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Comment by u1hcw9nx | Hacker News Reader

Basic internet response to everything is that when something essential involves something bad, we should forget the nuance and use slogans "X is BAD".

I want to push back against that. Lobbying is not corruption. All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints. That is essential for good lawmaking. It should be open (and is in the EU) with lobby registers (author uses lobbying as a synonym for corporate lobbying, confusing the issues).

Lobbying easily involves corruption, and that has to be constantly worked against (Qatargate, Cash for Amendments in 2011) for example. Hiring EU lawmakers after they leave the office should have long cooldown limits.

Current problems with EU lobbying: Corporate lobbying is over 60% of registered lobby spending. Civil society interest groups, consumer groups, and labor unions have less money. Revolving doors, astroturfing from foreigin states and corporations, and too much reliance on self-declaration in transparency register.

These can be all solved: mandatory meeting disclosures, declaration of private interests and assets, MEPs should be banned on paid lobbying activities, and long cooling-off periods before MEPs can become lobbyists, independent refinforcement, public annex for all directives and regulation listing interest groups involved.

People should care and make these political issues.

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If we define lobbying as using your financial resources and/or political connections (which others lack) to successfully influence policy, then of course it’s corruption. It’s a non-level playing field. Disclosure or transparency do not change this fundamental fact. And it’s an embarrassment to any real idea of egalitarian democracy.

Lobbying is the right to petition the government. What you need is a countervailing powers to limit regulatory failure of institutional capture.

Just like the original post, make a definition that mistakes a pathology of the system for its core function (also: structural inequality is not corruption).

If you are a purist and eliminate all resource-backed influence by banning pooling money, hiring researchers, and organizing campaigns to influence lawmakers because "others lack those resources," you effectively ban organized labour unions, consumer watchdogs, civil liberties organizations. A well-organized national labor union has more leverage than a non-unionized gig worker in the EU. Asymmetry an inequity issue, not corruption. Well organized will trump over those who are not.

Corporations should be able to lobby, but they their lobbying should be limited more heavily.

The real big problem with corporate lobbying is that corporations do not work in the self interests of the people they employ, but the political power they wield is a function of the number of people they employ.

I think that it's very common for people to work for corporations that are actively working to undermine their workers rights, and using the political clout that their workers grant to do i

Edit: Unions do this too of course. That's probably the number one accusation that people level against unions to discredit the whole idea of unionizing labour. The union management will eventually work for their own self interest instead of for the union members

Turtles all the way down

But others don't lack those means. Others always have financial resources and political connections, even if you banned lobbying. Of all the ways people can influence policy, this is the legal one. The other methods are not nearly as civilized.

Also, just to be clear, is the Teachers Union an embarrassment to democracy? Auto workers? Environmental groups? Or are there some forms of lobbying you're okay with as long as your ox isn't gored?

Are teachers unions, or environmental groups also "donating" to politician coffers?

Yes, they are politically active, and that includes donations of money and in kind.

I don't know how I feel about this. Their political activity should be on the backs of their influence in voters or ability to mobilize their members for events. The fact that they are also following the give money way just feels wrong. Feels like the system is rigged against their interests. As they are not a profit seeking org they will never win that game. But they represent the interest of far more people than the oil lobby for example. Feels very, very screwy. I want to put my finger on it but its too slimy.

Yes. And the use of money and undue influence of money are the problem-- not the idea of lobbying per se.

Yes. In my state’s last cycle, the state teachers’ union was the largest direct donor to state-level candidates of the winning party.

Much of that money is also derived from government spending itself, e.g. union dues.

That’s a situation ripe for corruption.

Indeed - that is even an example of circular corruption.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=L1300

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q11

Yes, absolutely. Simply check. They’ve spent far over a billion over the past decade directly to politicians, PACs, etc. The teachers union is the largest union in the US, and I think even the world.

Simply google the question, plenty of sources.

Ugh, teachers unions are some of the most powerful unions at local levels.

All of this is missing the ultimate underlying truth that capitalism (at least as it is implemented here and now) is the problem here. Capitalism creates increasing levels of inequality over time while nominally providing "equal opportunity" to all.

So it may be more accurate to say that "a capitalist system that creates an increasing gap of wealth inequality and defines money as speech is a system that inherently tends toward corruption" but that's a bit wordy for a headline

This is not an inherent truth to capitalism. It might somewhat be the case in America right now, but that’s because we have chosen certain tax brackets and other choices that allows for it.

The ones on the top of the chain have chosen. The rest have been manipulated to passivity and the banality of evil.

