Investment Theory of Politics

Thomas Ferguson is an American political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Thomas Ferguson has written an interesting book titled "Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems" (1995). In this book, Ferguson breaks completely with traditional voter centered accounts of party politics. In its place he outlines an "investment approach," in which powerful investors, not unorganized voters, dominate campaigns and elections. In effect, Democrats and Republicans are merely the left and right wings of the "Property Party".

Few snippets from the book:

.."This does not mean that voters never influence public policy or even that they do not constantly do so. It does imply, however, that their influence on state policy is highly variable and uncertain. In a political system like that of the United States, the costs associated with the control of the state effectively screen out the bulk of the electorate from sustained political intervention".

and

The policy agenda is attuned to the concerns of the investors and it is distinctly one-sided resulting in "increasingly radical versions of "laissez faire" economics...demands for tax "relief," freedom from regulation, cuts in social welfare expenditures, labor cost reductions and tighter control of increasingly decentralized production systems"

and most telling:

"..on all issues affecting the vital interests that major investors have in common, no party competition will take place"

For those interested, a preview of the book can be found here