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Lessig On Corruption and Reform
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Mar 09, 2008 01:48 AM
from the only-haggling-over-the-price dept.
from the only-haggling-over-the-price dept.
Brian Stretch sends us to the National Review for an interview with Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig talks about money, politics, money in politics, and his decision not to run for an open seat in Congress. From the interview: "Lessig hates corruption. He hates it so much, in fact, that last year he announced he'd be shifting away from his work on copyright and trademark law... to focus on it... 'One of the biggest targets of reform that we should be thinking about is how to blow up the FCC.'"
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News: LegalTorrents Offers CC Works Via BitTorrent 129 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A site called LegalTorrents has just launched that hosts trackers and seeds for digital media licensed under the Creative Commons license. ('We distribute content with the full permission of the rights holders and use the peer-2-peer file-sharing technology called Bittorrent.') The site even provides a way to donate money to artists you like. (LegalTorrents takes 15% off the top unless you are a member, which costs $50 one-time during the beta period.)" It's always good to see "legitimate" content distributed in ways that make it hard to demonize the distribution system itself — something Lawrence Lessig in particular has been doing for years, and his book "Free Culture" is one of the audiobooks available through LegalTorrents. Note that LegalTorrents has been around for a while now, rather than "just launched," but the current beta period won't last forever.
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Explosives (Score:4, Funny)
Why stop at blowing up the FCC?
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It's all in the wording (Score:2)
(err.. and before someone arrests me for that comment, I wasn't being LITERAL)
Don't worry -- you were merely asking "why stop" at blowing up the FCC -- you certainly weren't advocating any violence (or indeed, even implying that you personally would act to bring about any such violence).
I, too, would not advocate violence against the executive branch of our government, however much they theoretically may deserve to be throttled in their sleep, and however enjoyable that imaginary act could be.
No, we must follow the laws, which exist for very good reason, as any feasible assassinatio
Re:Explosives (Score:5, Funny)
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Because it is a communist compiler used by hackers who haven't paid for the license. And yes, you are right, it spawns new cells every now and then in a process these enemies of freedom call "proejct forking".
I would have moved... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unfortunate he decided not to run.
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FTA:
There may be yet another campaign for Lessig in Congress. More power to him then!
FCC moves aim to curry favor of future employers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FCC moves aim to curry favor of future employer (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:FCC moves aim to curry favor of future employer (Score:4, Insightful)
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You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Interesting)
More government control of the economy = more corruption. The more opportunity congress has to pick winners and losers, the more money businessmen are willing to spend to rig the outcome. The more powerful and less accountable a bureaucracy is to voters, the less checks their are to curb corruption. This is why the scandals in the previous French government and the UN oil-for-food scandal dwarf anything that's ever gone on in America. And the trend is to makle those bureaucracies even less accountable to votes (think of the EU's centralizing drive, and how the latest UK Labour government decided it didn't need to let its citizens vote on surrendering sovereignty to the EU after all. The more centralized power, the fewer chances for checks and balances to prevent corruption. And of course the communist bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union were the most corrupt of all, with millions killed while the Nomenklatura lived in luxury.
As Lord Acton noted, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The larger and more centralized government becomes, the more opportunities for corruption.
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:5, Interesting)
His only plan is to get politicians to promise they won't take lobbyist money, and to "abolish earmarks", and to add more campaign finance restrictions. Sorry Larry, but politicians are professional promise-skirters, and I see no reason to believe that them making yet another promise is going to significantly change how the government works at all levels.
The "abolish earmarks" thing is especially quixotic; you might as well make them promise to stop gerrymandering while you're at it. They'll find another way to do it, and just call it something else, or outright deny that's what they're doing, playing with the word definitions. As for the lobbyist thing, lobbyists have *plenty* of ways to influence politicians besides outright giving them money, and there's not even a way to enumerate all of them, much less make every politician promise to ignore them, and then enforce that promise.
I don't see any part of Larry's plan that makes me think it's more sensible than the Libertarian point of view. The problem of government corruption is just too complex to confront head-on, and it's okay to admit that. "Special Interests" are ingenious, well-funded, and determined; thinking that they can be outmaneuvered forever is just hubris. There is a simple solution, and we know what it is: the way to *truly* remove corruption from a part of the government is to eliminate that part of the government.
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Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The libertarian answer looks good on paper. Neuter the government's power and go from there. The problem is that the politicians will just ignore the new limits on their power, just as they ignore them now. The only people who can hold them accountable, their constituents, won't care enough to throw them out.
There are a lot of factors working against reform:
* Politicians gerrymander districts in order to practically guarantee re-election
* Politicians create arcane ballot access laws and anti-c
Vague?!? Surely you jest. (Score:3, Insightful)
As an example, let me run down some of the items on Barack Obama's issue pages (si
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Libertarianism's answers are often simple, but their justification of these answers very often uses vague a priori logic.
That may be the case, but you failed to provide any evidence for the assertion.