One reason I'm fully in support of capitalism is that you're 100% free to create subsystems within it. Go get some people together, buy some cheap land in the middle of nowhere, and start your new socialist, communists, or whatever other system you might fancy utopia.

You even get an instant all-inclusive free-trade agreement with the entire United States! All you need to be able to do is produce enough within your society to pay your land tax. By contrast try to start a little capitalist society within a 'social' economic system, and it'd be off to the gulags with you.

This freedom makes it quite difficult to take the hyperbolic claims against capitalism seriously. Obviously it has lots of problems, especially in the current crony capitalist system we have, but if the solutions were as simple as e.g. 'go be socialist instead' then people could prove it even within the system itself.

The concentration of power and the crossed planetary boundaries...

Money or economy is a social construct. The laws of physics and nature are, ehm kinda constant.

Eternal growth on a finite planet isn't exactly feasible and the planet is getting a mild fever as we speak. It'll recover, but it'll remove the symbiotic beings once they've turned into parasites.

And freedom in America is kinda joke these days at least anywhere else in the world : - )

Only a joke in your circle of understanding, statistically the US has the most immigration demand and has hosted the most amount of immigrants.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org

Concentration of capital is absolutely an inherent truth to capitalism. This is not even a debate it’s a (social) scientific fact.

Remove capital, and concentration of power is an inherent truth to any system, particularly one claiming to be socialist and controlling the economy on behalf of the people.

Humanity is beyond a political system. This phase is technofeodalism or tech fascism.

The situation is the same on the other side of the pond. Money, power and algorithmic manipulation power have concentrated enough, that the premise of democracy can be ditched.

Read Gil Duran's The Nerd Reich for an update on the current situation, where tech has replaced democracy.

Or search THN for The Nerd Reich or tech fascism topics and see that most of the topics are flagged here for no reason.

Compared to what?

Before you answer, consider all the castles, pyramids and other relics of past dynasties and aristocracies ruled by divine kings living in opulence while peasants subsisted on scraps.

Ah yes. The two genders: capitalism or divine right

If you notice, I said capitalism creates increasing levels of inequality. I did not however, make a claim as to what level that inequality is at, objectively or in relation to any other system. So your "Compared to what?" response is inane and irrelevant.

Nobody here is saying we should dispose of capitalism in favor of feudalism. Well as long as Musk or Altman isn't in the thread...

You didn't answer the question. Compared to what?

I don't have to answer a bad faith question that was and still is irrelevant to the point I made.

If you have your own actual point, feel free to make it.

What political-economic system doesn't produce increasing levels of inequality? It's not a bad-faith question. I truly haven't heard of one. I find the standard utopian takedown of capitalism to be unconvincing because it generally posits a state which has never existed, and which I think probably cannot exist due to the nature of humans.

If 99% of people are naked and starving, and one person has a granola bar and a loincloth, that's still massive inequality, even worse than what we have now.

And if there's one thing we know about people, it's that someone is going to hoard the granola bar.

>Capitalism creates increasing levels of inequality over time while nominally providing "equal opportunity" to all.

I think a better summary is that capitalism creates more opportunities for all. Not equal, just more.

It creates more food, more clothes, more libraries, symphony orchestras, skateboard parks, cars, ships, planes, particle accelerators and space telescopes than any other system we have come up with, which means more opportunities for people wanting to be pilots, captains, skateboarders, scientists or violinists.

Whenever someone has tried to remove the inequality aspect of this, it has resulted in a loss in opportunities for all. Including the opportunity to have food every day.

[Citation Needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%93...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

[Actual Citations That Support YOUR Assertions Still Needed]

(You've sufficiently established your personal opinion that capitalism > communism but that's kind of irrelevant to the actual claims you were making)

I provided citations for my assertions, artificial interference in capitalism (by means of communism) has caused famine.

What assertion are you lacking citation for? The hubble and webb telescopes vs the ??? communist space telescopes? Tony Hawk vs the ??? communist skater? John Carmack vs the ??? communist game developer? VW and Toyotas 20 million cars per year vs Trabant?

Maybe you could provide some examples of how communism has provided opportunities to all in a way that capitalism hasn't?

Which why taxes where created to prevent destructive buildup in the system

Which is exactly why the rich lobby so hard to pay as little in taxes as possible

I "lobby" my accountant to pay as little in taxes as possible for me.

> ...capitalism (...) is the problem here. Capitalism creates increasing levels of inequality over time while nominally providing "equal opportunity" to all.

This statement assumes that there exist a solution to this problem, a system that doesn't create inequality. As they say here, "Citation Needed".

