Depends how you define it and wether you’re defining it as intentionally en masse or as a byproduct of pure self interest regardless of anything else.

There’s plenty of examples, the most famous one in my opinion is that the popularity of legislation is irrelevant for passage, support by wealthy is. Similarly how the vast majority of people obtain political office is by and large courting the influence of wealthy donors (source - the amount of money being spent in politics and particularly dark money). Also how “lobbying” works even in the Supreme Court and pay to play by definition is politically battling the poor.

Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it?

Everybody says that money buys elections. But consider that Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost, Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and still lost. Bloomberg poured money into his presidential bid, and he didn't garner enough votes to be a blip on the radar.

Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes.

Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you?

Money buys a stage, not a vote. If the voters don't like what you're selling, you're going to lose.

After all, was your vote bought in the last election?

Money too often decides who we get to vote for. It definitely does in the USA.

Again, money buys you a stage. You'll need a stage to run for office. But if your message stinks, people won't vote for you.

Kamala bought a big stage (she outspent Trump by a wide margin). But she lost. If money buys elections, she would have won.

Sooo...Harris' failure to win proves that money doesn't win elections...you do realize that her opponent also had to spend dozens of millions to even be able to compete, right?

Really hard to imagine how you aren't being willfully ignorant on this. Money doesn't win elections. It just puts you in the only possible position where one can win. Those are your own words, yet you somehow conclude that money doesn't win elections? Money literally decides what choice WE HAVE in an election. You cannot vote for someone who doesn't have the extreme wealth required to compete. & someone who isn't competing, isn't a choice given to voters.

Electricity doesn't make computers run, pushing the on button does!

Sure, money buys a stage, and an outsized stage for a worse idea is still persuading many more voters than a smaller stage with a better idea. If one campaign saturates communication it drowns others, this is what money buys on political campaigns (especially in the US).

Where I vote money doesn't play much of a part in elections so no chance for my vote to be bought; in the USA, a society much less politically active and educated, money goes a much longer way to persuade, convince, deceive, and outright lie to voters. Hence so many Trump voters coming out of the woodwork to say "I didn't vote for this".

Both sides say that voters who didn't vote for their favorite candidate because they are uneducated fools and deplorable.

> If one campaign saturates communication it drowns others, this is what money buys on political campaigns (especially in the US).

Carly Fiona is another example of a big spender that got trounced in the polls.

BTW, no matter how much campaign money is spent by socialist candidates, I will never vote for them. If all the candidates on the ballot are socialists, I will turn in my ballot with no vote on it. My vote is not for sale.

You know about statistics and how population-wise aggregate data can be skewed given you know which levers to press and where, I don't know why you play dumb about money in politics being a massive influence. Nowhere is said "money buys YOUR vote", money does influence votes, it does influence people who are less educated (or less politically engaged) who watches ad after ad pushing the precise button they need to be pushed to tilt scales.

I don't care about your view on socialist candidates, it doesn't pertain to this discussion whatsoever. People would vote for a socialist candidate who said the right stuff to them, that's just how the statistics work.

> Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it?

Health insurance companies love it.

> Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes.

You literally just talked about how the people everyone got to select from are those that could raise billions for a campaign. Hell the current president is a billionaire - literally the wealthy - and staffed important posts by other wealthy people. Congress is stacked by wealthy people, in no small part because the salary for congress is not commensurate with the responsibility it has.

Also, your numbers seem off for the Harris v Trump campaign (not what I’m seeing looking online) but it doesn’t matter (I highlight where you may have made the error below).

> Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you?

No one serious about this issue suggests that they hand out money for votes. Well Elon actually did engage in that in this prior election cycle in swing states so there is that undermining your rhetorical comment.

But it’s also the height of naïveté to either not believe advertising/marketing (aka propaganda) works (you know, the trillion billion dollar companies of Google and Facebook) or to believe that politics is somehow immune from its effects as well (which requires ignoring how political movements work or what we learned about propaganda and its efficacy in WWII). And all of that takes big $. Of the 1.2B Kamala raised, 40% was small dollar donations. Of the 400M Trump raised, only 133M was small dollar donations (28.8%). Note: if this is where you’re getting the 3:1 number you’re not reading the data correctly - democrats spent ~1.9B total vs Republicans 1.6B and Trump directly spent >900M (presumably carrying over the donations from the previous campaign? Not sure).

