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Against this background, we can understand Washington a bit better.

In the days of wine, women, and wealth, Washington may well have been an exchange economy. I doubt it, but it’s possible. Whatever it was, however, it has become a gift economy.59 For as the city has professionalized, as reformers have controlled graft more effectively and forced “contributions” into the open, the economy of D.C. has changed. If the law forbade D.C. from being an exchange economy, it could not block its becoming a gift economy. So long as the links are not expressed, so long as the obligations are not liquidated, so long as the timing is not too transparent, Washington can live a life of exchanges that oblige without living a life that violates Title 18 of the U.S. Code (the Criminal Code, regulating bribery). As Senator Paul Douglas (D-Ill.; 1949–1967) described it fifty years ago:

Today the corruption of public officials by private interests takes a more subtle form. The enticer does not generally pay money directly to the public representative. He tries instead by a series of favors to put the public official under such a feeling of personal obligation that the latter gradually loses his sense of mission to the public and comes to feel that his first loyalties are to his private benefactors and patrons. What happens is a gradual shifting of a man’s loyalties from the community to those who have been doing him favors. His final decisions are, therefore, made in response to his private friendships and loyalties rather than to the public good. Throughout this whole process, the official will claim—and may indeed believe—that there is no causal connection between the favors he has received and the decisions which he makes.60

This is a gift economy. As Jake Arvey, the man behind Adlai Stevenson’s political career, defined politics: “politics is the art of putting people under obligation to you.”61 Obligation, not expressed in legally enforceable contracts, but in the moral expectations that a system of gift exchange yields.

A gift economy is grounded upon relationships, not quid pro quo. Those relationships grow over time, as actors within that economy build their power by developing a rich set of obligations that they later draw upon to achieve the ends they seek. In this world, the campaign contribution does not “buy” a result. It cements a relationship, or as Kaiser describes it, it “reinforce[s] established connections.”62 As one former lobbyist put it when asked why contributions are made: “Well, it isn’t good government. It’s to thank friends, and to make new friends. It opens up channels of communication.”63

It is within this practice of reciprocity that obligation gets built.64 And as economist Michele Dell’Era demonstrates, the gifts necessary to make this system of reciprocity work need not be large.65 What is important is that they be repeated and appropriate within the norms of the context. What is critical is that they are depended upon.

Unlike traditional gift economies, however, Washington is a gift economy not because anyone wants it to be. It is a gift economy because it is regulated to be. Having banned the quid pro quo economy, the market makers have only one choice: to do the hard work necessary to build and support a gift economy. The insiders must learn a dance that never seems like an exchange. Demands or requests can be made. (Day one: “Congresswoman, our clients really need you to see how harmful H.R. 2322 will be to their interests.”) But those demands are unconnected to the gifts that are given. (Day two: “Congresswoman, we’d love to hold a fund-raiser for you.”) Even congressmen (or at least their staff) can put one and one together. And even when the one doesn’t follow the other, everyone understands how to count chits. There’s nothing cheap or insincere about it. Indeed, the lobbyist is providing something of value, and the member is getting something she needs. And so long as each part in this exchange remains allowed, the dance can continue—openly