AFAIK, failed experiments at such systems so far demonstrate that capitalism remains the only system capable of improving living conditions of the whole population over time, but I stand to be enlightened with the proof to the contrary.

> Of all the ways people can influence policy, this is the legal one. The other methods are not nearly as civilized.

False. An excellent example is the vTaiwan / pol.is platform. It incorporates the interests of all stakeholders:

government, business, AND citizens

Those groups are representing people, and yes, in an ideal world, in which politicians simply represent their constituents, they would be unnecessary. In a democracy, public policy is supposed to reflect public opinion. Yet, there is endless political science research showing that public policy usually has very little to do with public opinion. That is because under capitalism, capital concentrates, and it then uses that concentrated capital to influence public policy through legalized corruption (lobbying). If whatever some megacorp is lobbying for were actually in the public interest, and public policy reflected public opinion, there would be no need for their lobbying. They lobby because their interests are not aligned with the public’s interest.

There’s also no union for “the public” which is a little unfortunate since that should basically just be the government.

So yes, TLDR, first restore democracy and then we can talk about whether we need unions anymore. Until that time however, they are the only mechanism the public has to try to wield some degree of influence comparable to that of capital.

In other words, yes, big oil lobbying bad and auto workers union good.

This is why we have freedom of speech and association in the US. If you have the will, but not the resources, you can rally people to your cause. You can try to find like-minded individuals with shared goals and with your collective resources, you can build influence.

Success is hard of course, but you have the freedom to try.

And in the states, I think people would be very surprised by the kind of impact they can have on local politics - which also happen to be the politics that have the most direct impact on their lives.

> This is why we have freedom of speech and association in the US. If you have the will, but not the resources, you can rally people to your cause

Citation needed.

The most civilized method to influence policy has always been the act of voting.

That doesn't always work though, since citizens aren't given a vote on every policy issue[0]. Also, in the UK at the moment we have had a long stream of unelected governments, which make policy that isn't in the last manifesto that had a vote.

[0]: I'm not saying they should be, since that's what political representatives are for.

Citizens should vote more often, Switzerland shows a good example, be we can go even further than that.

I don't get this "voting every 4-6 years" story in most past of the world. This leads either to the political apathy or to the riots, like it is now in France and in Belgium.

We have to have a habit of voting in order to be efficient at it. For the same reason, my spam filters are relaxed and every day I read a few spam messages that slip though, to stay alert of what the spam is, and how it changes over time.

> If we define lobbying as using your financial resources and/or political connections (which others lack) to successfully influence policy

This definition is sloppy. If I buy a tacky "In this house..." sign and place it in my yard, I am using my financial resources to influence policy. Restricting that by law would be a disaster.

I think a better point could be made about the relationship BETWEEN financial resources and political connections. We should seek policies that limit the extent to which financial resources can easily buy political connections. This can be done by placing restrictions on public servants instead of restrictions on the public.

Of course, you're never going to totally remove the connection without totally destroying freedom of association.

Officials at the highest levels like MEPs don't really need to have freedom of association available to them though? They need to work the hardest of all the people they are trusted and charged with improving the lives of, under more scrutiny than any subjects the bodies they belong to govern. Personal freedom and agency are small concessions we should expect those who are put to shape the world based on their promises forego

Would you rather take advice from a friend or from a random person?

Depends, is my friend getting paid a lot of money to give me this advice, by a 3rd party that will massively benefit if I take it?

I might just trust a random redditor more...

Would you consider a person doing that to be friend?

The world is turning to crap right now because of affinity fraud.

"He goes to my church/eats my traditional food/wears the jersey of my favorite sportsball team. I trust him!"

People decide someone is their friend due to some superficial similarity which a charlatan has dressed himself up in (and conversely that others are their enemy due to some superficial dissimilarity), and then their "friend" steals their political power to do bad things.

And people are too committed to their self-conception as savvy judges of character to admit their error. The error becomes a religion, a folkway, and is persisted across generations. You have to keep committing the error in order to honor your ancestors who were first fooled.

Businesses should be able to communicate with policy makers especially when it impacts their industry.

In other words who would you trust to create a sensible encryption policy, Google executives or Chuck Schumer?

I know who I would pick

you crossed a really big gap moving from 'communicate' to 'creating policy'. I certainly do not trust Google in particular to write any policies, given that their whole business model is to attempt to sit at the boundaries between consumers and companies, or email senders or recipients, or job seekers and hirers. not a fan of Schumer, but Schumer should be soliciting input from Google, who is free to submit a public white paper, and NIST, and DJB, and citizens groups, and everyone else that might have a stake in the outcome.

If Google communicates to Schumer, then do you think Schumer would then sit down and write the policy, knowing very little about it?

