| > The problem with lobbying is that to the degree that lobbying happens, the people are represented less and those paying the lobbyists are represented more... You might think that the degree of lobbying happening in Washington is fairly small. Believe me, I know how much lobbying there is, I've studied it a bit academically. Which is why I'm taking issue with how you're characterizing it. Corporations have legitimate democratic/governance concerns. E.g. there can be outdated regulations unfairly hampering their ability to do business or innovate. They need to be able to bring their concerns to politicians, the same way pro-choicers donate to Planned Parenthood to lobby, or environmentalists donate to Greenpeace to lobby on behalf of the environment, or gun rights advocates with the NRA. Your claim that lobbying is in conflict with "the people" is categorically false, as "the people" lobby as well via lots of organizations, such as the ones I've just listed. "The people" also have interests in corporations not being unfairly burdened. The notion of making lobbying illegal is utterly anti-democratic. The idea that you could outlaw voluntary domestic organizations from trying to support democratic candidates flies in the face of what makes democracy work, whether those organizations are non-profit or for-profit. The more relevant issue seems to be more with the notion that corporations have more money to lobby with than the general population does. However even with that, some academic research suggests that the issue isn't so much to do with money, but rather the fact that corporations often lobby on behalf of niche/arcane issues such as specific corporate regulations that voters are often virtually entirely unaware of. So it's not so much corporations vs. "the people", but corporations vs. "the people don't even care", or corporations vs. other corporations. |