Political Mutual Funds for Progressives

New Progressive Coalition:

NPC's Political "Mutual Funds" are baskets of vetted organizations that our customers can contribute money to and track their political return over time.

Why don't we rationalize the whole market and turn Congress into an open outcry auction for political return on investment? We could bid along with Halliburton, Blackwater, and Squibb for a basket of politicians.  No need to go through the charade of voting. No need for lobbyists to fund attack ads or "platforms." We just buy the politicians on eBay like everything else.  If this is the language of progressivism, what else is on offer? Has anyone a heart any more for democracy? For government by the people, for the people?

Comments

[Nonprofiteer]

I'd think this idea was brilliant satire if I read it in The Onion; but as a serious effort at directing political contributions it's just plain old laughable. Can NPC's "proprietary PROI software" measure anything more than who won a given campaign/legislative battle/pissing contest? And if not, why is it the role of progressives to reward winners, i.e. people who are already rewarded? I thought we were in the business of protecting and defending losers when and where necessary.

[Phil]

That was before Bill Clinton and Dick Morris and the triangulation with wealthy funders. Now we have two parties in power both of whom depend on political investors from upper echelons of private and corporate wealth. They employ different rhetoric but both parties represent "investors," not voters. The investors buy the attack ads that get their pet-pols elected then come the return favors that we call "political return on investment." Think quid pro quo. I am not sure what the NPC PROI metric measures, but I doubt it is democracy or social justice.

[JJ Commoner]

One weeps about what the religion based on money has wrought upon our consciousness (or lack thereof).

Watch for a new MBA curriculum in the more dynamic schools, named Global MBA in Political Investment.

[Phil]

Classes for politicians at Harvard on how to maximize your political investment value, for your own triple bottom line: society, investors, and self. Not necessarily in that order.