In reality, many companies would get Schumer attention on crypto, and other regulators, the companies would use their expertise to craft sensible policy, politicians would work with that, run it by lots of other groups and politicians, and if it passed enough tests along the way, it might come up as a bill.

It’s not like Google, or any company, likely can just put in ludicrous things, and use wizard powers to make laws. If a company breaks trust, they will lose the ability to get ears. If politicians, or parties lose trust, they get unelected. So, in order to have sane laws regarding any complex topic requires huge specialist inputs, and those specialists became expert by working in that field.

There’s simply not a pool of such people sitting around unassociated waiting to write laws to specifications of random internet people.

Government tried to ban encryption when it was first developed. Private organizations had to fight hard to make encryption standard. Still do in places like Europe

So... the Red Cross using their financial resources and/or political connections (which others lack) to successfully influence policy is committing to corruption?

No no no, you don't understand. It's corruption when groups I don't like do it, when groups I like do it it's fine. Just like when my side wins elections it's democracy and when the opposition wins elections its fascism.

Democracy is supposed to have something to do with majority rule or at least having policies that benefit the greatest number. When corporations that answer to no one use their disproportionate financial resources to hijack the political system and push policies that hurt the common people, that is fascism, yes.

Which corporations "that answer to no one" (no publicly traded companies) have hijacked the political system and which policies have come about as a result that have hurt the majority of people actually represented by that system in ways that aren't:

A) Vagaries that most people don't actually care much about.

B) Tradeoffs that didn't go the way you personally want.

> Democracy is supposed to have something to do with majority rule or at least having policies that benefit the greatest number

No. Modern democracy is supposed to protect the minority and allow regular peaceful transitions of power. That's why we need individual liberties and constitutional rules that protect the individual and prevent the majority to take away their liberties.

Agreed. That is why there is a Constitution with Amendments that describes the rules and why it requires a supermajority to change them.

Not a great example. After the Haiti Earthquake donations poured into the Red Cross, helping them raise half a billion dollars. Those half a billion dollars were ultimately used to construct 6 permanent homes. [1] These are the exact sort of people I expect to be involved in lobbying politicians, and the last sort of people I want anywhere near anything relevant to me.

[1] - https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-re...

lol it’s this and can only be this

It's not "corruption" if it's the way it should be done. Corruption would imply some sort of nefarious means.

Maybe a better word would be "corrupting". Lobbying causes people to act in a way that is contrary to what people expect at face value, since it changes the incentives: if we assume that politicians choose what is best for them personally, their actions change from "what makes me popular with the most voters" to "what gives me the most money and power". This is often (not always) to the detriment of the voters themselves.

if we define anything in a way we want to define it to get the meaning we want then it ends up meaning what we want it to, however corruption in most definitions that I am aware of includes some sort of benefit to those making a political decision for the results of that political decision.

If we accepted your definition then it should follow that if you have political connections then you cannot influence policy without being corrupt, which seems weird because having political connections probably indicates political interest or knowledge of the issues.

Now you may feel that is an unfair description, that one can influence policy to the same extent as those without political connections and thus not be corrupt, but the problem with that is if you have political connections they will probably hear about your attempts and they will be influenced through that connection no matter what you try, not to mention that often your political connections are exactly the people that should be talked to, and in this way we see that people with political connections must be locked out of the process by your definition if we want to fight corruption.

Locking people out of the process seems as problematic as being corrupt, but luckily I follow the model of there has to be some personal benefit involved with the corruption so I don't need to argue for locking anyone out.

I'm not sure what you mean by financial, for example financial resources to affect a decision often includes advertising on the issue. I agree this can make things unfair, because someone with a lot of money can buy more ads than someone without.

In that case one could put funding limits on political ads, but so many issues are not directly political but still you can move the emotions of the public on them via advertising that it does not seem possible to really control. Maybe it should be attempted.

That said, although I believe it will invariably be unfair, unfair and corrupt are not synonymous.

It is way more nuanced than that and it depends on whether the outcome you are influencing to causes benefits to you and negative externalities to others or if its just benefits. Most of it is bad in the sense that it has huge negative externalities while being marketed as all good. The madd lobbying recently causing incrementally insane drunk driving laws or the arc fault surge protectors that solve a problem that doesnt exist while quadrupling construction cost come to mind

>> All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints.

Why do lawmakers need to talk some interest groups? If they don't have enough information to make laws, they should appoint expert groups to collect information. Talking to money bags is going to help only one thing.

Precisely. Information you don't pay for isn't news, it is propaganda. If you didn't pay for the product, you are the product.

