Class and Politics

               Personally, I think this chapter has been my favorite one from L&C in the course.  I thought it was very informative, though I would have preferred the section on financing American elections to be a little longer.  I have always wanted to know how much money influences the outcome of elections and to what extent elected politicians establish policies that lean towards helping their donors.  It seems to me that such a relationship between donor and receiver would encourage corruption and as a result foster the growth of inequalities.  With the rich having all the say, the poor would be crowded out in the political process.  Politicians would put thanking their contributors first and helping society as a whole second.  In addition, since politicians have re-election campaigns to find sponsors for, it’s plausible to think that a large number of politicians would want to keep their original donors happy on the chance that they would need to approach them for money a second time around.  I would be interested to know if the people who sponsor a political candidate the first time around, typically also sponsor the candidate’s second run as well, as I believe this would help to shed more light on the relationship between candidate and sponsor.