Larry Lessig recently gave the above presentation on "Public Choice" at Cato that was attended by an array of both libertarian and liberal/progressive pundits. Lessig's intent, I gather, is to sell "libertarians" on public financing, an issue that has once again come to fore in the wake of the "Citizen's United" Supreme Court decision. The only point of disagreement I have with Lessig's lecture is the use of Ronald Reagan as a device to appeal to libertarians. Maybe that warmed the hearts of the Cato boys, I don't know. But it certainly allowed the likes of Yglesias to dismiss "public choice" as a mere right-wing phenomenon. However, "left-right lens" partisans like Yglesias have nothing substantial to contribute to conversation to begin with; he can now return to his regularly scheduled programming that the only thing wrong with government is that the wrong people are in charge,blah, blah, blah....

However, Lessig sees Public Choice as THE ISSUE with governance. No doubt; I've been harping on that point for the past year and half, predicting that "class theory" would become a dominating topic, and now it has become just that. However, Lessig's solution, which he views as radical, is a constitutional amendment to force public financing(there is no other alternative now). Now, I'm not going to rehash my littany of reasons why I disagree with public financing, since I've already done so here. But it is clear now, in the wake of the Court's decision, that liberals/progressives can't rely on legislatively slim majorities to pass a "campaign finance reform" package that would simply be DOA under a court review. It has to be a constitutional amendment at this point. This, of course, requires a much more broader coalition to achieve. So it is no surprise that Lessig is trying to open up a progressive-libertarian dialog. But for radical libertarians, the problem underlying Tullock Auctions is the monopoly,not campaign contributions. The DC political economy would simply adjust with respect to the latter. In the meantime you would be asking libertarians to cut their own throats. Many libertarian positions, particularly with respect to foreign policy, the police state, etc are not popular. There would be little public tolerance of public financing of libertarian candidates, or "leftist candidates" in general, articulating say, a Chomsky or Zinn position on foreign policy. If you want to view an example(and I would contend that this is not a biased sample, either) of how the Tea Partiers react when they encounter an authentic libertarian, watch this short video. The Tea partiers accused the libertarian of being an acorn sympathizer and called the cops on him. Sorry, public financing would result in libertarianism in the public dialog being a type of "establishment, nationalist libertarianism" along the lines of an Eric dondero. Any "radicals" who managed to get on the ballot would be dismissed as a hypocrite for "taking" public money(just as radical libertarians are dismissed as being hypocrites for drving on "public roads;" of course, there is no other option that is not criminalized). I'm not a particularly good chess player, and I'm certainly not capable of playing "11th dimensional chess,' but i can at least see two moves, ahead. And I'm not stupid...

Since I'm an absolutist on free speech, I would have to agree with the court on the Citizen's United case. If you you want to deal with the problem of corporate money, then deal with the underlying problem, namely the corporations. That is, abolish them as a legal fiction. Of course, that's not going to happen, in that the artificial rents of much of corporate law is what underwrites much of the DC political economy. At the very least, in contemplating this post advocating the return of Gordon Gekko, allowing the sharks back into the corporate waters, targeting those who who are exactly spending all that money on hunting trips with their favorite congressmen(noting that lobbying expenditures are often sunk costs), might not be such a bad idea.