It strikes me as supremely ironic that the candidate that once made a big issue out of campaign finance reform failed to see the connection to the Wall Street bailout. If there is a reason for why Congress put together a package that appears to favor Wall Street interests at the expense of Main Street and ordinary workers, it has to do with our current system of campaign finance. The first version of the bailout that was defeated in the House of Representatives was defeated because of two extreme ideological strands. Those on the left voted against the bailout because it was perceived to be a measure favoring money interests at the expense of ordinary workers. Those on the right voted against it because of their commitment to free market ideology. That is,  in a free market economy where individuals are free to make choices and investments, they have the right to reap the benefits, and huge ones, of those choices and investments because they assumed risk. As a matter of principle, then, they have no right to complain when the investments they have made have gone sour. This, of course, leaves those in the middle.

Those in the middle were no doubt motivated by a view that unless something was done, the entire financial system will collapse and the consequences will no doubt be felt by everybody. That both Democrats and Republicans can actually agree on action is quite a feat. It is doubtful that this agreement stems from a true meeting of the minds as opposed to a system of financing campaigns which relies on multiple contributions from political action committees. This systems simply rewards incumbency regardless of party affiliation. That Congress felt the need to respond to calls by a Treasury secretary who hails from Wall Street and a Fed Reserve Chairman whose primary constituency is the banking industry perhaps says more about the orientation of Congress and its general responsiveness to business interests over the last several decades than it does about the specifics of the crisis. Congress has increasingly been responsive to business interests, and the additional $130 billion in pork in the Senate version that was ultimately passed clearly attests to this.

On one level, the responsiveness of Congress to business interests owes much to the absence of institutions that give voice to workers’ concerns. Labor unions, in particular, historically gave voice to workers and served as a key constituency to ensure that national economic policy would also serve their interests. With the decline of labor institutions that constituency has simply been absent from the policy process. But on another level, Congress was bound to be more responsive to those special interests that were able to contribute large amounts of money to their campaigns out of the sheer reality of the political universe in which we live. When the average campaign for a House seat costs several million dollars, it is to be expected that members of Congress will seek contributions from where they can get them. This is not an issue of Democrats versus Republicans; but of incumbents v. non-incumbents.

If the crisis can be said to be in part attributable to a general political climate that has consistently voted for deregulation, that same climate only made it a foregone conclusion that the same Congress that favored deregulation would also favor a bailout, regardless of its form. Arguably a welfare state that immunizes society from risk and in turn creates a set of expectations that whenever a problem arises government will solve it is also a contributing factor. But if Congress wasn’t so beholden to the myriad of interests for campaign contributions, it would perhaps be in a better position to actually contemplate the merits of a bailout in a deliberate fashion, rather than deferring to so-called  “expert” opinion that just happens to come from the very industry seeking assistance. In short, if we hadn’t seen the erosion of the types of institutions that gave workers voice — and voice finding expression in a Congress responsive to the needs of workers — we would never have seen the type of policies over the years that were favorable to business that ultimately gave us this debacle. In order to level the playing field so that Congress will be responsive to the needs of all citizens we really do need to have a system of campaign finance that does not rely on private contributions. Perhaps the American worker ought to be making the case that campaign finance reform is ultimately a matter of workers’ rights. It is ironic, then, that Senator McCain missed a tremendous opportunity to remind the public why campaign finance reform was so important.