The simple life we have created for ourselves is one of the primary reasons why campaign finance reform efforts fail and why special interests rule the nation. Your light switch, thermostat, automobile, supermarket, electric tools and electronic entertainment, shopping mall and mail order catalogues combine to make your life far simpler than it would otherwise be, and that entire structure of consumer society constantly transfers and focuses power.
Driving instead of walking, for example, is a choice with broad political implications. The machine itself must be manufactured, the fuel distilled and delivered, the road built and maintained, and rules, road signs, and traffic controls become necessary. Each component from resource extraction to showroom floor to gas pump to traffic cop with a whistle involves centralization of control and transfer of wealth. The huge capital investment necessary to build a modern industrial plant demands this financial concentration and, within a free market system, successful investment brings huge rewards. At the same time, organization of vehicular traffic requires a government (either public or private) empowered to make land-use decisions, regulatory laws, and provision for enforcement, all of which require fund raising in the form of fees and taxes (to say nothing of military excursions to preserve supply lines).
A foot path, on the other hand, creates itself through repeated use and persons meeting on a trail can normally pass each other in an ad hoc fashion that does not require third party intervention. Government at every level is inevitably influenced by wealthy individuals and organizations with both an incentive to manipulate policy decisions and the money and time (or the time of hired lobbyists) to do something about it. Whether the president is himself a wealthy capitalist like George Washington, or a commoner like Bill Clinton who artfully shmooozes with the super-rich, the bottom line has not changed. Power begets power. The only difference today is visibility. Back when decisions were made more entirely in smoke filled rooms there were no financial disclosure forms to reveal the machinations of the old boy networks. Today mass psychology is employed to sway votes with clever and expensive advertising ploys, which translates into high dollar campaigns backed by big players with deep pockets.
These are non-startling ideas, but would-be reformers might do well to keep them in mind, particularly in conjunction with a less commonplace observation: the capitalist free market tends to commodify opposition movements. As Eugene Linden commented in his prescient 1998 book The Future in Plain Sight, successfully challenging the system becomes virtually impossible if each challenge is converted into a marketing plan. Go ahead. Get a whole generation of young Americans to reject parental and governmental authority, openly violate draft and drug laws, wear outrageous clothing and hair styles, embrace communal life...and? And "Buy the record! the CD! the tie-dye! the book! See the made-for-TV-movie!" It doesn’t matter if your cause is "What Would Jesus Do?" or fashioning a sustainable culture, the hurdle is the same. The only way to reach enough people to make a difference is through the mass media, which means the mass market, which means you have lost the war before you begin the battle.
Abby Hoffman had it right when he wrote Steal This Book! The only hope for structural change lies in de-commodifying the revolution, but, naturally enough, book stores were not terribly excited about displaying that title. Every copy sold represented a failure, a conundrum that could make any ideologue wax suicidal.
To reclaim personal political power it is necessary to pull back from commodification. Gandhi walked in a plain robe, and ate rice when he wasn’t fasting. He did not hand his fate to others by making life easier for himself, and he changed the world.
The sage Massachusetts congressman, Tip O’Neil reminded us, "All politics is local." Exactly so! Chop wood. Carry water. Broom instead of blowing. Brown bag it instead of McLunching. Use less electricity. Make do. Use it up. Wear it out.
Self reliance is the antidote to disempowerment by consumerist simplicity. Vote with your feet, your hands, your mind.