Lobbying? Is it Bribery?

[LDSman]

So I thought this might be an interesting topic to expand upon. What are your thoughts on lobbying? Do you consider it bribery? Or is it the equivalent of "put your money where your mouth is"? What countries don't have lobbyists?

 

[gimmepie]

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.

 

[EnglishALT]

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.

 

[gimmepie]

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.

This might be the only political point we have ever agreed on.

 

[LDSman]

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.

. 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.

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.

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.

 

[gimmepie]

. 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, 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 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.

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.

 

[LDSman]

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.

How would this be funded? If I donate money to a politician, I'm not going to want to fund his opponents. How do I prevent my money being used to fund someone completely offensive to me? How do you prevent trolls from flooding the system to drain the pool? "Let's get 100 people to sign up! Then each politician only gets $100 to run their campaign on!"

Without lobbying money, how do you get people to pay attention to your cause over someone else's?

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.

The corporations are people (in a limited sense) has been around for a lot longer.

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/are-corporations-people

Interesting read.

 

[Nah]

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?

 

[LDSman]

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

k.

Do you believe that there are zero problems with the current lobbying situation?

No. But that's more about the people involved twisting things to their benefits. For the most part, politicians listen to lobbyists because lobbyists represent large groups of voters. Failure to heed requests from campaign donors can adversely affect future campaigns. Lobbyists are more organized and can reach more people than individuals.

 

[gimmepie]

Snip

It's the ideal, I don't necessarily have all the answers to reach that ideal but greater regulation is definitely needed. Reallocation of funding, requirements of past experience in politics to run for higher levels of office - those are a couple of ways to at least head in that direction maybe.

As for how to get heard over others, I would suggest relying on making good policy instead of on propaganda and being loudest. A big part of what is broken in American politics, and in other places too, is that money talks louder than words.

 

[LDSman]

Possible solutions.

1. Hire more staffers, pay them better. Give them better hours. Lobbyists like to be helpful to the understaffed and overworked.
2. Restrict politicians from going to lobbyists firms for a few years? Not sure how that'd work legally.

 

[tigertron]

Any political system that is influenced by corporations with their own agendas is, in my mind, fundamentally broken.

 

[LDSman]

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.

 

[gimmepie]

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.

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.

 

[LDSman]

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[gimmepie]

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.

Interests such as profit at the expense of employer rights, low minimum wage, bad environmental policy etc etc.

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.

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.

 

[LDSman]

Interests such as profit at the expense of employer rights, low minimum wage, bad environmental policy etc etc.

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.

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).

. 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.

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.

This was an interesting article.

https://www.upcounsel.com/corporate-personhood

The average person doesn't employ people. Everybody with more money can say the same. How much power does the homeless crack head have? Should they be listened to over a person who pays tens of thousands of dollars in taxes every year?

If you prevent organizations from lobbying, you silence the people that wish to change society for the better. At least with the current legalization, we can see where the money comes from. Eliminate that and true bribery would start.

 

[Her]

I mean, would a homeless crackhead not be concerned with... well, let's go with: Addiction treatment, shelter funding and then affordable housing, the inequality that contributes to higher rates of homelessness and the people that consider themselves 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', etc? Does a person that has the inability to pay tax matter less than those that do, or those that go out of their way to avoid doing so, thereby trying to limit their own contributions to society? If a society is fundamentally broken, I'd certainly be interested in the voice of one of the most visible measurements of that broken society, especially if contrasted to people that would prefer to perpetuate the system that allows more and more people to fall through the cracks as sacrifices to increased profit margins.

 

[Megan]

It's funny, given that the lobby of my country caused a recent outrage in the internet world regarding a certain article that got through in Europe.

I think lobbying is strategic playing of the system by people with economic power. I'm not a fan of it as it encompasses the idea of "old powerful conservative trying to prevent the world from moving on for the sake of their own interest". Yet, I can not completely dismiss it as evil, since keeping some things alive that work is as important as replacing things that don't work. It is just, that the decision of what works and what doesn't is hard to make. Two ideologies can have two completely different views on the same topic. It only gets out of hand if they leave the method of discussion in favor of power abuse. It's when it stops being advicing and becomes an attempt at ruling.

So: fuck lobbying, but also occasionally they may have a point.

 

[Akio123]

I think, and this is just because I've worked for campaigns and a PAC, we need to not paint lobbying with such a broad brush here. I think when we think of lobbyists we think of old white guys in pin striped suits smoking cigars who represent the oil and gas industry/big polluters (which is often times the case), but let's remember that the League of Conservation Voters has lobbyists, the Human Rights Campaign is the largest LGBT lobby in the world, EMILY's list has a whole bunch of lobbyists.

That said, there is a problem with big money and politics (I used to work for a PAC that's ultimate goal is to overturn Citizen's United). Lobbying is a problem, but I think we need to remember there are some that do legitimately good work.