You hear this language used by lobbyists and influencers, talking about which politicians they have “access” to.

In other words, they’re selling a product to their buyers, and the product is politicians.

> appoint expert groups to collect information

So... you'll have the representatives make their own lobbying groups? Also, each "expert" will have their own bias, so in doing so you'll inadvertently (or intentionally) block hearing from the wider community.

> So... you'll have the representatives make their own lobbying groups?

A lobbying group is dead-set on their preferred policy or solution to a problem, an expert group would be much more open-minded and exploratory. I don't see how these are comparable.

> Also, each "expert" will have their own bias, so in doing so you'll inadvertently (or intentionally) block hearing from the wider community.

Everyone has a bias, you can't reasonably remove that. Besides, hearing from the wider community will not make you less biased if the majority of the community is also strongly biased. However, a lobbying group has a pile of cash backing up their opinion (even if it is false), while a group of experts would be both more knowledgeable and likely have a more diverse set of views. It would be so much better.

We have groups of experts that advise lawmakers. For example, institutions that advise lawmakers on public health - currently headed by world class health expert RFK Jr.

Point being, it's impossible to build incorruptible institutions, groups of experts, etc, but we need them nonetheless.

Lobbying in it's most basic form is simply the act of petitioning politicians that represent you, which is pretty essential in a democracy.

If you've ever called your Senator or representative to tell them you oppose a law that will negatively impact you - you've just done a little lobbying

The industries have many of the most knowledgeable people. Ideally you would have an adversarial process similar to US courts. People representing different viewpoints vigorously representing their opinions with agreement on facts and on what the actual points of difference are.

> If they don't have enough information to make laws, they should appoint expert groups to collect information

I wish that was the case, but it is not.

Take, for example, the recent time zone changes in Canada. It's obvious that every single electronic device capable of showing current local time needs to be updated and that's first order effect of the law. And yet Manitoba gave ~4.5 weeks notice w/o speaking to anyone.

TBF Canada is not an exception and governments do that quite often, but that's does not make the situation better. One can only hope that the US and EU will give enough time to prepare for DST cancellation.

The trouble is that an expert group is a selected group of people, so it becomes the same "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" issue.

"Lobbying is a form of advocacy that legally attempts to influence policy decisions"

I think there's a problem with definitions here. How the general public, especially here in the U.S., tends to think of lobbying is essentially always in the form of monetary value or gifts. In an ideal world, this probably should be banned for fairness reasons. Smaller institutions would always have necessarily less influence and power over policy.

In theory any exchanges of monetary value or gifts should be well documented and must be disclosed. In actuality, it's much harder to document than meets the eye. There are so many ways around it that it's almost worth saying it doesn't exist (admittedly it seems especially egregious in the US but I'm no expert on how its done elsewhere).

But then, at the same time if we conclude that it's hard to document then it's hard to ban it. Its just a slippery slope all around. Institutions must be allowed to petition their government, but making sure that doesn't go too far and lend itself to corruption is difficult to enforce.

So that is likely where the author and the rest of us lead to the conclusion that the eventual result of lobbying as its implemented in essentially everywhere in the world is corruption.

The alternative is that paid government officials and government/EU research institutions supply their research results to lawmakers and refuse to read gray papers from corporations or big civil influence groups. That's all well and good as part of the mix, but on its own, a very narrow viewpoint in a complex society. (The fight over who is nominated to these research jobs becomes even more political.)

Removing possibilities of corruption from MEPs means removing their power and moving it into deeper government bureaucracy where it is harder to spot. Now you have non-elected people who work whole their life in government using more power.

The things about unelected career bureaucrats is that they usually have no legal mechanism for directly benefiting from the outcome of their policy suggestions. They can't even accept lunch from outside groups without facing disciplinary action. I would prefer those people have the power of opinion rather than someone who benefits directly or has a perverse incentive to accept "campaign money" in order to further a change in law.

You're overlooking the real benefit to people who obtain value from promoting their ideology even at a government salary.

Rank and file are legally prohibited from lobbying in that way and because they're not political operatives it's actually enforced.

They don't need to lobby, because they're already on the inside. 95% of the government is run by the bureaucracy, so they can directly implement their ideological preferences. That's how you get situations like in Europe where the policies don't change regardless of which party is elected.

That depends. I know first hand a local bureaucrat who bought a piece of land designated as forest and a year later that forest got designated as construction area (or whatever the English term is) making that land worth at least 10x as much. And who was the person who changed that designation? A colleague of theirs in the office next doors. Quite a nice retirement gift. And those people are small fishes in a very small local community. One can only imagine how things are done on a larger scale.

