If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?
Definitely, I would change the laws and rules for electoral campaign funding. A few things that I would implement:
- Limit donations: cap the amount individuals and corporations can donate to campaigns.
- Ban Super PACs and Dark Money: prevent large, anonymous donations from influencing elections.
- Public funded elections: offer government funding for campaigns to reduce the reliance on private donors.
- Stricter transparency laws: implement real-time tracking of campaign finances.
I will explain why I would do this through an hypothetical example.
A thought experiment
Let’s just make a little theoretical exercise. God forbid this would happen in real life. Imagine a billionaire who can’t run for the presidency, say, because he is an immigrant. Or better yet, imagine a group of billionaires trying to enter the political world. Each one of them would manage corporations with skills in an important area for society. Social media. Electronic commerce. Car industry. Space exploration. Technology information. Artificial intelligence. Computer and electronics. Have you pictured that? Good!
Election campaign funding
Nevertheless, they want to have some influence on the politics of the country. To achieve this goal, they spend a large amount of money on the campaign of one of the candidates. Needless to say, that candidate is another billionaire as well. Many people would consider that amount to be obscene. Yet, for them, it’s not much really. Besides, the favors they would be owed and the return of the investment would compensate it. They would invest “just” a few hundred million dollars in the candidate’s election campaign. As a result, their wealth would increase by a few hundred billion dollars. This only in the first couple of months after the election. Not bad, eh?
Government influence for unelected people
But their influence doesn’t stop on the money invested. They are nominated to run a department (or several departments) within the winning government. You see, now they have clearance to approve or deny any projects. Some would argue that they have more influence than the president himself. But note that the people has not really elected any of them. The president, the one they helped to get elected, is handing them the keys to the kingdom. The people are not the ones giving them this power.
An oligarchy is governing
These billionaires are promising to save billions of dollars in government efficiency. They run the government as if it was a corporation, they are only worried about profit. In short, the projects they are cutting are the ones that benefit the poor people, inside and outside their country. More and more they start doing more business between themselves. They promote tax cuts for the super rich, not for the general population. Inflation is rising and cost of life is going through the roof. But the important thing is that their wealth is always increasing. That is what an oligarchy does. Before you know it, they have taken over the government.
Well, if this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that’s because it is. This is also the path for an autocracy and dictatorship, after one of them grabs on to power forever. If you want things like these to be avoided, the rules of the country need to change. For sure, I would start with the laws for electoral campaign funding. In the long run, it would make elected officials accountable to the people, instead of to a few wealthy friends.