Thanks for very good comments. First, my apologies to Senator McCain for a typo in the spelling of his name.
Campaign contributions do involve rent seeking, but they are not all socially wasted if they lead to desirable political outcomes. If I knew of an effective way to cut down contributions without affecting outcomes I might support it. But no one has ever come up with proposals that do not have huge loopholes. Since I indicated in my discussion that total spending on campaign contributions is rather small, I believe we are better off allowing great freedom to contribute rather then trying to cap them, or in other ways cut down on wasteful components of contributions.
It is not useful to say that democracy should involve cooperation rather than competition. Every system of government must have a method for actually reaching political decisions, as opposed to simply describing our hopes for how decisions should be reached. Most modern approaches to democracy since Joseph Schumpeter's discussion in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy have involved important aspects of political competition as a way of reaching political decisions.
The reason political freedom is useful is not that top leaders always emerge, but that one avoids the sometime terrible policies of totalitarian leaders. A free press and political competition do not guarantee good outcomes, but it helps reduce the likelihood of the really awful outcomes produced by a Stalin, Mao, or Hitler.
Advertising in politics or the economy helps unknown leaders or unknown firms break into a political or economic market. To me that is a great advantage of all advertising. Nor is it clear that advertising raises prices of the products advertised (see the discussion of the theory and evidence in G. S. Becker and K. M. Murphy, "A Simple Theory of Advertising as a Good or Bad", Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1993).
I agree that I should have been more careful in distinguishing self-financing of campaigns from campaign contributions more generally. The evidence I cited on the small effect of campaign contributions on outcomes refers to general contributions. James Snyder gives a good summary of this evidence in an article in the Winter 2003 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
« Campaign Finance--Posner's Response to Comments | Main | The French Riots--Posner's Comment »
11/13/2005
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c031153ef0133efd0fa01970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Response on Campaign Contributions--BECKER:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Verify your Comment
Previewing your Comment
This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment
As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.
Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.
Search
Become a Fan
Home Pages
May 2013
Recent Posts
- The Rise in College Tuition and Student Loans-Becker
- College Costs and Quality—Posner
- Breakthough in the War on Drugs?—Posner
- Alternatives to the War on Drugs-Becker
- Reforming Immigration Policy-Becker
- Reforming Immigration Policy—Posner
- Business Ethics—Posner
- Business, Competition, and Corruption-Becker
- The Decline in Illegal Immigration From Mexico-Becker
- Mexican Immigration to the United States—Posner
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/21/2009 at 08:01 AM
Beautiful site!
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/21/2009 at 02:13 PM
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right.
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/21/2009 at 06:21 PM
very thanks for article
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/22/2009 at 04:14 PM
Beautiful site!
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/22/2009 at 09:21 PM
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/23/2009 at 05:26 AM
بنت 18
شات بنت 18
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/24/2009 at 02:11 AM
tiffany jewellery
ed hardy
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/25/2009 at 01:15 AM
links of london
abercrombie and fitch
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/25/2009 at 01:15 AM
ed hardy
tiffany jewelry
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/26/2009 at 04:52 AM
tiffany jewellery
tiffany jewellery
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/26/2009 at 04:52 AM
Great site. Keep doing.
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/26/2009 at 03:07 PM
I want to say - thank you for this!
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/26/2009 at 04:57 PM
Great article, I had a good laugh!links of london
tiffany jewelry
Posted by: Anonymous | 08/29/2009 at 12:45 AM
Beautiful site!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/02/2009 at 01:34 AM
I want to say - thank you for this!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/02/2009 at 07:22 AM
Great work, webmaster, nice design!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/03/2009 at 02:56 AM
Perfect work!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/08/2009 at 03:05 PM
Beautiful site!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/09/2009 at 02:31 PM
Great work, webmaster, nice design!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/09/2009 at 04:30 PM
Great. Now i can say thank you!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/09/2009 at 08:25 PM
I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/10/2009 at 12:23 AM
b6Ywbc I want to say - thank you for this!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/11/2009 at 08:38 AM
S8Eeo8 I want to say - thank you for this!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/11/2009 at 09:16 AM
New blog
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/15/2009 at 10:27 AM