The better word is "informing". Lobbyists inform policymakers about perspectives of certain groups (those employing the lobbyists).
It just happens that most lobbyists are paid by groups who are seeking to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else.
However, there are some lobbyists who work for organizations that attempt to guide policy that helps under-represented groups (like nature, animal welfare, human welfare). Those lobbyists are fewer and poorly paid (as their "clients" typically have little or no money), but they work hard to at least inform policymakers of their perspective.
Do you think it's corruption when they inform the EU of the risks of legislation (like eIDAS) and fight against potential loopholes (successfully in the case of eIDAS)?
Agreed, that is exactly what it is. It's a huge stain on democracy and in many ways subverts it. Companies don't have the right to vote and should not be able to do an end-run around the electoral process with their money.
> Companies don't have the right to vote and should not be able to do an end-run around the electoral process with their money.
There's no difference between companies and people here; no one, spending their company's money or their own, should be able to influence solely through money. They only can because of corrupt state employees, who should be replaced.
> There's no difference between companies and people here; no one, spending their company's money or their own, should be able to influence solely through money.
There is because individuals are not normally the clients of lobbyists, nor do they - normally - approach politicians directly with money in hand except for some countries where campaign donations are a thing. They shouldn't be because they are effectively corruption but unsurprisingly countries where this practice is established never get around to abolishing it because it put the people who are in power in power in the first place.
> They only can because of corrupt state employees, who should be replaced.
If the state employees receive that money off the books then yes, but if it is structural it is not the employees that should be replaced but the system that should be replaced. And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change.
> And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change.
There are lots of things where we trust individuals to do a good job. If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?
> If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?
That's an excellent question. In many places 'lobbying' is legal, technically it is supposedly to inform the clueless legislators about various interests. But in practice it very quickly turns into 'soft' corruption, meetings in holiday resorts (oh, do bring your family) and so on. Whatever lines are drawn the amount of money available to get around them is practically infinite and politicians (and civil servants) are not all equally good at determining when they are targeted and might be across the line before they realize it (and then it gets much harder to go back than to have never crossed it before).
Occasionally people are terminated, and occasionally there are prosecutions. But there is a very large amount of information about who may have been involved in corruption and only a limited amount of prosecution and investigatory power so the bulk of these cases will end up being ignored.
> politicians (and civil servants) are not all equally good at determining when they are targeted and might be across the line before they realize it (and then it gets much harder to go back than to have never crossed it before).
I don't think many people would get such a pass. The whole point of paying them from money taken from people's incomes is so they can be impartial. There's no point having them if they don't add value.
Some cities are more idiotic than others, apparently, but in case it wasn't clear the context was general elections. Not that what you point out isn't a travesty and should be dealt with before someone figures out that you can create as many companies as you want.
Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.
> “…it was publicly disclosed that Boehner in the last week of June 1995 walked around the House floor delivering six or more of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. PAC checks.
> “in the same week Boehner was giving out the checks on the House floor, the House Appropriations Committee met in its room in the Rayburn House Office Building and voted down (17 to 30) an amendment that would have ended the government's price support program for tobacco. Seven Appropriations Committee members each had received a $500 check from Brown & Williamson's PAC, including one for the committee chairman, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.).”
This kind of activity seems to refute the “objective difference” you’re imagining.
You were talking about high corruption and low corruption countries in general. Did you forget your own context?
The point that I and several others have made is that what “low corruption” often corresponds to is that corruption has been legalized in various ways.
Re the amount, the fact that it’s a token is kind of the point in those cases. It’s a public display and reminder to everyone where their campaign funding is coming from. Other amounts are often donated at other times, and larger amounts may come from other companies in the same industry. They didn’t change their vote for those specific checks, it’s more like a reminder that the vote that had already been bought was coming up.
Their tactics apparently worked on you to make you inclined to ignore the exact kind of blatant corruption you had just been criticizing. It’s not “low corruption”, it’s corruption that’s apparently less easy for many people to recognize.
> 500, even in 1995, is a token amount of money to the representatives.
In the post-soviet countries (many of them now in EU), you can't imagine how much you can "get done" by "gifting" the right person a bottle of their favourite poison - which costs a token amount by almost any standard (like, high school pocket money).
My point is that these are two names for the same thing, an attempt to justify the "rules for you but not for us" on the moral spectrum. Microsoft can launder open source code with generative AI, but don't you dare even look at their sources.
> Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.
That's just a make-up, parfumerie on top of the same exact concept: use money in some way to corrupt decision making.
Just because in some countries it's done with a veneer of legitimacy, in a way that doesn't look as dirty and disgusting as "those other over there with their dirty hands full of bags of money", it's just corruption with a façade of high-class. It's still the same thing, just has more layers of indirection and make-up on top.
> The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption
So the difference consists primarily in perception, the slickness of it all as you put it? How well we can hide corruption with a facade of legality and civility. Somehow the crude briefcase full of cash feels more honest and direct.
"a facade of legality and civility" is literally the point of rule of law. It's why if you detain someone it's a crime, but if the police do it it's normal law enforcement.
Lobbying is just people or organizations making their case to politicians in a private way (e.g. meeting MP in their office) instead of a public way (e.g. putting an article to press).
That is what it is supposed to be. Offering a perspective someone said. In a michelin star restaurant, private resort full of prostitutes or after having donated substantial amounts of cash to their campaign ensuring their hold on power.
Somehow it seems different when 'presenting the case' is accompanied by gifts and money.
> after having donated substantial amounts of cash to their campaign ensuring their hold on power
This is the main problem, and there is a solution. If campaigns are financed by enough public money, donations have less power and can be regulated more heavily.
Similarly, if individual politicians get enough from the state to feel secure even if voted out, we take away the power of the promise of a next job and can enforce a grace period before working on anything related.
Lobbying I'd argue is an essential part of democracy because it allows groups of people that have a shared concern to come together and make their case to the politicians.
> ... groups of people that have a shared concern to come together and make their case to the politicians.
That would be solved by referenda, with their results and number of people affected being presented to the politicians so that they must deal with the problem.
Lobbying as it is now in many countries (possibly all of them) has nothing to do with that and to me is just legalized corruption.
What do you imply? To me it doesn't matter if you use a different word for monetary value, be it donation or something else, it comes down to the same, namely money.
It just happens that most lobbyists are paid by groups who are seeking to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else.
However, there are some lobbyists who work for organizations that attempt to guide policy that helps under-represented groups (like nature, animal welfare, human welfare). Those lobbyists are fewer and poorly paid (as their "clients" typically have little or no money), but they work hard to at least inform policymakers of their perspective.