One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic is a book you have to read. It isn’t that long. More of a pamphlet, really. When I think of Lawrence Lessig, I still think of him as a copywrite/EFF guy, but he’s established himself as a top notch political thinker. In One Way Forward, he presents a well crafted case that money is at the core of the US government’s problems. He posits that in this era of connectivity, we are uniquely positioned to bring about a radical change in our government.
Lessig’s argument is that campaign finance reform (he outlines a voucher system similar to Republic, Lost) is necessary, but not enough to stop the unfair influence of money in congress – he proposes a constitutional amendment that would regulate independent expenditures on political campaigns. He argues that this will be necessary to curtail the influence of Super PACs on elections.
That’s a bold move. You can agree with Lessig or not, but you have to like the even handed and bipartisan approach he takes. He praises both the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement as grassroots organizations that tapped into the energy and passion of the people. One interesting point Lessig makes is about the distinction between politics and constitutional politics. When you have a discussion about politics, you talk about what new policies to adopt and who gets elected; but when you talk about constitutional politics, you talk about how those policies are created and how those people are elected.
The short version of this books is that politics matters. Being an engaged citizen matters. We don’t (and shouldn’t) all agree, but we can change America for the better. Read this book.
See the full list of books that I’ve read for this project here.
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