BibTeX
@MISC{Mayhew_money,persuasion,
author = {Leon Mayhew},
title = {Money, persuasion and American values},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
Most inquiry on the role of money and power in civic life is addressed to the question of whether money can buy influence.1 This is an interesting question in its details. How, exactly, is influence purchased and with what effects? Yet the answer to the general question is obvious, at least to the moneyed interests whose representatives must suppose that their millions of dollars in contributions are buying something. In this article I take the reality of purchasing influence for granted and propose that the most interesting current trend in this arena is a ripening claim that buying influence is entirely proper within American cultural and social traditions of free political competition. That expensive mass advertising establishes money as a condition of mass influence is now accepted as both true and legitimate. The role of money in American politics has been profoundly altered by the rise of what I call the ‘New Public ’ (Mayhew, 1997), a form of organizing public communication that bestows great authority on professional com-munications experts. Modern money-based politics is a product of mass consumption, electronic media, polling opinions, marketing, and advertis-ing. It is not surprising that many citizens often reduce political values to money, the common denominator of competing demands. Political leaders encourage a private, calculating attitude by repeating such slogans as, ‘Is this how you want your tax dollars spent? ’ (Sorauf, 1992). How do citizens want public dollars to be spent? Advocacy of claims that money is a legitimate arbiter of public values has increased over the last three decades. Proponents of such claims assert that public demand rules the market, and so it should, for it measures what people really want. Occasionally, when relatively legitimate political uses of money are at issue, politicians and officials are willing to state justifications
Keyphrases
american value legitimate political us civic life modern money-based politics legitimate arbiter moneyed interest many citizen public demand rule public communication mass consumption tax dollar political leader free political competition mass influence public value state justification american politics interesting question expensive mass advertising social tradition great authority interesting current trend general question professional com-munications expert new public electronic medium public dollar political value common denominator