For example, libertarians say that we shouldn't regulate against monopoly, because monopolies are actually always caused by government intervention... somehow or other.
Did the Libertarian article you were reading on this topic actually fail to say how the monopolies are caused by government intervention? Or did you just stop reading? Taking the example of the monopoly most often discussed on /., Microsoft's business model is entirely dependent upon copyright, patent and trademark law. Without government support, Microsoft wouldn't exist.
Or, we should legalize competing currencies, as the US monetary system is going to collapse... any day now.
Libertarians wouldn't say we should legalize comp
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Less government + less government power = less effect of government corruption on normal peoples lives. It's a simple equation, but I don't think it's the least bit vague or unworkable.
"Less government" is extremely vague. What do you cut? How do you cut it without causing major undesirable side-effects? How do you get people behind your proposed cuts unless you can explain what you want to cut, why you want to cut it, and how it will impact those people who's support you want? Keep in mind that you'll need a fairly large amount of support to get anything done, so you'll have to be pretty careful about what you decide to cut. This is just the beginning and off the top of my head too
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As for your "simple solution" - how exactly do you plan to "eliminate that part of the government"? Which seat are you running for again?
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The problem of government corruption is just too complex to confront head-on, and it's okay to admit that.
In 1978 two pivotal bills were passed by a heavily "purchased" US Congress. First, the bill allowing corporations, via lobbyists and other methods, to buy off Congress, whereas previously they hadn't been allowed to contribute to political campaigns due to legislation created and successfully l
How to prohibit gerrymandering objectively (Score:3, Insightful)
you might as well make them promise to stop gerrymandering while you're at it.
I can think of an objective way to make gerrymandering more difficult. Measure the land area and perimeter of each electoral district. From the perimeter, compute the "ideal area" as the area of a square with the same perimeter, that is, the square of one-fourth the perimeter. Then for each district, compute the land area as a fraction of the ideal area, and require each district to have at least a specified fraction.
After I typed that out, I looked up gerrymandering on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], and I found that som
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, those Nordic countries were the state has great control over the economy are also marked by some of the lowest government corruption in the world.
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Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Informative)
A bit of facts [wikipedia.org].
GDP per capita 2007:
Norway: 47,098
United States: 44,765
Iceland: 41,680
Denmark: 38,438
Finland: 37,957
Sweden: 36,687
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Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Insightful)
What does that mean?
My Norwegian 100 kroner bill, which is in my pocket right now, have for the past few years increased 50% in value compared to the USD. The reason for this is the lack of Norwegian economy?
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Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Insightful)
I might also mention that no country in the EU has abandoned sovereignty because countries can leave the EU at any time without approval from the other EU member states. The EU is a treaty, not a country. This makes the EU very fragile. If it became a harm to its member countries instead of a benefit, it would dissolve rapidly.
And by the way, the EU has been very good for my country. Without the EU we would have more pollution, unhealthier food, higher unemployment, severe trade and budget deficits, a devalued coin, higher unemployment, and software patents.
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Therefore, all governments have always been exactly the same size.
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I have to disagree on that one. Some of the least corrupt governments in the world happen to be the scandinavian countries, which also happen to be very much on the socialist side. You can also find plenty of the opposite case, i.e. banana republics where the government doesn't control the economy and is very corrupt. I wouldn't go as far as saying that more govt control means less corruption, but I definitely disagree on your simple "more control = more corruption" statement.
This is why the scandals in the previous French government and the UN oil-for-food scandal dwarf anything that's ever gone on in America.
I disagree on that one to. All the oil-for-food scandals around the world (not just French, there was AU and probably others) are just dwarfed by the US corruption involved in the Iraq invasion. Starting from Halliburton's ex-CEO supporting the was a vice-president, making up false "evidence" (and screwing up the career of the wife of the guy who exposed that in the process), turning a blind eye on over-billing (Halliburton and others), and all the stuff we haven't heard of yet.
As Lord Acton noted, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
True, but there are ways to reduce the power of *individuals* while making sure the govt has control on the economy. Just because the US screwed up at that, doesn't mean you have to deregulate everything. What needs to be done is that the power must be distributed. That's the idea behind the US "checks and balance" principles. The only problem is that there's currently an individual who managed to mostly seize most of the powers. That's where the problem is.
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More government control of the economy = more corruption.
Sorry, I have to disagree on that one. Some of the least corrupt governments in the world happen to be the scandinavian countries, which also happen to be very much on the socialist side. You can also find plenty of the opposite case, i.e. banana republics where the government doesn't control the economy and is very corrupt. I wouldn't go as far as saying that more govt control means less corruption, but I definitely disagree on your simple "more control = more corruption" statement.
The Nordic countries have relatively little control over the business side of the economy, for example the telecom industry in Sweden and Finland is the most libertarian in the world(last time I checked Nokia was basically the entire Finnish stock exchange). The government do however have large say over working peoples wallets. Since people have relatively small amounts of money bribing officials are out of the question. Getting permits to build a house can take years, but will go much faster if the offici
Why not run it? (Score:2)
Re:Why not run it? (Score:4, Interesting)
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it is the nature of government & people in power to usurp more power at the expense of the freedoms & liberties of its nation's citizens...