And again - I’ll refer you to the research showing the general popularity of a proposal is irrelevant to it getting passed. How popular it is among wealthy does have that effect. And it again, you seem to struggle when I say this and try to point out some particular piece of legislation - it’s percentages. It doesn’t matter if it’s not an absolute. You don’t need to win every battle to win the war.

Anyway, Walter you’re a smart guy. I expect more from you than rudely dismissive comments that insinuate committing a crime is the only way money and wealth can influence and “buy” politics (and ignoring that Republicans did attempt to do so this past cycle)

Oh and I suggest you look at how advertising works. It’s classic 0 sum game. If you and I spend 0 on advertising, the outcome is the same as if we both spent $100 on advertising (assuming equivalent efficiency of conversion). However if you spend $100 and I spend 0 you capture the market. If you outspend 2:1 you’ll get 2/3 of the market (roughly). Obviously efficiency of the spend is also important, but it’s literally a 0 sum information war between competitors. If you didn’t think it mattered, you’d have to explain why companies spend hundreds of millions on advertising - that would be money more efficiently invested somewhere else.

> assuming equivalent efficiency of conversion

Is there any case where this is remotely even true?! The way advertising budget is spent always has an enormous impact on the outcome.

One competitor spends in print, another on TV. One competitor targets young professionals, another families with kids. One competitor goes to best and most famous agency but buys the cheapest package and fights any decision, another gets a genius kid at the beginning of his career to create a most brilliant TikTok ad. Etc...

> I suggest you look at how advertising works

A valuable advice, try following it sometimes.

For the purposes of a simplified discussion it’s true enough. It’s also true enough in the commercial context for the biggest players. For example, Coke and Pepsi spend similar amounts of advertising and the market share isn’t really changing. But that’s also because the products are very mature and in repeated games the players are likely to reach a stale mate (and the talent pool for the advertising teams is largely the same).

Political contexts are obviously different because it’s constantly one off contests and the teams behind it constantly change. So yes, obviously efficacy of advertising matters. But I don’t see how my simplification meaningfully changes the point that money significantly impacts voting at scale in our society. This wasn’t the gotcha I think you thought it was.

True, but advertising does not buy an election.

Have you or anyone you know been paid for your vote? If the answer is no, then your vote was not bought.

Saying that election advertising "buys" an election is a misuse of the word.

It's in pretty wide use, like at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44209515

"Harris outspent Trump 3:1. Hillary outspent Trump 2:1. It's not that easy to buy an election."

Advertising is necessary to sell a product. Campaign money is necessary to buy you a stage. But if you don't like the product, you aren't going to buy it.

> Congress is stacked by wealthy people, in no small part because the salary for congress is not commensurate with the responsibility it has.

LOL, it seems they get wealthy after they get elected to Congress. (I wonder how that happens!)

> rudely dismissive comments that insinuate committing a crime is the only way money and wealth can influence

I don't know where you got that from.

I don't recall ever voting for someone because they spent more money on their campaign.

If elections are being bought, it's not by the campaign money, it's by the taxpayer money. I.e. the "chicken in every pot" promise to give people free stuff.

> I’ll refer you to the research showing the general popularity of a proposal is irrelevant to it getting passed.

I don't doubt that, but we're talking about an election, not passing legislation. The only election poll that matters is the final vote (note that a lot of people do not bother to vote).

You have such an exceedingly narrow definition of what it means when people say that money buys elections that I’m realizing it’s pointless to try to have a conversation.

> LOL, it seems they get wealthy after they get elected to Congress. (I wonder how that happens!)

Some yes. Insider trading is a problem. But I think you’d be surprised how many people who are already rich then enter politics. They may grow their wealth even more after but they start of supremely wealthy to begin with, not least of which because that also implies a network of rich people who will help you.

