Corruption and money in politics are secondary problems. But because they seem bad and wrong to most of us, we easily focus on them.

Conclusion-jumping makes us alarmed, but ineffective

We jump to conclusions out of reactions, not from thinking. And the reactions lead our thoughts to roar to an emotional crescendo. We focus on half-thought but powerful arguments that support our focus. We go off half-cocked. Over the following months, years and decades, we plan, engage and wage the wrong war.

That’s how America got into the Iraq War. It was stupid, unnecessary, a fiasco and a debacle. And it didn’t achieve the original goals, to improve Iraq and stabilize the Middle East.

Similarly, we’ve been fussing about money in politics for a long time, with no real progress. In fact, things have worsened. Hello? Isn’t it about time we took a new look?

Secondary problems blind us to the implications of new evidence

There was the 2014 Princeton study that found America is more of an oligarchy than a democracy. This, too, appears bad and wrong! So we jump to the conclusion that there must be bad and wrong people causing it- the rich and corrupt politicians.

Much of the uproar about money in elections comes from the recent Supreme Court decision lifting the limits on financial contributions to candidates. But the Princeton study looked at Congress from 1981-2002, while we still had limits. The distraction of the secondary problems allowed us to miss this clue that something else was at play.

Pursuing secondary problems keeps us busy but powerless

What solutions are we looking at? Various ways of lessening conflicts of interest. Trying to limit the supply of money from the wealthy. Shall we limiting lobbying? We try to stop the bad people and prohibit what’s wrong. I have no objection to these, and they seem like they’ll help, or at least produce good effects. But they won’t solve the real problem, that the American people are almost powerless.

They strike me as being similar to the drug war. Trying to limit the supply of drugs instead of the demand. The real problem is the addiction to the drug. And it’s not “addiction” like greed or selfishness or lack of discipline. The problem is a lack of something else that people compensate for with drugs. Not realizing it’s really a lack, society is attacking the wrong problem.

And like the drug war, it can go on for years. There’s lots of drama, but no effect. Meanwhile, people get hurt and the problem continues.

A real problem

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I see the real problem being lack of accountability of our elected officials to voters. This points to the most powerful solution- one that our society largely ignores.

To win the drug war, we should lessen the demand. Similarly, the real problem is the necessity for large amounts of money to win an election. The current solutions, to limit the amounts the rich can contribute and give every American a voucher to direct some money to campaigns is interesting. But it ignores other possibilities. PeopleCount, besides delivering accountability to voters, will make inexpensive campaigns possible.

PeopleCount will make politicians accountable to voters. Accountability is a relationship. Relationships require communication. With PeopleCount, voters will keep politicians in communication with them, at low cost, vastly lessening the need for money, and vastly lessening the influence of the wealthy.

Plus, it’ll allow us to get new campaign finance laws passed, if we still want to. And limit lobbying. And much more.

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