User:Sometimesgocrazy/Slight rethinking for neoliberal market society

Table of contents:

 * 1) Introduction
 * 2) Positive effects of market economy on democratic election
 * 3) Super PACs
 * 4) Corruption in democratic election
 * 5) Political advertisement on media
 * 6) Conclusion
 * 7) Citations

Introduction
Marxist classic doctrine holds that there is a close interaction between politics and economy. Economy is the foundation of politics, and politics is the concentrated expression of economy. The market economy and democracy are no exception. The market economy fosters democracy, and democracy promotes the further development of the market economy. Robert Dahl, contemporary American political scientist, likens to this: Democracy and market capitalism are like two couples bound by a discordant marriage relationship. Although the marriage was full of contradictions, he was unbreakable. Because neither party wants to leave the other. The metaphor is that the two are hostile symbiosis. Historical experience has repeatedly proven that whether a society can establish a stable democratic politics can not be achieved only by a democratic constitution. A certain degree of development of a market economy is a prerequisite for the establishment and stability of democratic politics. In the past few years of practicing democracy, there has been an increase in political influence coming from donors who donated a large sum of money to political candidates in exchange for political favouritism after they got elected. This trend is becoming increasingly more serious after the U.S election congress had passed a legislation bill which removed the price cap from one single political contribution.

The research question is that, How is the market economy corrupting democratic elections? I would be talking about positive and negative effects of market economy on democratic elections issues, and examples of U.S. democratic general elections, in particular the questions raised about the Super PACs, are discussed. The less morally tenable commodification of votes and highly controversial topics about the political advertisement on social media are also studied.

Positive effects of market economy on democratic election
Driven by the market economy, the cultural quality of citizens has generally improved, and the political quality of citizens has continued to increase. Citizen's political quality is composed of political participation attitude, political participation knowledge, and political participation technology. These three parts are positive circular relations. With a certain cultural quality, citizens can realize that they are independent individuals and have their own interests. In order to realize their own interests, they must actively participate in the management of public affairs, and their initiative and enthusiasm for political participation will inevitably increase. And the change in attitude to political participation has prompted people to pay more attention to various political knowledge. The richer the knowledge of political participation, the better the technology of political participation, manifested in the citizens' flexible use of civil rights to protect and pursue their own interests in a legal manner. The political culture cultivated by the market economy advocates modern democratic concepts such as equality, competition, and freedom, and encourages citizens to actively participate in the country's political life and participate in voting and elections through legal and legitimate channels.

However, there are more negative effects of market economy to currupt democratic elections.

Super PACs
Political action committees (PACs) are organizations set up within major corporations, labor unions, civil society organizations and other special interest groups in the United States to raise funds for elections. Since the 1950s, the American presidential election system has gradually evolved into a candidate-centered election system, where candidates are relatively independent individuals, and their political future mainly depends on their talents and influence rather than the party. What's more, many modern American voters identify themselves as independents, and they often vote by candidate rather than party. This requires candidates to rely on professional political operations and mass media to communicate with voters and make themselves public figures who can effectively connect with voters. It takes a lot of money to do this, so raising enough money is a big factor in the outcome. Since their inception in the middle of the 2010 election cycle, super PACs have raised and spent more than $2 billion. More than half that amount—almost $1.4 billion as of June 2016—went toward IEs supporting or opposing federal candidates. Although there is a certain limitations on individuals making political contributions. The aggregate contribution ceiling on individuals during the 2011-2012 election cycle stood at $46,200 for federal candidates and $70,800 for national parties, or a $117,000 aggregate limit. However, corporations or organizations can still put almost unlimited amount of funds though Super PACs to influence the course of election and policy making decisions with necessary transparency.

PACs often use money to influence presidential elections in the following ways:

1. PACs give candidates "Issue Ads". This method of using money is to promote the candidate together with his or her claim on a problem, but not to call people in clear language to defeat or elect the candidate that has been identified. According to the United States Federal Election Law, only publicity in clear language is restricted, so this publicity is not illegal and can achieve the purpose of publicizing a candidate.

2. PACs pay compensation and provide services. PACs often transfer donations to candidates in the name of paying various fees. Candidates can usually get a significant amount of donations through touring lectures, attending banquets, etc. Of course, the criterion for payment is not the candidate's ability to speak but his policy preferences. PACs also donate money to candidates by providing services, such as free polls for candidates, free transportation services, free staff, free communication lists, and so on.

3. In the past, PACs focused their efforts on donating money to candidates, who used those funds to reach voters. In today's elections, PACs both donate to their favorite candidates and more directly use their funds to maximize their own influence on the election, that is, to support them independently without the candidate's request or consent Or oppose a candidate ’s activities, including advertising to the voters, mailing, etc. and ensuring that they are sent to polling stations to vote.

