{"id":13942,"date":"2014-06-13T12:40:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T16:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=13942"},"modified":"2014-06-13T12:40:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T16:40:30","slug":"campaign-finance-corrupt-gift-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=13942","title":{"rendered":"campaign finance as a corrupt gift economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congressman Vance McAllister admitted Thursday to voting against legislation in the U.S. House anticipating he would get a political contribution for his vote.\u00a0A Republican from Swartz [LA], McAllister spoke about the matter as an example of how \u201cmoney controls Washington\u201d and how work on Capitol Hill is a \u201csteady cycle of voting for fundraising and money instead of voting for what is right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rep. McAllister actually added <\/a>that someone told him, “Vote no and you will get a $1,200 check from the Heritage Foundation. If you vote yes, you will get a $1,000 check from some environmental impact group.” Those specific figures\u00a0suggest\u00a0quid pro quo<\/em> corruption, which is illegal and should be formally investigated. But let’s assume that Mr. McAllister\u00a0was making that part up for color, and the real story was\u00a0more typical.\u00a0No one offered the congressman $1,000 for a vote, but he (or an adviser) calculated that if he voted a certain way, he would be\u00a0more\u00a0likely to raise money from a given interest. <\/span>According to the Supreme Court<\/a>, that kind of influence is not corrupt, which is why I would denounce the\u00a0Court’s\u00a0understanding of fundamental\u00a0ethics.<\/p>\n

Conceptually, it might be helpful\u00a0to understand our campaign finance system as a gift economy. \u00a0The anthropologists\u00a0Bronislaw Malinowski<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Marcel Mauss<\/a>\u00a0discovered that\u00a0market exchanges are not the only systems that work at large scale and that permit the circulation of goods. It’s also possible to have a whole system (or a subsystem) built on gifts. People\u00a0give things to each other, and they may do so for non-altruistic reasons–prestige, favor, or\u00a0an expectation that they will obtain\u00a0gifts as a result.\u00a0But there is no prior agreement to reciprocate a\u00a0gift\u00a0with something of equal value. In fact, having a prior agreement makes it not a gift.<\/p>\n

For instance (as I blogged years ago<\/a>),\u00a0Beowulf<\/em> depicts a gift economy. The hero learns that Hrothgar, king of the Danes, is suffering from the scourges of a monster, so, unbidden, he sails to Denmark to offer his services. After he has killed Grendel (a whole day after, in fact\u2013see line 1784), Hrothgar allows him to choose treasures from his store; Beowulf is \u201cpaid and recompensed completely\u201d (2145). The hero sails home and gives everything he has received to his king, Hygelac (2148). Hygelac responds by giving Beowulf an ancient sword, land, hides, and a hall and throne.<\/p>\n

None of this is negotiated in advance. As Hrothgar tells Beowulf (in Seamus Heaney\u2019s translation):<\/p>\n

For as long as I rule this far-flung land
\ntreasures will change hands and each side will treat
\nthe other with gifts; across the gannet\u2019s bath,
\nover the broad sea, whorled prows will bring
\npresents and tokens. (1859-63)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is all very appealing and noble, but the worthiness of a gift economy depends on what is given. In Beowulf<\/em>, <\/strong>wives are gifts (see 2017), which is not so good\u00a0for them. In our Capitol Hill culture, the money it takes to get elected and the votes cast on public policies are treated as gifts. Only if\u00a0lobbyists\u00a0are so\u00a0gauche as to negotiate\u00a0them as quid pro quo<\/em> exchanges may they be banned. It is a medieval system–and not in a good way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressman Vance McAllister admitted Thursday to voting against legislation in the U.S. House anticipating he would get a political contribution for his vote.\u00a0A Republican from Swartz [LA], McAllister spoke about the matter as an example of how \u201cmoney controls Washington\u201d and how work on Capitol Hill is a \u201csteady cycle of voting for fundraising and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13942"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13952,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13942\/revisions\/13952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}