> If elections are being bought, it's not by the campaign money, it's by the taxpayer money. I.e. the "chicken in every pot" promise to give people free stuff.

So money selecting which candidates you can vote on isn’t money buying elections, but policy arguments over how to spend the public purse is buying the public? That’s like having the position that a toddler has a choice when you ask them would they like broccoli or celery - you’ve predefined their choices for them and given them the illusion of choice.

> I don't know where you got that from.

“No one bought my vote, how about you” is dismissive and rude, not least of which because I’m sure you know buying votes is a crime. It’s not the effective rhetorical device you think it is. It’s also horribly undermined precisely because politics has gotten so messed up Republicans are bold enough to literally trying this strategy now.

> I don't doubt that, but we're talking about an election, not passing legislation

Actually, no. This conversation started with your bold claim: “Can you show us how the wealthy are battling the poor?”. You’re now trying to shift the goal posts claiming it’s only about elections.

> You have such an exceedingly narrow definition of what it means when people say that money buys elections that I’m realizing it’s pointless to try to have a conversation.

The definition of "buy" according to google: "obtain in exchange for payment." I accept the standard definition of words, not made up definitions. It's not possible to have a debate when words are redefined.

> “No one bought my vote, how about you” is dismissive and rude, not least of which because I’m sure you know buying votes is a crime.

Do you know of anyone who was paid for their vote? or anyone who was offered payment for their vote?

However you call it, Musk is certainly getting as close as he can to the line of paying people to vote a certain way.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/01/politics/elon-musk-million-do...

He’s had to repeatedly tweak the wording of the payment to stay away from a textbook definition of vote buying, but it’s certainly violating the spirit of the law.

> The definition of "buy" according to google: "obtain in exchange for payment." I accept the standard definition of words, not made up definitions. It's not possible to have a debate when words are redefined.

Only if you treat the English language as something that you can understand the meaning by combining the meaning of individual words and that words only ever have one possible meaning. For example, if I say “you’re a horse’s ass” am I claiming that you are literally the rear end of a horse? Or am I claiming that you’re a donkey owned by a horse? Or am I using a euphemism to describe obnoxious behavior?

But anyway. This is getting way off the mark. You’ve hyper focused on one thing (election outcomes) ignoring the larger point about whether there is a class war going on (raising Obamacare which was a compromise from Medicare for all and has been repeatedly gutted but also ignoring the defunding of SNAP and various other programs this year that are disproportionately hitting the poor while wealthy are getting a huge tax break on inheritance taxes due to Trump’s bill this year - how again are the wealthy not getting what they want at the expense of everyone else?)

I've posted numerous examples of politicians attempting to "buy" an election and then losing the election. The reason an election cannot be bought in the US is because we have a secret ballot (besides being illegal). There's no way to verify who Bob actually voted for.

> wealthy are getting a huge tax break on inheritance taxes

The inheritance tax rate remains the same. The gift tax exemption was raised from 11 million to 15 million. This is going to affect the upper middle class, but not so much on the wealthy.

Medicare has hardly been gutted. It needs to be cut more, as it is still on track to sink the budget.

Same for Snap.

99% of zoning is just class-based segregation.

Here's a recent American example: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/by-the-numbers-har...

> Legal protection and structural advantages for landlord interests over tenant interests.

Rent control is not in the landlord's business. In Seattle, the other legislation against landlords is pushing them out of business.

> Pushing the tax burden for upkeeping society off people who own more shit than any of us ever will onto people who have to work for a living.

1% pay 40% of the federal income tax.

Google [percent of federal government spending spent on wealth redistribution] says: "A significant portion of U.S. federal spending, around 60-70%, goes to social insurance and safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Income Security, which function as wealth redistribution by supporting retirees, the needy, and vulnerable populations, though the exact "wealth redistribution" percentage varies by definition but centers on these large mandatory spending categories. In FY 2024, Social Security and Medicare alone were 36% of the budget, with Income Security adding another ~9-10%."

