Is the rejection of corporate money from politics really a new idea?

[Hardkill]

According to US history, there have been numerous attempts to ban or limit big money from election campaigns since the beginning of the 1900s. 

However, people like Leo and Noam Chomsky have said that the discussion of ideas in the political arena such as rejecting corporate money from all election campaigns was unthinkable before people like Bernie Sanders became well-known progressives.

So, is the idea of banning all corporate money from politics really such a recent development in US history?

[bmcnicho]

There were a series of Supreme Court decisions that created the modern money in politics issue.  The most well known is Citizens United, decided in 2010, and ever since there’s been progressive democrats wanting it to be overturned.  This is largely what catalyzed public awareness of this issue

However, there’s a few other lesser known cases that would also need to be overturned to substantively address the issue, the first of which was decided in 1976.  In the decades before then, money in the political system was much better regulated.

I’m not familiar with the history going back further than that though.  Obviously, the government being controlled by an elite class is the norm throughout world history.  I guess before modern times, political campaigning was a lot different, as it didn’t depend on purchasing advertising slots from massive television networks

[Chuco]

As long as there is corruption, there is anti-corruption.