IN DEFENSE OF SPECIAL INTERESTS
It looks like Kerry is going to make "special interests" the target of his campaign. One response is to point out that Kerry is a leading special interest player himself. I'll take a different line: to speak a word in their defense.

To the extent that American voters buy into ideologies, I think there are basically two influential ones: 1) the libertarian state, protecting property rights and keeping order, engaging in the bare minimum of taxation, and nothing else, and 2) the entitlement/welfare state, which steps in to help anyone that you feel sorry for. Both of these are way too simple to run the economy well, because of economic phenomena such as externalities (when someone's economc activity affects third parties, e.g. pollution (negative) or non-copyrighted research (positive)) and public goods (roads, national defense, prevention of epidemic diseases, bandwidth). Economic management is actually very complicated. So how can politicians learn to do it effectively.

The answer is that they get free tutorials from interested business and citizen associations-- special interests. Those who would benefit most from the provision of public goods, either because they use it or because they would like to provide it, or just because for some reason they care a lot, form and fund associations to bring the issues they are interested in to politicians' attention. There are many, many of these groups, some on the "right," some on the "left." Some serve a private interest which would also serve the public interest, others serve a private interest prejudicial to the public interest. It is easy to say this in the abstract, but very hard to determine in practice, which is which, in part because we can confuse a very complex and opaque issue-- whether a special interest's goals harmonize with the public welfare-- with a much simpler one-- whether we like the people who are lobbying. Textile workers' unions have a much more appealing membership than the corporate lobbies that support free trade, but it is the latter whose proposed policies would benefit the nation, as well as workers overseas, while the former, as any economist knows very well, are enemies of the public good.

It is customary to damn corporate lobbies because we assume that corporations are greedy and evil. But is this really true? Or is it just as plausible to see corporate donors to political campaigns as trying to give something back. They have a certain special insight, thanks to their elevated positions, into what makes this big, complicated machine called the economy actually work. They are the ones who "create jobs," after all; don't they perhaps feel a responsibility to do that? And don't they feel pride and purpose in satisfying their customers' needs? We all consume corporations' products, put our money in banks that run because corporations give them a place to invest their (our) capital; some of work for corporations, others (if you work for universities or the government) are paid by their tax dollars. Aren't we all biting the hand that feeds us when we take it as axiomatic that corporations are nothing but greedy and wicked?

Even if we assume corporations are not acting in the public interest but in private interests, that does not mean that politicians who accept their money are being corrupted; on the contrary, it seems rather unlikely to me. Suppose a politician accepts money from a lobbyist in return for a promise to vote in a manner that is actually contrary to his political beliefs. Why should the politician keep the promise? He runs huge risks of being hounded by the press for the vote; he will experience discomfort of conscience; most of all, he is already in office, and his frustrated lobbyist backers can't take that away from him. Corporate lobbies should foresee that politicians will break promises to vote against their judgment. They should only pay politicians to vote what they really believe in, or to vote on "technocratic" issues of little interest to the general public.

So, if I am a politician, I work out my beliefs, then find out which special interests should have an interest in getting me elected, and they give me money. There's no corruption going on here. And remember: we the voters always have the final say. No amount of money could elect a candidate whose platform voters could recognize as blatantly contrary to the public interest.

So the voters are more powerful than the special interests at the end of the day, provided we use that power. So by all means, have a critical attitude towards special interests, but don't forget that they are necessary, as a channel of important information to our leaders of how to run an economic machine that is very complex and cannot be comprehended by simplistic ideologies. Don't be fooled by Kerry's demagoguery. If he says that Bush is a pawn of corporate lobbyists and special interests, the answer should be, "Yeah? I'm waiting. What's your point here?"