Maybe it is just not very conservative of me to say but I would rather take lobbying out of the hands of corporations, governments, and large money donors, and keep it small as in neighborhoods or small groups of people that gather together to promote certain projects or causes that are important to the local community. So less on say AIPAC or Planned Parenthood, and more on a group of people trying to lobby to allow something like alcohol sales in their community.
. What's the difference between 1,000 people pushing their agenda individually and an organization representing 1,000 people pushing an agenda? It costs money to get the word out on whatever cause you support be it gun control, gun rights, LGBT rights, etc. lobbyists came about because most people don't have the time to waste sitting at the city hall hoping to speak to a politician. Sending one person to represent a group does work. Imagine a 10,000 people lined up to speak to a politician. They'd get nothing done.Lobbying is fine... right up until the part where organisations are funding campaigns that suit their agendas. It's fine to promote a candidate you support as a private individual but money should not be a part of this.
Maybe it is just not very conservative of me to say but I would rather take lobbying out of the hands of corporations, governments, and large money donors, and keep it small as in neighborhoods or small groups of people that gather together to promote certain projects or causes that are important to the local community. So less on say AIPAC or Planned Parenthood, and more on a group of people trying to lobby to allow something like alcohol sales in their community.
. What's the difference between 1,000 people pushing their agenda individually and an organization representing 1,000 people pushing an agenda? It costs money to get the word out on whatever cause you support be it gun control, gun rights, LGBT rights, etc. lobbyists came about because most people don't have the time to waste sitting at the city hall hoping to speak to a politician. Sending one person to represent a group does work. Imagine a 10,000 people lined up to speak to a politician. They'd get nothing done.
Corporations have their own interests as well. People do try and push bills that would absolutely ruin a company. See any fringe group. Restricting things to neighborhood level would greatly increase the complexity of things.
Lobbying is fine, my problem is when money comes into it because suddenly whichever group has more money gets to speak loudest - not whoever speaks the truth. Ideally we'd all, wherever we live, have a system in which people running for office all draw from the same reserve of funds and only up to an equal amount. Then lobbying would just be lobbying again and politics would be about politics and not bribery.
Corporations are not people and should not have the same rights as people, which they do under US law. It's probably the shittiest thing Reagan ever did.
Do you believe that there are zero problems with the current lobbying situation?
k.just want to get this out of the way now to nip any sort of off-topic derailment in the bud, but people interested in discussing "are corporations people" should take that to another thread
Do you believe that there are zero problems with the current lobbying situation?
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Any political system that is influenced by corporations with their own agendas is, in my mind, fundamentally broken.
Is there any political system that isn't influenced by corporations?
Influence isn't necessarily bad. Corporations should be able to say "this proposed legislation is harmful/serves no purpose/ is created by our business rivals and have government listen to their concerns.
Which interests are those? As I posted earlier, corporations have always had those rights because they are made up of people. Can't seize a person's property, can't seize a corporation's property.The problem with this is that the interests of corporations are often in direct opposition with the individuals of individual lower to middle class citizens. However, because corporations have access to exponentially more funds than almost any individual, by extending the rights of people to corporations you are giving corporations far too much power over the political system.
As for political systems not under the control of corporations, a better democracy would certainly have less corporate influence. Social democracy/democratic socialism for example, hell even a less corrupt capitalist democracy if it had better regulations. Depending on the system they'll have more or less pull but it's definitely possible to minimise it to a fairer level.
Which interests are those? As I posted earlier, corporations have always had those rights because they are made up of people. Can't seize a person's property, can't seize a corporation's property.
So there aren't any political systems that don't have some degree of corporate influence. And "fairer" would be relative. It certainly wouldn't be fair to the corporation if PETA got to call for legislation without them being allowed to have a say.
Smart corporations recognize that happy employees are good employees and environmental policies benefit everyone. I think most US companies recognize that and act accordingly. Not all do so and you tend to hear about them more than the others. Wages are a balancing act for many businesses.Interests such as profit at the expense of employer rights, low minimum wage, bad environmental policy etc etc.
. So successful governments recognize corporate personhood. In some of those cases, the govt is running the business and often does things to benefit that business. It's now a source of revenue for the govt.Well, there are. The further left you go, or further to the authoritative you go, the less influence they have. Communism, pure/traditional socialism, fascism, theocracy - all of those do not afford corporations power. Obviously, not ideal governments, unfortunately giving businesses more freedom is a sacrifice we have to make for an overall better system (to an extent).
It's fairer because corporations are not people. They have different interests that often run counter to the average person. They have disproportionate power through the funds they hold and the political weight the carry. As for your counterpoint with PETA -no organisation should be able to poor money into manipulating policy to their favour, not just corporations. That's why the current US version of lobbing is basically just bribery.