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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

It's an open secret in politics that government jobs are a revolving door to/from industry.

Corporate executives frequently go in to politics, and when politicians retire they often get cushy, high paying jobs at the very corporations they benefited while in office.

They don't have to be outright bribed while in office (though it's not unknown for that to happen), but they know they'll be handsomely rewarded once they leave.

That's not to mention them or their family members investing in companies they know will benefit from their actions while in office.

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This is a tired argument. Of course people who have industry experience will continue to work in that industry. And if the chance of being rewarded with a "cushy" job after leaving office is so compelling then why are so few people interested in becoming politicians?

It's less of an argument and more a list of facts, isn't it?

> then why are so few people interested in becoming politicians?

Obviously because they can't afford to because they actually have to work.

It's not clear to me that the overlap between corporate and political career paths really has any meaningful impact on the way politicians vote on individual bills, so I wouldn't call that a fact

>why are so few people interested in becoming politicians?

Uh... what? There's a shortage of politicians nowhere, lol.

There might technically be enough politicians to fill all available positions, but there clearly aren’t enough for a competitive and diverse ideological landscape.

When it comes to US, adding more candidates doesn't change the politics. Genuine grassroots campaigns have an almost impossible climb against establishment endorsed candidates in both major parties, and creating your own party does nothing either. Without a large battle chest, you ain't gonna win against a candidate with a huge corporate campaign budget. If anything, adding more candidates creates a "spoiler" effect, where the establishment candidate doesn't need as many votes, because the opposition vote is split due to two or more opposition candidates. And even if you manage somehow to get elected, you'll have a hard time getting anything done if you don't tow the party line.

The US system steers naturally towards two parties that both advance corporate interests, and that's what's happening now.

> if the chance of being rewarded with a "cushy" job after leaving office is so compelling then why are so few people interested in becoming politicians?

Becoming a politician is a bit like becoming a musician: Spend the best years of your life 'putting your time in' with a 98% chance you'll never make it big. Only the 2% that made it big get offered those $500k/year sinecures.

If you're already in the powerful 2% you've probably already compromised on your principles many times to get there, so the $500k/year for compromising them a little more is practically free money.

If you're entering politics, though? As you've only got a 2% chance of making the $500k, the expected value is only $10k. Not much of a motivation.

Don't need to be a politician. You can be a lobbyist, staffer....

I just remembered a guy who became a mayor and then started his own party with some decent, western inspired ideas in my country. Things which are sane in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, you know, countries which we consider developed.

I really should've saved that story because I can't find it anywhere now.

Basically, on the streets, most people supported him. In reality, people weren't enough. If they even mattered. Turned out you had to align yourself with one of the four major parties or you had zero chance at gaining traction in any county that mattered. Funnily enough, the "easy" counties would be even harder - low population, low income, lack of education, low voter turnout, always voting for populists/authoritarians.

The major parties have the power and the money and there was no way they'd ever let a newcomer just barge in without being vetted first. The majority of new parties were absorbed into the big ones.

This is a joke, I don't know what's to be done about it and I'm sure that's the case in other countries, too. Only good thing is politicians stay out of private business as they're starting to realize the richer the private population becomes, the richer they will be.

And even then, they fail at making a better environment for small businesses, instead choosing to focus on big companies, especially foreign ones. Let them come, buy up everything for cheap and use the population as cheap labor forever. Why would the government care?

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