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Overview
With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left-Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts theissues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.
While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In Republic Lost, he not only makes this need palpable and clear-he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781455537433 |
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Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
Publication date: | 10/20/2015 |
Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
Format: | NOOK Book |
Sales rank: | 1,086,895 |
File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Lessig serves on the Board of Creative Commons, MapLight, Brave New Film Foundation, The American Academy, Berlin, AXA Research Fund and iCommons.org, and on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, and has received numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award and being named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries.
Lessig holds a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Introduction 1
Part I The Flaw 7
1 Tweedism 9
The Green Primary 12
2 Corrupt Because Unequal 18
Because Unequal 20
3 Consequences: Vetocracy 29
4 The Fix 39
Vouchers 43
Matching Funds 47
Would More Funders Make the Problems Worse? 48
But What Would All This Cost? 49
What These Changes Would Do for "Lobbying" 50
5 Distractions 52
6 What About "Free Speech"? 58
Part II Deeper 71
7 Why So Damn Much Money 73
Demand for Campaign Cash 74
Supply of Campaign Cash: Substance 78
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Norms 82
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Suppliers 84
Lobbyists 85
Economies, Gift and Otherwise 91
8 What So Damn Much Money Does 109
The Deviations That Money Inspires 111
0 It Matters Not at All 116
1 Extortion 121
2 Distraction 124
3 Distortion 129
4 Trust 156
Okay, But Is Money the Real Root? 163
9 How So Damn Much Money Defeats the Left 166
10 How So Damn Much Money Defeats the Right 192
1 Making Government Small 200
2 Simple Taxes 203
3 Keeping Markets Efficient 211
11 How So [Damn Little] Money Makes Things Worse 222
The Ways We Pay Congress 224
The Benefits of Working for Members 229
12 Two Conceptions of "Corruption" 235
"Corruption" 236
"Dependence Corruption" Is "Corruption" 245
What Follows 250
Part III Unconventional Thoughts 263
13 A Proposing Convention 265
The Movement on the Left 267
The Movement on the Right 270
"A Convention" 273
The Risk in the "Runaway" 278
Safety Valve 1: Limits on the Convention 278
Safety Valve 2: The Courts 283
Safety Valve 3: The Safety Valve Itself 284
Leave the Lawyers, Return to Real Politics 285
Risks 290
One Way Forward 294
Fair Deals 295
14 Referendum Politicians 300
The Referendum President 301
Referendum Representatives 303
Conclusion 307
Afterword 313
Notes 315
Image Credits 362
Index 363