> Legal protection and structural advantages for employer interests over employee interests vis a vis wage theft, worker safety, worker injuries, etc.

The legal advantage again is for the employee. For example, wage theft is illegal and is aggressively prosecuted.

> Rent control is not in the landlord's business... Seattle... Landlords going out of business...

And you immediately demonstrate why having a conversation with you on this subject is pointless.

There's a million different dimensions in which the problem that I've pointed at manifests. But what you do is you cherry-pick one particular dimension of it in one particular municipality in one particular time period[1], claim that that dimension is (allegedly) biased in the other direction, and thus you reach the universal conclusion that clearly landlords are the real victims[2], and you can just sweep the entire issue off the table.

I don't have enough words to describe how incurious and chock-full-of-fallacies this kind of thinking is.

You already know everything that you feel you need to, and there's nothing more that needs to be said. It's like you have found the number 2, and conclude that therefore, most numbers are even primes.

---

[1] Actually, you don't do even that. You just vaguely wave your hands in its direction.

[2] Kind of weird that the market values their real estate to be worth twice what it was a decade ago if they are getting such a raw deal. I'm sure PE is snapping up rental properties because they are money-losing investments, too. After all, serious people who have done the math and are putting billions of dollars into this (and are reaping profits on their investments hand-over-fist) must all be too stupid to understand just how awful renting out property is.

> And you immediately demonstrate why having a conversation with you on this subject is pointless.

That's because my positions are correct.

BTW, rent control in 9 states is statewide, and is commonplace in cities.

Google [does seattle provide free lawyers for tenants?] for more examples.

For more,

In California, over 35 cities and counties have implemented long-term rent control ordinances for residential rental housing. In addition, since Jan. 1, 2020, the California Tenant Protection Act has extended rent caps and eviction restrictions to many properties not governed by local ordinances.

Google also reports:

Tens of thousands of NYC rent-stabilized apartments are vacant, with estimates varying from around 26,000 to over 60,000, often described as "warehoused," because strict rent caps (especially after 2019 laws) make costly renovations financially unviable for landlords, leading to units sitting empty rather than being rented or sold. While some vacancies are for legitimate repairs, many are held off-market as owners await the ability to renovate and raise rents, contributing to the city's housing shortage, say housing advocates and reports.

And yet, investors and landlords are scooping up every rental property they can, and are as a class, making mountains of money in those states.

It's wild that as a whole they are so advantaged that they are still net-in the green when they let properties sit empty and unused.

It's just as wild that you continue digging deeper. Reality in the big picture isn't compatible with your 'correct' viewpoint, so you keep drilling down to microdetails.

Did you read the part about 26,000-60,000 units left vacant because it was unprofitable to rent them out under the NYC rent control laws?

No profits == no business. Profits in very competitive markets might be low, but you still need them to survive. Walmart is under 6% of profit, but due to the enormous revenue it is still a lot.

That’s not the question, it’s where do profits come from in the economic equation? What part of the value chain is adding but not subtracting its full cut?

As Hayek proved the information in free markets is encoded by prices, so the value is up to the consenting parties. There is no "good" or "bad" or "improper" profit. If there is competition and willing parties that's where the profit will be. It will go down to something more or less sustainable for the market participants that are willing to work for that profit.

Sure, there may be a price a customer is willing to pay, but how does the business owner make a profit? Aren't there other people being paid too? If they are paid less, doesn't that sound more like a negotiating position than mere "information" signals?

Free market countries are more abundant than non-free market ones because the system is brutally efficient. If you can't sell something for a profit, you might be forced to sell it for a loss and eat the difference. This is the way the system regulates itself. The business owners invest their resources and own the risk. Employees sell their work hours by a fixed price and this is calculated in the total cost for the business to sell. The price their work is bought by is also regulated by free market and is an input to the total price. They aren't forced to be paid less than the going market rate (may be short term until contract expires) so the prices and unforced cooperation based on price it shte "magic" that makes USA to have 100s of types of biscuits and Cuba to have empty stores.

> how does the business owner make a profit?

Revenue - Expenses = Profit