And unfortunately, in a political duopoly dominated by donor money, just as in an economic duopoly with very hands-on stockholders, screwing the "consumer" public is very feasible. Even if the politician "company managers" desire to offer the voting public quality policy "products" it really desires, "stockholder" donors exercise an effective veto over such public-spirited production decisions. For in a duopoly political market, with no effective competition, "consumer" voters have no realistic alternative for finding quality policy "products"--the only real options are shoddy and shoddier. As Democratic Party operative and former top Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel brutally put it, referring to disgruntled progressive Democrats, "Where else will they go?" Where else, indeed?
Majority Voter Perspective: The High "Shoeleather Costs" of Reform
Now, it's not as if alternative political "producers," offering superior "products" to duopoly ones, don't in fact exist. Given the express policy views of progressives and libertarians, the Green Party offers a better progressive "product" than Democrats, and the Libertarian Party a better libertarian one than Republicans. And in several instances, that superior "product" is not merely what progressives or libertarians, but what the majority of Americans, as verified by polling, desire. For example, most Americans aware of Citizens United-- throughout the political spectrum--find it a horrible court decision that needs to be reversed. See any hope of corporate-subsidiary Dims or Repugs offering us that product? So why won't a majority just vote third party?
Again, economics offers us astonishing political insight. In analyzing real-world market inefficiencies, economists often cite the phenomenon of shoeleather costs. Derived from the fact that shoes (leather or otherwise) wear down from extensive walking, shoeleather costs can be thought of generally as the extra time and trouble complying a with new economic policy--or searching for an alternative product to the usual staples--will cost consumers. Another way of looking at this extra time and trouble is as the amount of psychological inconvenience to the average person's usual habits doing something new and different will require. And for the average voter, supporting a third party like Greens or Libertarians involves considerable inconvenience to everyday habits; it's uncomfortable, daring, and simply doesn't feel right. For people who find considerable psychology comfort in doing the usual thing--and perhaps above all, in doing as their family, friends, and neighbors do--it's really a strain-producing stretch.
And beyond the added psychological strain of breaking voting habits to support Greens or Libertarians, there's an added shoeleather cost. See, as a Green or Libertarian voter, one knows that voting alone isn't enough to make one's unconventional vote effective; one must make a heroic effort even to get the party on one's state ballot, and an additional heroic effort to convince one's friends and neighbors to vote Green or Libertarian as well. And from the electoral results of those parties, it's very clear that effort isn't paying off. Now, a highly motivated third-party voter might risk ridicule to get out the third-party vote, but for the average habitual Democrat or Republican voter, this is a "shoeleather cost" almost certainly not worth paying. But without it--given how rigged electoral rules and media coverage are in favor of the duopoly--how can third parties ever gain traction with voters?
Clearly, due to shoeleather costs for average voters (the vast majority), strategies based purely on third-party voting are simply ineffective. Which is why movements like Popular Resistance waffle between supporting the Green Party and simply treating electoral politics as meaningless, focusing on mass protest and civil disobedience instead. And of course, such waffling is not an effective way of improving Green Party results. Even worse, waffling between third parties and treating electoral politics as meaningless misguidedly rejects the prospects for reform--or, at minimum, for the political awakening of average voters--opened up by Democrats' Warren wing or by Bernie Sanders running for president as a Democrat. Applying our economic model here, we can say that being offered a superior policy product by someone from a mainstream duopoly party spares average voters the psychological and physical "shoeleather costs" of supporting a third party. And in terms of demand, by offering voters policies they want from an accessible supplier, it will likely cause them to make a bigger public stink about actually getting those policies. It can, in short, turn latent demand to blatant demand.
Big-Minority Voter Extortion as "Supply-Side Politics"
The take-home political strategy lesson from our extended economics parallel should be this: Duopoly "supply" of decent policy lags far behind latent public "demand" for such policy. Moreover, if one duopoly party actually started offering (sincerely) to supply such policy, effective demand for that policy would radically increase, changing from latent demand to actual (or blatant) demand. Why? Because voters could foresee prospects of obtaining policies they latently desire without the excessive "shoeleather costs" of changing voting habits or doing heroic third-party electoral work. So the question of effective strategy becomes one of supply-side politics: how can we incentivize one of the duopoly parties to offer a majority of voters desirable public-spirited policies they latently crave? For unlike supply-side economics, rightly stigmatized as "voodoo economics," supply-side politics is very real. In fact, it's hard to imagine any other path forward.
So, because the problem is one of our duopoly "producers" not being willing to supply the beneficial policy "products" most voters latently demand, we're clearly facing the perennial economics problem of perverse incentives. In this case, the perverse incentive is to honor the policy-production preferences of "stockholder" donors rather than those of the "consuming" voter public. For, simply put, "stockholder" donors currently have more power to "fire" politicians "company managers" than does the voting "consumer" public. Voters, having no ready access to superior politicians or policies, passively accept choosing between the shoddy ones offered them at the behest of plutocrat donors. As the voting majority itself lacks strong enough incentives to demand better candidates and policies (that requires activism, which necessitates exhausting, non-habitual effort), the needed incentives will have to come from those already political activists. In terms of our economic model, activists here play the role of government, which intervenes by law or policy to correct the perverse incentives in a dysfunctional economy.
Now, activists of any kind are clearly a social minority, but that hardly lessens their ability--especially when united--to change political incentives. See, for politicians, the real incentive is winning elections, and it doesn't take a majority--only enough organized voters--to tip the results of most elections. And what more powerful organized minority than a "movement of movements" (MOM), uniting the activists of disparate movements around a grievance they all share in common? At Pitchforks Against Plutocracy, we feel we've correctly identified that common grievance as plutocracy, the runaway domination of government, media, and society by the very rich. And because we're focused on everyone's common grievance, we aspire to be the activist "movement of movements," correcting politicians' incentives by organized electoral extortion. We aspire to be activist "megagroup" that holds elections hostage to our anti-plutocratic views. Even to the point of collectively voting third party to enforce adherence to our demands.
If "extortion" and "hostage" sound like strong words--reflecting extreme measures--just consider the limited means whereby a decided minority can change politicians' incentives by threatening to cost them elections. Primary strategies, for example, are fine (and are part of the Pitchforks "arsenal"), but they're clearly insufficient as weapons of reform. If the Tea Party has had impact through primaries, that's only because they're able to attract huge donations from plutocrat donors opposed to reform. The comparative ineffectiveness of Progressive Democrats of America, who use primaries in support of reform, is telling. In a game rigged against desperately needed change, higher-megaton "bombs" are essential.
If we're serious about reform, we must collectively treat politicians and parties as General Jack Ripper treated women in Dr. Strangelove: we must "deny them our essence." But in this case, our essence is not "our precious bodily fluids" but our votes. If you the promise in a movement of movements collectively "denying our essence" to parties and pols who refuse to supply what we demand, please consider joining Pitchforks Against Plutocracy. Our Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/CitizensAgainstPlutocracy.
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