Elections. Many of us have them. In fact, I’d wager if you’re reading this, you live under a democratic system, so listen to my perspective on what you TRULY experience in day-to-day life.
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Now, we all know the basic premises of democracy, right? If not, here’s a quick refresher; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, transparency, justice, equality, and the right to vote are all ideally part of a democracy. However, there’s one more thing that people don’t understand the true impact of. The thing that makes everyone go crazy, the motivation behind so many unspeakable things, the most coveted and valued thing in the world: money. Of course, everyone knows money is important, but many don’t realize how much sway it holds in politics. Allow me to introduce you to the term “lobbyism”.
Source: https://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/lobbyism_161329
Lobbyism is the concept of certain people or groups, such as corporations, paying lobbyists to use the client’s money to influence the government into making certain decisions that advance the client’s interests. This is a term often used interchangeably with bribery, and truth be told, for good reason. They sound similar, don’t they? In fact, I’d wager if I didn’t explain that this was a separate term, you would’ve seen my above description as the definition of bribery, which, I might add, is worth over $1,000,000,000,000 US worldwide, but we’re getting off topic. I know that you might be wondering: “how is this information useful?”. How indeed.
Source: Here in Canada, we maintain a relatively smooth and well-structured democracy, but when it comes to the influence of money in the government, we still have a ways to go. Sure, there’s not so much in the way of corporate entities buying their favoured party to victory, but even still, there are several instances of other forms of economic inequity between parties. This is due to the fact that the conservative and liberal parties have existed since before Canada’s independence, the NDP (New Democratic Party) has only existed since 1961, Green Party since 1983, 1991 for Bloc Québécois (Quebec nationalist/separatist party), and the newest party: the PPC (people’s party of Canada) has only existed for 3 years (2018)!
Source: https://newsinnings.com/tag/canada-election-debate-schedule/
Why is this relevant? Simple. The older parties are generally more popular, as it’s hard to change people’s opinions politically. Increased popularity means increased funds, increased funds means greater resources, greater resources means a higher quality campaign, a higher quality campaign means more success in the election, and more success in the election means more power. Make sense now? I should hope so. As another example of the influence of money, have you ever heard billionaires complaining about their taxes the same way they complain about business losses? No. That’s because of tax breaks. Simply put, politicians want to keep the rich in their area, supposedly because it creates more jobs, and so the rich get tax breaks. Does this happen for anyone else? No. Can we do anything about it? Of course not. At least, not as we are now, but that’s a topic for another time.
Source: https://econographics.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/average-household-income-by-quintile-1968-2011/
In conclusion, the influence of money makes itself known in any way possible, and as long as lobbyism remains the 20,000% return on investment that it is, the rich will find it’s allure irresistible.