And if the de jure political process no longer has enough de facto power to assert control over the bureaucratic institutions, isn't external money a very useful source of de facto power to challenge the bureaucracy?

It seems like getting money out of politics would be surrendering one of the only viable tools for re-asserting public control of the apparatus of government.

Interesting. So what do you see as solutions?

Fire everyone in DC and move the capital to Palo Alto.

Is it that we don't need to do this, or that we can't? If we can't, the hypothesis is confirmed and we really need to. If we don't need to... come on, man.

I've never worked in DC as an adult. But I grew up there as a bureaucrat's brat. And all I can say is... neighbor, you have no idea.

(Professor Lessig certainly has an idea. But he won't share it with you - because the source of his power is the dark crystal under the Capitol. Ie, he's important because of his connections, direct or indirect, personal or institutional, to the permanent government. He matters because he teaches at Harvard, an institution unconditionally trusted by... you get it. Certainly if he was just some random neighbor on the Internets, like me, he'd have a much tougher time being taken seriously.)