Votes are political equity
All legislation is carefully stored in labeled blue plastic bins
Since affordable housing policy is always an output of the government factory, I have over the years become fascinated by the complex ways in which legislation is created, how elected officials use their political capital, and how they use many things (including political vaporware) to manufacture it — and whether and how voters and stakeholders can gain confidence that their elected officials will pursue and implement wise policies that enable the nation to thrive and its citizens to prosper.
When I was brainstorming with the leadership of Slum Dwellers International, it hit me:
Votes are political equity
You want equity, don’t you?
Think about it for a minute. Voters have no guarantee that the candidate will continue his or her previous policies. All you have to go on its track record and a reputation for integrity. Compare that with what money says, and how debt and equity speak with different voices, as explained by Sherlock Holmes:
“Holmes,” said Watson, “while you were away at your wealthy benefactor’s secluded Lake Como villa, convening with world’s other great housing finance experts, I have been pondering your various expositions of the differences among debt (hard and soft) and equity (hard and soft), and it occurs to me that, as you have often spoken of the forensic tales told by the capital stack, so too is not only the credit decision different, so are the resulting business relationships formed. It is almost as if the money itself speaks to the two parties.”
Equity is the voice of trust:
“I trust you … I demand no firm pledges.”
Think about the choice you make in the voting booth. You mark the box, and after that, it’s up to the elected official. What happens when they go wrong? We say they betrayed our trust.
That element of trust has always vexed the powerful. “He’s an honest politician: he stays bought.” Regardless of who said it, we can all sympathize with this wry aside from 150 years ago:
That sounds like debt, doesn’t it?
But that’s not the way it works. The politicians, bless their hearts, cannot be so easily bought. In fact, they have to deliver on their equity promises, because they have to face the voters again.
In equity, returns are variable. One looks for cumulative returns over time. Performance fluctuates. Sounds like elected officials’ standing in the polls, doesn’t it? Elected officials make investments — expenditures of political capital — when they have a long enough time horizon for the investment to show a return. (In this, the US and UK systems are dramatically different, for in the US elections occur at fixed intervals, whereas in Britain the incumbent has the enormous advantage of being able to call an election when he (or she) thinks the time is right.)
Should I call an election now?
Maybe not …
Elections are periodic. If the investment fails, you make another investment. Elections thus create a feedback loop where the politicians have to demonstrate their returns. That periodicity of market dynamic is why democracy works. It creates accountability.
That’s why every dictator since time immemorial has sought, as early as he can, to postpone elections or make himself president for life. Any official who bans the polling booth might as well hang out a sign saying, All promises are hereby voided.
From Mugabe …
… to Chavez via Castro?
Votes are also the means whereby the poor level the playing field with the rich. It’s no surprise stakeholders have always used political contributions as a means of gaining access, for they are a kind of subsidy, and carry the same unspoken message:
As Auric Goldfinger put it:
‘Money is an effective winding-sheet.’
“Riches, if I may inflict another of my aphorisms upon you, may not make you friends but they greatly increase the class and variety of your enemies.”
Against the power of plutocracy is the power of democracy — voting in a bloc. The poor lack money, but they are vote banks. They gain a stake at the table is through issue-oriented bloc voting, and become effective in gaining access to government resources only when they organize themselves into political parties and factions. Tammany Hall worked because it delivered meaningful voice to immigrants.
Tammany Hall: “in counting there is strength.”
It’s also why SDI’s savings co-operatives are effective. As they explain it:
From this perspective, the politics of SDI affiliates is a politics of accommodation, negotiation and long-term pressure rather than of confrontation or threats of political reprisal.
Accommodation, negotiation, and long-term pressure. Sounds like equity to me.
This pragmatic approach is grounded in a complex political vision about means, ends and styles, which is not entirely utilitarian or functional. It is based on a series of ideas about the transformation of the conditions of poverty by the poor in the long run. In this sense, the idea of a political horizon implies an idea of patience and of cumulative victories and long-term asset building, which is wired into every aspect of the activities of the SDI network.
That’s equity thinking, and it’s part of what makes SDI distinctive and effective. As the poor organize themselves into voting blocs, the first few times their political capital (votes) may be wasted. Sustained over time, an equity-investing approach does bring forward elected officials who are responsive to the poor. Holmes put it this way:
“When money talks, people listen.”
“Well said, Watson.” Holmes looked up from the quarterly report of the Moriarty and Milverton urban redevelopment fund, in which he had invested a small sum. “Here I am, having placed capital with these two gentlemen, and I find that not only are my attitudes toward them changed, so too are theirs toward the system in which they now operate.” He shook his head. “Capital civilizes. Mycroft would chuckle at my naivete.”
Properly invested, political equity civilizes.
In politics, the taller candidate usually wins
Even politicians.