You make a valid point about incentives.

What many people dislike about government in the US and in the EU is that the unelected bureaucrats tend make hiring and promotion decisions based on ideology with the result that each generation of career bureaucrats is more ideologically homogeneous and more extreme in its commitment to whichever ideology is best at spreading, which in the US and EU over the last 95 years has been Leftism.

Elections are a powerful check on this process because there isn't a similar mechanism at work in the general population of voters (or at least the mechanism is much weaker in its effects).

Also we can start to see why actors who oppose Leftism or who oppose ideological hegemonies in general sometimes want decisions to be made out of self-interest: even most zealous ideologues are more motivated by self-interest than they are by advancing ideologies. I.e., allowing decision makers to act out of self-interest is one tool in the toolbox for opposing ideological hegemony.

So how do the people effect change? As career bureaucrats generally cannot be fired, how does a government elected in a landslide make change when they only people they can solicit information from are the career bureaucrats from the prior regime?

Yes exactly academics and researchers not dealing with the real world should not decide policy.

Academics and researchers are prone to groupthink and monocultures. To quote a form of Sayre’s law “Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low.”.

Researcher’s policies might be disastrous for society or industry yet they’ll often be insulated from any consequences, even just to their reputations.

> In an ideal world, this probably should be banned for fairness reasons. Smaller institutions would always have necessarily less influence and power over policy.

This is prohibited, not in an ideal world, but in essentially every Western democracy except the United States. I appreciate the political difficulty of implimenting this (or indeed any useful structural) change in the contemporary American political climate / level of dysfunction. But outlawing corruption is not some utopian dream.

> All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints

If the only way to have that ability is money and access, then it's corruption for all intends and purpose with other name. Just because it's accepted doesn't make it not corruption. And I think that's what people mean when they say they want to take lobbying away, they don't want private meetings between interest groups and lawmakers, without public input

Right, the corrupt thing is when lobbyists are listened to in a way that is proportional to some parameter besides the number of people they represent and when groups of people without the means to hire a lobbyist go unheard.

I think we need better infrastructure for tracking who is operating on who's behalf so we can build systems that fix these problems.

We absolutely want politicians to listen to lobbyists in a way that is proportional to some parameter besides the number of people they represent. The should listen to who is right, not which lobby represents the most members. Self-interested groups lobby for bad legislation all the time. When the harm to society is diffuse, they don't always have a large lobby opposing them.

Certainly somebody needs to identify cases when a minority voice needs disproportional consideration because they happen to be onto something special. But it's the job of an elected official to make that determination only after they have considered their options in a proportional-to-population way.

If you try to handle nuances like that up front, and somehow select for who gets the politician's attention on the basis of some parameter besides population, you're going to end up with a government that only works for the rich, because they are disproportionally able to game such things.

As others have already stated, lobbying solves a problem that doesn’t need to exist. It’s absolutely corrupt when you fix a problem with more problems.

What do you mean "a problem that doesn't need to exist"? What's the specific problem you are thinking of?

Trade and especially the shared European market required industry input which you might call lobbying. Regulations had to be homogenized to create a level playing field. To attack what matters European law makers needed lobby input. This happens all the time on a smaller scale with trade agreements. Think of the famous chlorine-washed chicken in the US situation. If a country prohibits this their chicken industry might want a for-export exemption when a trade deal with the US is made.

You also have lobbying that could be seen as genuinely good. Insurance companies lobbied for a lot of car safety standards and fire safety standards. (That said I'm libertarian enough that I don't actually see enforcement of standards that protect the occupant by law as positive but most people do)

If I call my local representative on the phone, or email them, that's lobbying. Am I not allowed to contact those I've elected to represent me?

Now, if you mean I shouldn't be allowed to take my representative on a Caribbean vacation, then we're agreed, because bribery is (or should be) illegal. And yes, I'm including many forms of campaign donation as "bribery".

I don't know why people read stuff like this and then put themselves in corporate's shoes who can lobby up to 100s of millions

when is the last time you lobbied 50 million dollars as a citizen? is this something you do frequently? maybe ask these questions before your gotchas

I'm not sure if "lobbied 50 million dollars" is even grammatically correct.

you can ask an LLM to fix my grammar for your convenience

Apologies in advance if English isn’t your native language, but expecting or suggesting that others should use AI to resolve your sloppy syntax/grammar seems like a rather poor practice in general. I think you have a good point to make here, and a little more diligence could make an appreciable difference to your level of discourse.

No English isn't my native language, it's the third actually.

