Getting Started

I have only barely begun reading Republic, Lost:  How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It by Laurence Lessig, and I am astonished at how the author’s understanding of the current political and economic problems is so much like my own.  I know I should finish the book before commenting, but I can’t wait.  Just from the Preface and Introduction (the only two parts I have read), I find echoes of what I have written in this blog and elsewhere. 

The first thing Lessig mentions in the Preface is the need for campaign finance and how crucial that is to the problems we face.  I couldn’t agree more.  In fact, I bought this book hoping that campaign finance reform would be a central issue.

In the Introduction, he begins by describing the national sense of despair and hopelessness.  I had taken note of that as well, and while I think his writing is clearer and more focused than my ramblings, the sentiment is the same.  His focus is on the Republic and governance, but there was a sentence that reminded me of a Photoshop image I made.  The quote is “We inherited an extraordinary estate.  On our watch, we have let it fall to ruin.”  My artwork, intended to metaphorically show what is happening to our government, entitled “Capitol Ruins”, looks like this:

He describes the gridlock and futility of attempting compromise, also a favorite subject of mine, one that is upsetting to a large number of Americans if we can judge by the recent polls on the approval rating of Congress at 11%, the lowest it has been since such measurements have been taken.  Lessig is much more sympathetic towards the people that are creating or perpetuating this gridlock, but I did at least express some understanding of how a person can be influenced without understanding that he or she has been influenced.

The influence of money, which lies at the heart of our discontent, and how that has come about and why it is non-partisan are subjects that I’m sure he will discuss in great detail in the subsequent chapters judging by the following quote:

“We have created an engine of influence that seeks not some particular strand of political or economic ideology, whether Marx or Hayek.  We have created instead an engine of influence that seeks simply to make those most connected rich.”

I have spent a great deal of effort on a subject that Lessig touches upon towards the end of the Preface, the lack of response of our government to the will of the people.  My solution, a National Poll, is probably impractical, perhaps even impossible, but the problem remains central to the issue of a lack of trust in government.  Measuring this Will has never been a priority, and our will has been replaced with the will of special interests.  Lessig presents this problem as one of two elements of corruption.

“This corruption has two elements, each of which feeds the other.  The first element is bad governance, which means simply that our government doesn’t track the expressed will of the people, whether on the Left or the Right.  Instead, the government tracks a different interest, one not directly affected by votes or voters.  Democracy, on this account, seems a show or a ruse; power rests elsewhere.”

Finally, at the very end of the Introduction, he uses a metaphor dear to my heart as a physician.  This is the metaphor that guided my choice of URL for my blog, prognosisforus.blogspot.com.

“The prognosis is not good.  The disease we face is not one that nations cure, or, at least, cure easily.”

The more that is written about the issues we face and proposals for resolving our problems, the better.  Despite my enthusiasm, I am still ignorant about much of the underlying history and the solutions being proposed, but I plan to educate myself.  Starting with this book, Republic, Lost.