>>>about two different reaps and two different reapers.
"It seems like your reapers are the politicians and your prizes are the campaign contributions, bribes and the like. ... My prizes are the those garnered from the government, the contracts, leases, entitlements, grants, tax loopholes, tax expenditures, regulatory advantages, etc. and my reapers are those who seek influence both to get a bigger share of those prizes and to get the government to increase the available supply of those prizes."
I was seeing the reaps as a mutually beneficial exchange; where the politician won't come to the virtual party unless he/she knows the goody bags and entertainment value will be sufficiently loaded and your reapers are satisfied the gifts provided by the party goers will be satisfactory, and so suddenly Rupert Murdoch and George Soros have more influence over your representative than you do.
"To solve a problem you have to get to the root of the problem. You have to drill down amidst the clutter to find the essence of the problem. It is easy to mistake some symptom for the problem. Or something that correlates with the problem. So, we attack those and then wonder why we haven't solved the problem. Something like trying to control campaign funding or the integrity of politicians isn't going to solve the problem. At best it can mitigate a symptom of the problem."
I was thinking of something more ethics/policy driven but your solution may be more practical.
"It's like the flow of water. You can't stop it. You can change its path but you can't stop it unless you dry up the water.
I submit that the only true cure is to reduce the proportion of the economy that runs through the government. If there are fewer and smaller prizes, you remove the value of politicians as potential distributors, access loses value, so gaining access is no longer a career or business opportunity. As long as there are big prizes, there will be a big market for access and influence."
That seems very sensible. I will give it some more thought, and watch to see how it is challenged by other reasonable posters. |
