US Presidential candidates show how democracy is corrupted by money

Tuesday, 25 March 2008


The US election season is once again in full swing as America begins its search for it's next President. In the coming months America together with the rest of the world will witness either John McCain the Republican candidate, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the still yet undecided Democratic candidates, succeed the incumbent President George W. Bush in the White House.

The American establishment has long glorified and held out the apparent merits of it's political system to the rest of the world as part of the 'American dream'; that ordinary Americans can choose with complete freedom their next leader, with power transferring in a orderly and peaceful manner. Any American citizen, they proudly say, can stand for election as President.

The reality is that the American political dream is nothing more than a myth; witness the huge amounts of money being spent by just a few elite candidates shows this is completely untrue; millions of dollars are being spent on sophisticated election campaigns. The reality is that in America, just as elsewhere, Democracy has never fulfilled it's promise; the influence of money has ensured that Democracy remains a flawed system of rule in favour of the rich and privileges.

In the US Presidential election campaign of 2004, George Bush received a staggering $292.6 million dollars in private donations, whilst his then Democrat opponent John Kerry received $253.9 million dollars. The third independent candidate, Ralph Nader, had just over $4.5 million dollars to spend. The total cost of the US Presidential and Congressional election campaigns in 2004 reached $3.9 billion dollars. In the 2008 election Barack Obama has raised $193 million dollars, Hillary Clinton $169 million dollars and John McCain $64 million dollars thus far. In theory the criteria to be a Presidential candidate are very simple: The candidate must be a natural born US citizen, must have been resident for 14 years in the US and be at least 35 years of age. Yet given the huge obscene amounts of money being raised and spent on television advertisements, radio campaigns and other forms of election marketing, the chance of an ordinary person being able to stand as a realistic candidate are nil. Money represents a natural 'market barrier' to entry.

This obvious but powerful conclusion explains why voters in the American political system are losing faith in their entire system. Voter turnout in America has been declining in past years and has one of the lowest turnouts in the western world. Effectively a minority of the eligible electorate has chosen it's incumbent legislators and Presidents.

The masses within the West are beginning to understand that their vote is irrelevant and meaningless as things stand in the American political system. This feeling has been compounded by the fact that in recent years the Democratic and Republican parties have very little real policy differences'. Both have practiced a belligerent foreign policy and have had an agenda that has profited big business at the expense of domestic social spending. The reason why the American democratic system has lead to such a situation is again down to the influence of money and key interest groups. American corporations and lobby groups do not donate money to American politicians' because they see themselves as philanthropists'; they give money because they expect favours back as a return. In return corporate business can expect politicians to craft new policies and laws that are favourable to them upon gaining power and public office.

This shows that Democracy is fundamentally flawed; the ability to manufacture man made temporal laws and policies by the executive leaves the fate of the people vulnerable to those who manage to gain the most influence in a Democratic government. President Eisenhower famously warned of such corrupting influences in American politics by issuing the following statement in his farewell speech in January 1961, saying,

"...three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defence establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.

We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Today, America's defence related spending is estimated to be an astonishing $1 trillion dollars a year; to put this into context America's total budget passed by Congress in March 2008 was $3 trillion dollars. Social and Health spending in contrast has declined in recent years, with essential services facing cuts. With America spending more and more of its wealth on its military and foreign wars of occupation, the influence of American military contractors has never been stronger. The distribution of new military projects in the states of influential US congressman, more commonly known as 'pork barrel' politics, demonstrates how intertwined money and politics have become. Yet it is not just the defence industry; the rest of corporate America has also sought to gain a foothold by donating money and engaging lobbyists'; Hillary Clinton recently offered a passionate defence of lobbyists' as investment banks and other financial institutions have become one of the leading donators in this election campaign to Presidential candidates from both parties.

Democracy is not just susceptible to such influence and corruption in America; wherever Democracy is being used as a ruling system the results have shown that the rich and powerful succeed in gaining undue and illegitimate influence right around the world. A recent US study showed that corporations that donated money to politicians always had higher profits per year on average than the rest of their peers. It is not surprising then that many jobs have been relocated from America to other parts of the Third world as corporations have aggressively 'outsourced' many jobs under the noses of America's legislators so that they can increase corporate profits.

Democracy is in reality a sophisticated means of control used by the American corporate and political elite to carefully select its leaders from a small pool that will toe its line. As Americans once more go through the motions to choose their leader, the subsequent outcome is all but predictable. Irrespective of whoever wins, campaign promises made to the general public now will definitely be broken, as new policies and legislation will be made to repay the favours' bestowed on the yet unknown new President. The only thing that is certain is that those American corporations, lobbyists' and special interests groups who have donated money in this Presidential campaign will yet again emerge as the real benefactors from a political system that rewards the rich whilst failing millions of ordinary people.