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> "Any time a corporation dumps that much money into a local issue, I'm voting against them." I think a lot of people are coming to that viewpoint now. If a cr

> "Any time a corporation dumps that much money into a local issue, I'm voting against them." I think a lot of people are coming to that viewpoint now. If a critical mass of people come to this point of view, that will be the end of corporate lobbying on these type of issues. However, most issues have different corporations dumping money on each side of the issue which makes that theory hard to follow. Also, I really don't have a problem with companies dumping money into an issue that they feel is a threat to their future existence. If they didn't try to persuade people on the issue, they would be doing a disservice to their employees and investors.

__jal 11y ago
I wasn't asserting a value judgement on the viewpoint, only noting the seeming popularity of it. Yes, narrowly construed, corporate officers have obligations that look a something like that. I look at it as an activity that takes place in the broader world of policy making. Personally, I think to judge the cost or benefit of corporate lobbying as a driver of policy requires substantially more investigation than simply whether or not they are properly representing their stakeholders. "For all lawful purposes" covers a range of behaviours that many folks have a problem with, those employees and investors also have voices, votes and the ability to spend money whether or not the corporation does, the supposed alignment of interested between corporate officers, investors and employees really isn't there in many cases of corporate lobbying (unions exist for a reason, for instance, and so to shareholder lawsuits), game theoretic concerns about what it does to democracy, and on and on. None of which really matters to the analysis that AirBnB really comes off like a nest of entitled jackasses with this ad and turned off a lot of people who may well have been otherwise sympathetic to the notion that this proposition has some really bad provisions. If I were a stakeholder, I'd likely be thinking that the officers did me a disservice by spending a ton of money to convince lots of people vote against my hypothetical interests.

__jal 11y ago

I wasn't asserting a value judgement on the viewpoint, only noting the seeming popularity of it. Yes, narrowly construed, corporate officers have obligations that look a something like that. I look at it as an activity that takes place in the broader world of policy making. Personally, I think to judge the cost or benefit of corporate lobbying as a driver of policy requires substantially more investigation than simply whether or not they are properly representing their stakeholders. "For all lawful purposes" covers a range of behaviours that many folks have a problem with, those employees and investors also have voices, votes and the ability to spend money whether or not the corporation does, the supposed alignment of interested between corporate officers, investors and employees really isn't there in many cases of corporate lobbying (unions exist for a reason, for instance, and so to shareholder lawsuits), game theoretic concerns about what it does to democracy, and on and on. None of which really matters to the analysis that AirBnB really comes off like a nest of entitled jackasses with this ad and turned off a lot of people who may well have been otherwise sympathetic to the notion that this proposition has some really bad provisions. If I were a stakeholder, I'd likely be thinking that the officers did me a disservice by spending a ton of money to convince lots of people vote against my hypothetical interests.