admittedly, this was $100,000 in 1980 dollars, but even today, lobbyists don’t give millions to politicians to get things passed.
Occupy Wall Street rounded up $400,000 to wipe out $15 million in medical debt not that long ago. I would think that a concerted effort by progressive organizations could collect millions to lobby politicians to write and pass progressive laws. I’ve often wondered why this doesn’t happen.
One potential organisation type to do this would be a labor union. If multiple unions pool their resources they could make a super PAC and lobby hard.
To my knowledge the problem isn’t getting together the funds for any single “contribution”, it’s having the funds to pay the politician off over and over again. Sure, half a million dollars sounds like a lot more than a hundred thousand, but how many times can that half million be successfully crowdfunded? It’s much more reliable for the politicians to just accept the smaller but more consistent “contributions” from the more wealthy parties.
On top of that, outright bribery is illegal, attempting something like that is liable to get you arrested.
When SOPA was a thing the politicians were bought for under $20k
We’re not just looking at individual “donations” to single politicians. But hundreds of them, to all the politicians. And even more to create a massive “People’s PAC” that gets continuous reliable funding for donations, adds, fake studies and all the other crap we have to fight.
you’d be surprised how cheap a politician can be
There were bribe stats I read at some point. It’s often four figures. Pathetic, but yeah we could match that.
The problem is rich people will just start bribing them even more. It’s like bidding at an auction.
Very cheap, but the cost is not only money but influence: billionaire politicians can be swayed by a measly million dollar bribe. The money is more a social norms thing in those circles. A token
Crowd funding cannot exert influence. It is not corrupt, does not own slave factories or stifle tens of thousands with unethical behavior.
They go to the highest bidder.
And the wealthy have enough now to outbid whatever we come up with.