Money in Politics II
In a previous blog I considered
the price in human lives and human misery we pay for an economic
system that regards
the pursuit of private profit as the main goal of economic activity.
The primacy of private profit shows up in the contamination of
democratic processes by wealth. No longer does every citizen have one
vote. Most of us do, indeed, have one but the rich have as many as
they are willing to buy. One consequence is the failure of private or
governmental regulation to protect textile workers in Asia against
building collapses, fires and brutal exploitation from their
employers.
But that is only one example of
the power of money in politics. And another interesting example has
recently received a good deal of attention: the role played by super
foundations in our public life. The Gates Foundation, for one, has
taken an interest in education. It has supported a number of serious
changes in education. It pursues its agenda quite independently of
what people in general want. It pushes through changes in education
and only once they are being implemented, does the public at large
hear about these activities.
A concrete case in point are
the so-called "Common Core" standards in education. They
have been adopted by education bureaucrats in a majority of states.
The project is to institute uniform standards for primary and
secondary education in all states.
That seems like an attractive
idea. If there are standards of what schools should teach our
children, surely they should be the same in Texas, as in Washington,
or in Massachusetts. Geography has nothing to do with what
constitutes a good education. Being well educated does not change
when you cross state lines.
That seems plausible, but
national standards of a good education circumvent local
decision-making. Americans have been insistent for a long time that
local schools should be run by the local citizens who pay for those
schools and whose children are educated there. From the perspective
of democracy that would seem to be a reasonable demand. If democracy
allows all citizens to run their own lives, it should also allow them
to make decisions about the education of their children.
The common core educational
standards, pushed by various foundations, make an end run around
local democratic self-determination. In different parts of the
country, local communities are protesting that these new educational
standards were adopted by education bureaucrats without either
consulting state legislators, or teachers, or parents. They have been
imposed by people who consider themselves more knowledgeable about
education than ordinary citizens.
This controversy illustrates
the traditional tension between experts and the decisions of a
democratic public. The ordinary people who make democratic decisions
are not always right. Sometimes the experts know better. Advocates of
democracy must acknowledge that difficulty. If we value democracy we
must continue to support popular decision-making even if, sometimes,
the experts are right and the people are wrong.
The controversy about common
core standards, however, is also an example of the role of money in
politics. Foundations are so enormously powerful because they have a
powerful amount of money. The Gates Foundation's $40 billion speaks
very loudly. It speaks much more loudly than the voice of ordinary
citizens, than the voice of teachers and parents in smaller and
larger communities all over our country.
For the sake of preserving our
democracy, local communities have to be extremely vigilant about the
influence of the large stashes of money of different Foundations.
Bill Gates is a successful computer entrepreneur. He is rich enough
to buy bushels of education experts. But he should not be allowed to
displace the decisions of citizens by his personal choices.
