[xeiotos]

I always wonder if we didn’t get democracy totally backwards. As a Belgian, how could I have let my voice be heard that this is:

- a waste of time and resources

- not what I want

It sure is galling that government appears to be mostly an ever-growing and ever-more-costing pile of legacy rules, regulations and institutions, which through sheer complexity can be navigated only by big corporations or the mega-rich, who can lobby the monstrosity into doing whatever they want.

And meanwhile I’m paying upwards of 60% effective tax to support it all.

[PeterStuer]

It's the law of concentrated benefits vs distributed burdens. In theory you as the person(s) on the receiving end of the burdens could counterlobby, but you will face the cost of organizing a large group (vs the much simpler structure of the solo or the few benefactors), as well as the lack of insentive on the people you are trying to organise because for each individual the cost/benefit does not add up.

So laws and regulation in practice most often end up benefiting the ones with concentrated wealth extraction, and disadvantage those from which that wealth will be extracted in agregate.