I think degrading and dismissing someone's point because of a stupid grammatical mistake is much worse in practice. If you can only engage in conversations where everyone uses perfect grammar, then maybe you should just use an LLM to rewrite people's comments. It seemed like a good suggestion to me.

What does lobbied 50 million dollars even mean?

If you mean they donated 50 million in dark money to a PAC, then we're agreed - that's bribery and should be included in anti-bribery laws. SCOTUS fucked up egregiously when they allowed unlimited dark money to flow into campaigns.

"The water is wet"

"wHaT dOes ThE wAtEr iS wEt eVeN mEan"

Depending on what you mean by local, you're never going to be able to directly contact your representative. Your phone call, if answered by a human will be an intern or other sort of assistant who will basically end up marking you as a tally on whatever side of an issue. You will have near zero influence. Emails are even worse. I'm sure now a days you'll get LLM slop but 'back in the day' you'd get a response that always came down to "Thanks for your message. Representative Joe Blow likes good things, and dislikes bad things. And he even thinks important things are important! Thanks for your message, and remember to vote for Joe Blow! Bye!" Even better, you get subbed to a bunch of donation begging mailing lists.

By contrast go buy a top dollar lobbyist, and he'll go endlessly push your issue to all his old buddies. He'll even compose legislation that can be rubber stamped by the reps that your lobbyist will know are most inclined to agree with. You'll get better than direct contact and over a sustained period of time if necessary. I don't think the two are in any way comparable.

I meant truly local, so state down to town.

And yes, phone is sort of a black hole. If they note your satisfaction/lack thereof, you’ll be lucky. But you can schedule a live meeting (as I said I a sibling, for congress that’s going to be with a staffer unless you’re bringing a group and can convince them it’ll be worth their time).

Anyways, my point in all my posts in this discussion is we need to agree on definitions, because lobbying literally is making your case to the representative. The whole campaign fundraiser/PAC thing we have in the US is just legalized bribery. IMO.

Lobbying is the foundation of democracy. Technically it is everyone's civic obligation to do it.

The trouble with democracy, of course, is that most people don't have (or don't think they have, at least) the time or resources to participate.

I agree our democracy is founded on corruption.

I would usually agree with this kind of reasoning. Yes there is good things too... But also too much abuse that clearly don't go in the interest of the people... So to me yes... It is corruption

I would add to limit lobbying money. Information and transparency are fundamental. But knowing that you are being screwed is not the same that avoiding corruption.

> long cooling-off periods before MEPs can become lobbyists

They already earn a public pension. They should be banned for life. Corporations know too well the internal workings of the government what allow them to corrupt it. But cooling-off periods could be a good first step towards that.

I'll go a little further and say "corporations are bad". Maybe we don't need to expand beyond liability. It's often quoted: "a computer can never be held accountable. therefore a computer must never make a management decision", but why is it OK for corporations?

> Basic internet response to everything is that when something essential involves something bad, we should forget the nuance and use slogans "X is BAD".

no, the default internet response is to try and be a contrarian arguing minor points while missing the whole societal context and leaning into weird word games etc while pretending like that makes you the adult in the room and your opponents are "emotional", "don't know what they're talking about", etc. Which is basically half this thread (or this whole forum for one).

twin

> Basic internet response to everything is that when something essential involves something bad, we should forget the nuance and use slogans "X is BAD".

"GOTO considered harmful" :)

Great example, since in practise goto is essential

The idea that lobbying is corruption is ironically helps corporate lobbyists the most. Lobbying is what gave us Civil Rights. The only thing calling lobbying evil has accomplished is reduce grass roots lobbying, which means corporate lobbyists get more bandwidth from politicians.

Are you sure it was internet opinions that made grassroots lobbying ineffective, or is it the incomprehensible amounts of money backing up the lobbyists of corporations and the wealthy?

It's not just an Internet opinion. It's a cultural change that has been occuring for decades. Less than a third of nonprofits even know how to lobby if they want to.

Lobbying spending isn't really "incomprehensible." The small group HN readers can easily fund lobbyists if they really want to.

https://apnews.com/article/nonprofits-lobbying-less-survey-1...

Lobbying isn’t something available to all equally.

Mandatory publication of position letters would also help.

> All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints.

No politician or party is willing to listen to me since I'm not a 'paying customer'.

ability to talk should not equal ability to pay

I don’t disagree with the proposals you suggest, but all that proves is the central point you’re trying to disprove: lobbying, in its current guise, is legalised corruption.

Talk, not giving money....

> Lobbying is not corruption. All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints.

If you get to "talk to lawmakers" by giving them money, it is corruption.

