corporatism:

the control of a state or organization by large interest groups

Join Our Co-Founder, Ben Cohen, and Help Get The Dough Out of Politics
March 10, 2015
By Ben Cohen

I remember reading Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in my high school civics class. We were taught that we had a representative democracy, in which elected officials went to Washington to work for the people back home, and our representatives transcended their self-interest and worked together for the common-good. As Lincoln described it, “A government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

But the system is broken; or fixed, depending on how you look at it. No matter which issue you care most about—the environment, education, healthcare, poverty, Wall Street banks, student debt—it’s unlikely that our representatives will listen to you unless you have a million dollars to spend on advertising, campaign contributions and high-priced lobbyists.

That’s because in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court ruled that money is free speech. They then went even further in Citizens United v FEC, saying that corporations are people and therefore can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence laws and elections. In other words, the Supreme Court perfected a system of pay-to-play politics in which corporations and billionaires spend big bucks on elections, and lobbyists and are awarded with cushy government contracts. According to a new study by the Sunlight Foundation, between 2007-2012, the nation’s 200 most politically active corporations received $760 for every $1 they donated to influence politics.

http://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2015/citizens-united-ben-cohen