In the United States, many people have expressed strong dissatisfaction with the use of money by PACs to influence the presidential election. Even if all donations and uses of PACs are justified, it will still have a corrosive effect on our politics: future politics will only be for the rich. Some candidates have publicly stated their refusal to accept donations from PACs and use them as a basis for attacking the other party. In the 2004 presidential election, Bush publicly stated that he did not accept donations from PACs and attacked Kerry's relationship with special interest groups. Kerry responded that he received less funding than any candidate from PACs. But in fact both Kerry and Bush are known for being good at raising funds from PACs.

Proponents see PACs as a manifestation of American political pluralism. They argue that imposing restrictions on PACs campaign contributions would constitute an undue restriction on the right to freedom of political expression protected by the Constitution. According to American political scientist Roger Hillsman, PACs represents the interests of special interest groups. These interest groups are organizations set up to solve a particular problem or promote a certain political opinion. They play a useful role as investigators for American civilians. Proponents believe that interest groups are based on a common attitude, and conflicting views among their members can be unified in various ways to form a common goal; each interest group can also make compromises with each other to form a unified opinion.

Democracy is national. The meaning and standards of democracy are different in different civilizations and traditions. The United States has been regarded as a country of participants since the founding of the nation. The United States political system recognizes the legitimacy of interest groups in participating in political operations and recognizes that politics is carried out in the process of coordinating various and interfering participants and their interests. It also recognizes that power and wealth can be mutually realized. As such, donations to the presidential election are not in themselves considered illegal, such as bribery.

Democracy is national. The meaning and standards of democracy are different in different civilizations and traditions. The United States has been regarded as a country of participants since the founding of the nation. The United States political system recognizes the legitimacy of interest groups in participating in political operations and recognizes that politics is carried out in the process of coordinating various and interfering participants and their interests It also recognizes that power and wealth can be mutually realized. As such, donations to the presidential election are not in themselves considered illegal, such as bribery. The endless debate over PACs and presidential elections is essentially a reflection of the ancient paradox of "political freedom" and "political equality." The McCain-Feingold Bill of 2002 finally established the advantage of "political equality". As to the impact of PACs on presidential elections, US law always makes a series of restrictions while acknowledging, and repeated adjustments in the law are also the result of this debate. The current campaign finance system in the United States is actually a fusion of political freedom and the concept of political equality and judicial decisions that define the legitimacy of government regulations. The contributions of PACs included in this finance system and the resulting impact on presidential election Nature is part of this fusion product. This situation reflects both established and maintained laws and the evolution of American politics.

Generally speaking, starting in the 1970s, the US presidential election has been moving in the direction of "political equality." It can be predicted that PACs are still facing new adjustments, but no matter how they are adjusted, their direction is always to prevent economic inequality from becoming political inequality. To a certain extent, the impact of PACs on the presidential election has been weakened. Some people predict that the role of PACs will become smaller and smaller. However, from the development trend of PACs, as long as the debate on "political freedom" and "political equality" has no result, The impact of PAcs on the presidential election will not end, but the ways, ways and degrees of its role will continue to change. PACs donations are still looking for new ways to influence the presidential election. The more realistic destination is party-oriented civil society.

Corruption in democratic election
Capitalism and democracy are twin ideological pillars that can bring unprecedented prosperity and freedom to the world. The conventional wisdom is that where capitalism or democracy flourishes, another must follow. Today, however, their fortunes are beginning to diverge. Democracy has weakened largely because companies are spending more and more on lobbying, public relations and even bribes and kickbacks as they compete increasingly with consumers and investors around the world.

In the real world, turnout rates are skewed and can change significantly under the influence of money and organization. Voting often changes based on the influence of the candidate, and the image is particularly subject to the role of expensive advertising. Candidates and political parties are concerned with a number of policy-related issues. For these reasons, each of them can expect the impact of money on election results. Experimental results prove this view. The facts are quite clear. Large amounts of money are generally necessary for those trying to enter the House of Representatives. The elections of the Senate and the President are a matter of throwing gold and silver, so that success may be entirely based on fundraising.

Without freedom, there is no democracy. There is also no equality or democracy. Freedom and equality are the prerequisites of democracy, and they are also the essence of democracy. The American social system is based on the principle of freedom first, tolerates inequality economically, and believes that economic inequality is the result of free competition based on political freedom and equal opportunity. Conversely, any attempt to interfere with economic inequality through the visible hand of the government is in fact a violation and violation of the principle of equality of political freedom. But the question is: Can economic inequality in turn ensure political freedom and democracy? Because economic inequality will inevitably lead to economic monopoly and economic strength, which will inevitably affect political equality and democracy. This is a paradox in the design of social systems in the West, especially in the United States.