Somehow it does not lead to good lawmaking. It leads to lawmaking biased towards those able to pay a lot of money for what amounts to legal bribes.

> Current problems with EU lobbying: Corporate lobbying is over 60% of registered lobby spending.

Ah yes, Europe, famously friendly to business interests. Hence so many large multinational influential corporations domiciled in Europe and being started every day

They have healthcare and workers rights and pretty strong social safety nets. I'd say they're doing ok.

Except for some members going bankrupt every once in a while.

One of the national myths rears it's ugly head as a talking point.

American Exceptionalism.

American exceptionalism is when European countries go bankrupt?

Without the US Federal government, most states would be bankrupt (all the time).

California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania being the few exceptions that are net positive contributors that largely subsidize every other state (the other 43).

*Florida

I have all these things in the US and get paid a lot more even when you include social benefits

Your healthcare is very likely tied to your company. If AI were to take your job tomorrow, how secure would you be in your home and family?

Lobbying in an ideal world may not be corruption.

Can't speak for other countries, but lobbying the way it typically happens in the US is pretty much straight-up corruption.

> Lobbying is not corruption.

In principle that statement is not incorrect in that lobbying means that one is able to represent a view.

However had, if money flows, then this skews all bias towards that money addiction flow, at the expense of everyone else. And most lobbying is due to money, that's also a fact.

See here as a good example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...

“All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints.”

Why can’t they pick up the phone or write a letter like the rest of us?

They do this. It's called lobbying...

No, that's not called lobbying. It's lobbying when it involves paying for access. If you're just making calls and writing letters it's just advocacy not lobbying

No, that's bribery.

The problem is our (USA) definition of bribery is too permissive. We allow lobbyists to bribe politicians through massive fundraising dinners and donations to preferred causes (see Trump's current relationship with TechBro billionaires and Russian oligarchs).

They do.

And you are also free to visit your representative's at their offices.

For example, Congress is open to visit - you can request a pass for specific sessions, you can schedule meetings with congressional staffers (face to face with the actual congressman is harder, but theoretically possible), etc. Local and state reps are typically easier to visit.

Theoretically possible. Is it practically possible? Because if these groups are meeting with my members of Congress and I practically can’t, then that’s not the same.

Yes, it's practically possible. But, there's a lot of gotchas there... probably need to schedule at home during a recess, not during sessions. Probably need to declare a specific topic, not just a chit-chat. Likelihood goes up if you bring a group of constituents with you so the Congressman can get more input in that block of time (which is now looking suspiciously like the "lobbyists" you decry).

That said, for single-person "I want to tell you about thing X", a staffer probably works just fine. That's why they're there.

For a local politician, who likely has much more impact on your day to day, this is all far easier. They're generally less busy, less travel, and more approachable. And, they're the ones setting real estate taxes, school policy, and other things that make places truly livable (or not).

In other words, you, too can put together a well-funded lobbying organization and lobby. And if you can’t catch the attention of high-level politicians, don’t worry your pretty little head, local policy is all you should care about. National policy is for big important people, not nobodies like you.

That’s not even remotely what I said, but you do you.

Lobbying corruption with lipstick and a law degree.

American here. This is bullshit.

How often to the non-moneyed interests win the legislation game? Money gets you face time and attention while paying for politicians' political campaigns so they can stay in power.

It's corruption.

Yes, all citizens deserve access. And they have it, Except it's Animal Farm: all pigs are equal except some pigs (the rich, the "Super PACs", and the corporations) are more equal than others. Because they spend money for influence.

Corruption.

> All interest groups should have the ability to talk to lawmakers and present their viewpoints.

"All" is carrying a lot ow weight here. Should we publicly fund interest groups so they can go to Washington? How big or small does the group need to be? Are not I, alone, an interest group?

No. No more lobbying. What we need is a more direct democracy.

"Corruption is BAD"

No, this is when the no-nuance answer is sensible. Wanting to reform lobbying is the answer that normalizes the status quo and doesn't address the disbalance of power that it always inherently introduces.

Any mechanism that has a pathway of converting money into political influence is inherently rotten and will eventually have its flaws discovered. I don't even really see how your proposed policies are going to stop this - all the declarations, disclosures and oversights only work if there are hard lines drawn with someone watching them. We don't live in a rules-based world, so every point in the system has to be perfect.

Or we could just ban lobbying. It's never going to be equal anyway, because the interest groups of the wealthy can spend all their time and endless money to secure the best everything for themselves, even if that money doesn't literally go to the politician. Grassroots groups are composed of regular people who don't get paid to do this, have their own lives and don't have that much money to put down. It's always going to be unequal.

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