A negative feature of plutocracy is that, in a battle for the votes of the unengaged sections of the electorate, the side that has a cash advantage can easily grab a larger share of the finite space for campaign commercials on prime-time TV. Therefore, plutocracy makes it impossible for the contest to be decided solely on the fundamental merits of the contending candidates, their records, and their policy proposals -- on a level playing field, so to speak.
This case against plutocracy is, I take it, pretty obvious and uncontroversial.
But today I would like to take the argument further. I would like to argue that plutocracy damages democracy by encouraging falsehood.
Consider a fight between two candidates, one favored and the other loathed by the rich. For no particular reason, let's call them Mitt and Barack, respectively. Imagine that each candidate is at a fork in the road, contemplating whether or not to be truthful in their TV ads. There are pluses and minuses, pros and cons to lying.
The question is: How do Mitt and Barack's incentives -- to tell lies in their TV ads -- change if Mitt, the plutocrats' darling, raises more money than Barack, thereby increasing his cash advantage?
If you tell lies in your campaign commercials, you may face a backlash from your opponent, who may run ads of his own exposing your false claims, and from the media, who may give your ad a "four Pinocchios" or "pants on fire" rating.
However, the intensity and column inches of criticism devoted by the media to a campaign ad depends on the falseness of its content and not on how much money was raised by the person who "approved the message." Therefore, although both Mitt and Barack would face equal press hostility for a given level of mendacity in their campaign ads, Mitt would be in a much better position because he would be able to overwhelm and drown out the media criticism by blanketing the airwaves with his ads.
Therefore, if Mitt extends his financial lead over Barack, Mitt's incentive to lie will increase. The cost of lying decreases when a candidate gains a bigger share of the finite TV space. It's easier to get away with lies when one can blanket the airwaves.
The incentives are reversed for Barack. If Mitt rakes in more cash and extends his money lead over Barack, any false claims by Barack would face a more fearsome backlash from Mitt, not just because Mitt now has a louder megaphone, but because, reliant more than ever on falsehood, he would want to establish moral equivalency: "Don't blame me for lying," Mitt would want to say. "The other guy is doing it too."
Moreover, Barack would have fewer resources to drown out any criticism coming from the media of any lies in his ads. This is another reason why Barack will stick more closely to the truth as Mitt extends his financial lead over Barack.
Indeed, the media's fact-checking of campaign ads may play a surprising and unintended role. It may weaken the financially weaker candidate's ability to lie (because he can't drown out media criticism) without affecting the financially stronger candidate (who can). In a battle of lies, it may be better if both sides are able to lie equally easily. In a plutocracy, it might be better if the media stop fact checking campaign adds and just let everybody rip.
To summarize, when campaign war chests become more unequal, you can expect the plutocrats' favorite to rely more on lies and you can expect the plutocrats' pariah to increasingly stick to the truth. However, the latter's greater reliance on truth will matter less and less to the overall story as he suffers a relative disappearance from the finite TV ad space. So, overall, as plutocracy intensifies, the truth will lose its ability to influence elections.
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