On political power and the power of money

Ironically, money plays a greater political role in democratic republics than in other forms of government. Authoritarian governments (including those initially established by financial power) have the ability to strip their subjects of their possessions and prevent them from leaving the country with them. Democratic regimes, on the other hand, are bound by procedural rules relating to freedom of circulation, as well as the acquisition and transfer of property. Individuals and corporations enjoy the fundamental right to emigrate or move their assets when they subjectively feel that they are under excessive economic or political pressure. With regard to foreign capital, however, governments of both types are constrained by the same reality: no one can in practice dispossess international creditors and investors twice in a row without suffering the consequences.

Democratic regimes are thus faced with a particular risk. Money is likely to exert a decisive influence on government action, unless specific limitations are put in place. These mainly concern the financing of political life and media concentration. When these safeguards are relaxed, the regime changes in nature, becoming oligarchic and authoritarian.

The risk of political control by money must be distinguished from that of corruption. Corruption is endemic in authoritarian regimes, where it is used as a method of governance by a government that is not politically dependent on it and as a personal goal for its leaders. In democratic regimes, it tends to be limited to individuals who abuse their position at their own risk. If the weakening of controls makes it widespread or if it affects political decisions, then the regime ceases to be democratic.

The evolution of the United States over the past half-century has been characterized by the systematic expansion of the role of money in politics. The driving force behind this transformation has been the Supreme Court, initially acting against the intentions of Congress. The starting point was the Buckley v. Valeo (1976) ruling, which established that election spending is, in principle, a form of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Court ignored the risks of unlimited freedom of expression. It followed the path of opponents of democracy who generally claim to want more democracy, without considering the dangers of propaganda and intolerance that can destroy tolerance. This attitude became more radical in subsequent rulings: Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC (2007), Citizens United v. FEC (2010), SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010), and McCutcheon v. FEC (2014). The composition of the Court played a decisive role, with an almost perfect correlation between the political origins of the judges' appointments and their positions on campaign finance.

As a direct result of these decisions, the volume of election financing has nearly doubled since 2010. Alongside the increase in spending, the proportion of hidden money has grown considerably. Undisclosed contributions to Super PACs rose from 6% in 2012 to 19.2% in 2024, preventing citizens from identifying the interests that finance election campaigns. In states that previously imposed limits, the probability of Republican candidates being elected rose by an average of 4 points, with the most extreme candidates significantly increasing their chances of being elected as a result of the campaigns they were now able to run. This phenomenon naturally contributed to further polarizing public life.

Another major effect of deregulation has been an unprecedented concentration of contributions: nearly half of federal political funding comes from 0.0125% of the US adult population. These individuals are able to monetize their investment through privileged access to decision-makers, the ability to directly influence their policies, and even to hold government office themselves. Forty-four percent of contributions to Trump's 2024 campaign, excluding Super PACs, which are particularly influential in corporate support, came from just 10 individuals. It became more effective to solicit financial support from a few individual donors than to mobilize masses of activists subject to the propaganda put in place by the former.

The largest contributor, Elon Musk, also owns one of the main social media networks that facilitated Trump's campaign. To varying degrees, all major social media networks participated in this trend, through algorithmic changes or a lack of filtering of sources of disinformation. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 48% of posts about Trump and Harris during the 2024 election were made by right-leaning influencers, compared to 28% by left-leaning influencers.

This is how the United States has gradually become the authoritarian oligarchy that is unfolding before our eyes. Even a partial reversal of the vote would initially have little impact on the Supreme Court, which is only dependent on it with a significant time lag. Only a collective shock felt by a large part of the population in the light of the scale of the disaster would be likely to lead it to revise its position.

In the meantime, it is becoming increasingly difficult to consider a system as being democratic in which propaganda financed by an oligarchy recreates the old census suffrage but with far greater power. The ideas promoted are essentially aimed at strengthening this oligarchy itself through tax breaks and deregulation of its activities, even when it originates from public procurement and subsidies, as in the case of E. Musk.

In addition, this propaganda recommends that increasing powers be entrusted to an executive branch responsible for dismantling any countervailing powers and eliminating public spending as much as possible. Less well-off voters are offered compensation in the form of nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric that does not correspond to the practices of the oligarchs or the interests of the poorest (who are more dependent on social assistance and shun the jobs sought by immigrants), accompanied by efforts to discredit the intellectual elites.

The same groups seek to remove the restrictions on their activities that exist in foreign democracies. Europe does not have large social media platforms but is keen to regulate them. It exercises tight control over the financing of its political parties. The battle has therefore shifted to traditional media, a sector where at least two major countries, Italy and France, have proved incapable of preventing an abnormal concentration of press and television outlets promoting the same themes.

Modern republics are economically unequal, albeit to a lesser extent than authoritarian regimes. However, their democratic functioning requires political equality to be preserved by law. The most pernicious way of depriving them of this is to make freedom of expression a tool for the erosion of political and legal equality in the hands of a select few.

Yet, the future of climate policy, cultural and interethnic exchanges, civil liberties, international law, and AI will certainly not be the same, depending on which regime prevails.