Billionaires Taking Action against Billionaires

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed private individuals and companies to donate unlimited amounts of money to so-called super PACs, political organizations that are not officially tied to specific candidates, but in actuality finance their campaigns. Since the ruling, big money in the U.S. has had unprecedented power. During the presidential elections of 2012 alone, at least $546 million found its way into super PACs – probably more, because not all lobby groups are required to record their donations.

This must end, believes Harvard professor Larry Lessig. According to Lessig, through declaring the super PACs legal, in essence, corruption gets legalized. Money buys you influence. That used to be called corruption, but now, it is the norm. “It is no longer concealed, it is not illegal, and you do not even have to feel ashamed.”*

Therefore, Lessig founded his own super PAC, a super PAC that would end the influence of super PACs. His project is called “Mayday,” named after the call for help by sailors and pilots in distress. Lessig’s super PAC is a call for the salvation of democracy from its doom by fighting the PACs through their own methods: By financially supporting those politicians who make efforts to reform the political system in order to decrease the influence of money, he wants to campaign against those members of Congress who maintain tight connections with their sponsors. “Ironic? Yes. Embrace the irony,” states the Mayday website.

Lessig targets the larger public through his cry of distress. Through a crowd-funding event, he hopes to collect $12 million in small donations from “regular Americans.” Already $5 million have been collected. The act of donating money to Mayday must be seen as “paying a ransom to get our democracy back,” according to the website, because “all Americans combined are able to defeat the billionaire super PACs.”**

The irony continues. Several billionaires from Silicon Valley together agreed to match the donations made by regular Americans. Among them is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, an investor with pronounced libertarian views. For example, in 2012, Thiel donated $4.7 million to a super PAC associated with Republican politician Rand Paul.

Yet, the support from these billionaires does not clash with the goals of Mayday, says Lessig in response to a question by the tech blog Valleywag.

“If Mayday succeeds in reducing the influence of money on politics, they will have less influence than now.”***

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Editor’s note: The quotation has been paraphrased by the author.

***Editor’s note: The quotation has been paraphrased by the author. The original quotations is significantly different and says, “If MAYDAY PAC is successful at reducing the influence of money and politics then Reid and Facebook and the others don’t have as much power as they have right now.”