The Danger of Unfettered Donations in Politics

Submissiveness and dominance have their effects on the same reward circuits of the brain as power and cocaine.

Or, power and political donations.

Folk like Pierre Poilevre probably think they're being fiendishly clever by jigging our electoral process to make is so that the Political Parties capable of raising the most money are the ones most likely to sway more voters and stay in power.

Really, though, they're being tragically short-sighted.

When you become addicted to donations, you become enslaved to your donors.  As is the case with any addiction, more and more of your energy gets directed towards getting your next fix to the exclusion of all else.

The Conservative brain trust probably think this is a good thing, as it means that their base and like-minded donors will come to dominate Canada's political landscape in perpetuity.  This isn't the case.

Because the addiction will start to flow the other way, too.  We see this already - Political Parties are raising more and more money while Not For Profits are withering away because of a lack of funds and fundraising capacity.  

As corporations hold their capital and public services both shrink and fail to grow to meet civic need, we're going to see a growing rift between the addicted people with power and the expanding number of disenfranchised people.

There's historical precedent for what happens when this balance teeters to far out of whack.  But Empires don't worry about history, do they?

Which is why they fall.