Re:Why not run it? (Score:4, Insightful)
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That didn't convince you? Okay, let's whip out the biggie:
HOPE.
See? Lord Obama has answered all of your questions! Praise Obama!
I would subscribe to his newsletter (Score:3, Interesting)
Careful there Larry (Score:5, Insightful)
While the FCC has many flaws, be careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. While I mention ham licenses, they do have a place in technical matters as well.
For the benefit of the non-US part of the audience (Score:2)
Please could someone explain what Lessig means by an 'earmark' in the article?
Re:For the benefit of the non-US part of the audie (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a tad more complicated than that, but that's the gener
All Politics is Local (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem is that our current system was not built to handle vast government bureaucracy that has cropped up since WWII. Now look, before any liberals get pissy, I'm not a Paul-tard, and I'm not saying that government should only build roads, delivery mail, and fund a military.
That said, fundamentally, the U.S. form of representative democracy was built to do just that. It was meant to keep politics as the local and state level, while the current political discourse in this country has increasingly grown more national. Take the legislative bodies in the states and Congress for example. All of them are based on the idea of direct representation. A state legislator or House Member's role is to keep his or her constituents happy. If not, he gets the boot. And at the state senate and US Senate level (the latter especially after the 17th Amendment), the scope expands to a broader constituency, but the goal stays the same.
This structure creates an incentive and drive to keep the locals happy regardless of what the greater national interest might suggest. Now, that drive worked perfectly fine as long as the government had very little cash to dole out. Back in the 19th Century, the most a legislator could do was maybe bring some funding back for a new post office, roads, or at most a military installation. Government, especially at the federal level, did little else. Even education was rarely handled at the state level. There was very little money in government, and thus very little to try to corrupt. And when corruption did occur, it was on a much smaller (monetary) scale. (Hell even the land scandals with the railroad companies, while extremely bad, didn't really cost the government any money.)
Now, fast forward to the current situation where federal spending over the last 50 years has been at least 20% [cbo.gov] of the GDP, and where it is now accepted and expected that government's role is to dole that money out to someone, whether it be corporations through subsidies and contracts, the poor through welfare, students through college grants and loans, schools through grants and funds, the elderly through social security, the sick through medicare, deficit-inducing tax-cuts for taxpayers, and on and on.
With the current system, legislatures' are lured to keep the local folks happy by offering them a greater and greater share of the pie. They try to squeeze a nickel here, a dime there and before you know it, they've nickel and dimed their way into a quarter-trillion (or whatever it is now) dollar budget deficit. Look at Iraq, look at Social Security, look at the prescription drug benefit, look at no child left behind. All of these are just short term rackets run to please voters without any regard for any long-term damage they might be causing (i.e., inflation, debt, higher tax rates).
It's the reason why the Democrats spent their way into deficits while they were in power in the 60s. It's the reason why Republicans did the exact same when they took power in the 00s. It's the exact same reason why we'll still be running a deficit 4 years from now regardless of who wins this next election. (In case you can't tell, my pet peeve is deficits.) It's the culture of pork-barreled politics, and the principle behind it ("bringing home the bacon") leads our governments--state, local, and federal--to writing checks that our society cannot cash.
You know, it's not even really corruption per se. It's just the way the system was set up, and its probably functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended it. They just probably didn't intend for it to go beyond post offices, roads, and the military. All politics is local. Perhaps that is a maxim we (the U.S.) as a country need to rethink.
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Yes, the US govt has grown immensely since WW2.
However, the deficits have bloomed out of control due to inadequate taxation on the rich, which began during the Reagan Administration. Presently, the highest incomes actually pay less (percentage wise) than middle income earners. Bush's tax reductions on the rich only exacerbated the problem, and that is why the USA is staring at 1/3 to 1/2 trillion dollar deficits forever.
What we have seen over the past 100 years is the development of
What made the government grow (Score:3, Informative)
You have just described a government that is wholly absorbed in building a national infrastructure.
If your constituents lived on the Atlantic or Gulf coasts, the Great Lakes, they wanted a lighthouse, a customs station, a ship canal. "Internal improvements" as they called it in those days.
T
Corruption? Where is corruption? (Score:3)
I'm a citizen of the USA and after I lived in China for a few year between 2003-06, I made this observation:
In China, corruption is widespread but mostly illegal (and people complaint about it rather loudly.)
In the US, corruption is not as widely spread but it is mostly legal because it has morphed into "political contribution" and "job opportunity" (and few people complaint about it -- hey, we vote this government -- we are democratic -- how can corruption happen in a democratic system.)
Re:"Blow up" the FCC? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That sounds like a dangerous proposition. Kudos to him, though, if he can get anywhere real with it.
-FL