In fact, when American society became a more personalized entity across barriers of race, ethnicity, gender, and other forms of exclusion, it also suffered from the "pain" of the growing income and wealth gap. Money-income can be easily and directly transformed into political power, and it is transformed on a 1: 1 basis: double income generates double professional power. The great success of Barack Obama ’s fundraising on the Internet in 2008 demonstrated the democratization of the campaign to “donate money”. However, things are not as pleasant as good people think. Money in the early days of the campaign was largely on Wall Street, and big donors were always important; even most of the money raised on the Internet reflected that big donations were still provided by wealthy people. In any case, the biggest campaign donors are not aimlessly throwing money away; they are actually hoping to get some kind of political return. What they want may be a close relationship with the growth of their wealth. Although the data from the national sample survey did not reveal that the policy will of large donors is different from that of ordinary Americans, it may be because the investigators did not pay attention to the important issues that the rich care about. In fact, the richest people differ greatly from most important donors in their concerns. Bulk donors may be able to insist on raising their status as a condition of action on key issues. The people and the political parties may know what kind of initiative they put forward in order to get money. For politicians, if the impact of money-damaging votes exceeds the effect of any concession, rather than letting them lose their votes, it is more obvious to adopt a key wealth position.

Political advertisements on social media
As a newly emerged agenda, the debates on whether social media corporations should be part of the political campaign machine is highly diversified. Companies like Twitter prohibits political advertisement in any form from any parties or organizations including Super PACs or 501(c)(4) while at the same time, allowing political figures like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders or anyone for that matter, emphasizing personal political opinions on political spectrum for voters' support. They believed that "political message reach should be earned, not bought"

Meanwhile, we also have company like FaceBook being accused on helping foreign or domestic individuals or organizations for political gain, selling users' confidential datas in the Cambridge Analytica incident, accepting political parties' campaign advertisements requests base on the rights to exercise the First Amendment. To some certain extents, CEO Mark Zuckerberg even emphasized that the company will be not fact checking the political advertisements on their page. Which although might seemed controversial, is the freedom of speech that they understand.

Anyone in the United States has good reason to believe that, within certain conditions and scope, smart investment of money can shift bad public opinion in a direction that citizens are interested in. When the atmosphere of information eases the intensity of the debate, the apparent energy of group public opinion can reach sensitive conclusions; under certain conditions, even a "rational public" can be fooled. This kind of thing is especially easy to happen when elite communication is rock solid. Many scholars understand that the content of mass media can affect both what the public thinks and how they think. The agenda of the public is affected, initial decisions are stimulated, and perceptions are changed, and collective policy will is touched by the aforementioned content based on television, publishing houses and the Internet. It also creates opportunities for slandering candidates who threaten oligarchs, spreading government dishonesty, changing government's subjective intentions, and obscuring the essence of advice.

One of the most important and easily replicated findings of media research is that official sources-especially the President of the United States and his government-can often dominate political news in the mass media. Most Americans have to rely on the facts and explanations provided by officials for world and domestic political issues most of the time. As far as the elected officials or scope are concerned, the perception that public opinion is indirectly produced by oligarchs seems reasonable. More directly, oligarchs can properly arrange information competition through advertising and friendly or acquired airy reporters. Case studies related to special mechanisms suggest that public opinion may be manipulated. For example, a distressing example for many people in the United States-the United States' invasion of Iraq was carried out with misleading information and misleading the public. It clearly confirms that the officials' flashy words can indeed manipulate public opinion-especially in foreign policy. Because the process of making foreign policy is often complex, far from the general public and subject to core information controlled by executive officials.

Indeed, the production of any public opinion that represents the interests of the American oligarchs is more likely to take place in a slow, hidden, and difficult-to-fashion environment. Including long-term influence, including through the aforementioned planning agencies and foundations, think tanks, volunteer scholars, and people who pass on information. Increasing concentration and the sympathy of a minority of company-owned media on the idea of ​​an equal economy and the auxiliary role of the US education system cannot be ruled out. It is very difficult to bring together evidence that meets the definition, because it involves the existence or absence of such a long-term persuasive effect.

Conclusions
If we link this facebook policy implementation with the Supreme Court ruling on April 2nd, 2014 about the case McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which decided that the current political contribution cap is in violation of the First Amendment. Are we looking at possibly that there is this trend that American society is shifting towards to a market politics?

Though the market economy can benefit democratic votes, it also corrupts democratic elections. This article provide some examples of U.S. democratic general elections, in particular the questions raised about the Super PACs, are discussed. The less morally tenable commodification of votes and highly controversial topics about the political advertisement on social media are also studied.