5 ms·

How is the solution not clear? Clamp down on lobbying. Kill the revolving door between government and board rooms.

by ra1n85 7y ago

timClicks 7y ago
Rhetoric like that is actually indicative of how difficult those suggestions are to implement. Your suggestions are non-specific, which means that any practical measures suggested on the basis of them will be attacked by everyone for being too weak, too strong, too narrow or too broad.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rolltiide 7y ago
government: here's this new thing, we should create a license for it enthusiast building company around that new thing: hey wait that doesn't make sense, this is supposed to be for everyone that enthusiast is now lobbying. is there a specific other situation you were hoping to clamp down on that doesn't rope in the enthusiast?
chongli 7y ago
Because lobbying is the right of every free citizen to communicate their wishes to their elected representatives. Get rid of that and we might as well have an unaccountable dictatorship. The real problem with society is that we try to build static structures (laws) in an attempt to foil dynamic adversaries (humans). This simply does not work.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  This is true, but the problem was not nearly as bad before Citizens United (which basically freed corporations up to throw massive amounts of money into politics). If lobbying was actually limited to citizens or small groups of citizens the negative impact could be reduced. Many other countries aren't impacted by regulatory capture as bad as the US.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    That’s a weird conclusion given that the overriding trend of the last 50 years is Europe following the deregulatory approaches pioneered by the US. The 1996 telecom act, for example, was highly influential abroad. Likewise, most Western European countries regulate electricity markets in ways very similar to the US.
    - kevingadd 7y ago
      I never said other countries weren't following our lead, just that it got worse here sooner
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It seems abundantly clear there should be a right for a citizen to communicate wishes to their elected representatives. Corporations do not elect representatives. Lobbying companies do not elect representatives. Seems clear which needs to be got rid of.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Okay, so if citizens decide to band together to petition their representatives, that isn't allowed? Also, in the United States, you do not need shareholders to form a corporation. You are already a corporation in and of yourself. If you want to fund your activities via your own money, you do not technically even need any corporate body to conduct in business. Business is an individual right.
    - infogulch 7y ago
      Can that band not have some reasonable restrictions? Some random examples: the band must be a nonprofit, it may not be funded by corporations, limits on the type and amount of spending, they're required to publish sources and destination of income, etc, etc.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        > the band must be a nonprofit Sure! So, I'll start a software company, let's call it Maxisoft. Then, I'll start a non-profit, "the Maxisoft benefactor's mutual benefit corporation" (A non-profit producing body) who just happens to share officers with Maxisoft (after all, since we're all in business together, it makes sense that we're all friends, right). > limits on the type and amount of spending Why? Don't individuauls have an unlimited right to spend as much as they want seeking redress of grievances? Board members could just vote officers a higher salary and then the officers can simply use the corporation's assets (now their own via the magic of payroll) to do the same lobbying, and certainly, you cannot be against the right of an individual (in this case an officer of the corporation) from asking his/her representative for change? > they're required to publish sources and destination of income I fail to see how this isn't a massive breach of an individual's right to privacy, but either way, for the most part, donations to a political campaign are public. Ultimately, IMO, your regulations fall flat, because they all get in the way of an individual right to seek redress. In every case, there is a straightforwards way around the regulation, and there is no way to stop what you are trying to stop without stripping some people of their individual right to petition their government. Thus, we ought to reject all the regulation as an unnecessary overreach.
- harimau777 7y ago
  In turn, I think that the reason that we have to make tons of laws is that we have setup a society where corporations answer only to their shareholders. If corps are expected to do anything to make money as long as it isn't technically illegal, then it follows that we would be forced to make more and more laws to constrain them.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    Don't corporations also answer to employees? Employees will quit if they're dissatisfied enough, or just never apply in the first place. Don't corporations also answer to customers? Customers will stop buying from a corporation if prices are too high or service is too poor. The people who really need protection are the third parties who can get stuck with externalities from activities they had nothing to do with.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Rights are pretty useless things if you cannot afford to exercise them, or even if you try, you can be consistently outgunned. Most citizens do not have the time to personally go lobby, they got rent to pay, while a minority can pay teams of professionals in $1000 suits, to go and lobby on their behalf, whilst they are asleep on a nice beach somewhere. I, in no way want to ban citizens from lobbying. I just think that perhaps 'lobbying' could do with a narrower definition and 'criminal interference in the electoral process', a wider one.
- JaimeThompson 7y ago
  Try getting a meeting with some of your reps as a normal citizen is very difficult however it doesn't seem like large companies have much trouble at all...
Symmetry 7y ago
It isn't quite as simple as that. Congress needs information to create good legislation. That information has to come from somewhere. Ideally Congress would raise taxes to pay experts to tell them about things they have to regulate. Sadly, people don't necessarily like seeing Congress raise taxes to spend money on itself and this has proven an effective weapon that some politicians, especially Republicans, have used to overthrow incumbents. So at least in the modern era we don't do nearly enough of that and even before our current era of open primaries and ideological partisanship we no longer have that at all and didn't have enough of it, to be honest, even in the day of the office of technology assessment and such. So we rely on lobbyists now to explain to our legislators when the "system of tubes" metaphor for the Internet breaks down. Hopefully we can get multiple competing groups in the door to prevent the advice from being too one sided but at the same time everyone presenting has an agenda. Which probably costs the taxpayer more than hiring experts would but that cost isn't obvious the way a line-item on the budget would be. And as bad as the current system is having legislation just based on what representatives know would probably be worse.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  " Ideally Congress would raise taxes to pay experts to tell them about things they have to regulate. " You just showed how simple it is to switch the incentives. I'll add that taxpayers pay for the campaigns instead of corporations. Whoever wins at each level of elections gets a larger amount to campaign with. If contributions are allowed outside that, it's only individuals with a cap. It's a felony to violate these rules. Work from there.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    This idea has been floated, but the Supreme Court disagrees. Short of amendment or a shocking reversal in precedent, it won't change.
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  Shameless plug because I think they're cool but there is a middle ground to get info to Congress, a nonprofit that provides fellowships to technologists to advise Congresspeople on tech matters, they just opened applications for their new cohort https://www.techcongress.io/ https://www.techcongress.io/

How is the solution not clear? Clamp down on lobbying. Kill the revolving door between government and board rooms.

by ra1n85 7y ago

How is the solution not clear? Clamp down on lobbying. Kill the revolving door between government and board rooms.

Rhetoric like that is actually indicative of how difficult those suggestions are to implement. Your suggestions are non-specific, which means that any practical measures suggested on the basis of them will be attacked by everyone for being too weak, too strong, too narrow or too broad.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rolltiide 7y ago

government: here's this new thing, we should create a license for it enthusiast building company around that new thing: hey wait that doesn't make sense, this is supposed to be for everyone that enthusiast is now lobbying. is there a specific other situation you were hoping to clamp down on that doesn't rope in the enthusiast?

chongli 7y ago

Because lobbying is the right of every free citizen to communicate their wishes to their elected representatives. Get rid of that and we might as well have an unaccountable dictatorship. The real problem with society is that we try to build static structures (laws) in an attempt to foil dynamic adversaries (humans). This simply does not work.

kevingadd 7y ago
This is true, but the problem was not nearly as bad before Citizens United (which basically freed corporations up to throw massive amounts of money into politics). If lobbying was actually limited to citizens or small groups of citizens the negative impact could be reduced. Many other countries aren't impacted by regulatory capture as bad as the US.
- rayiner 7y ago
  That’s a weird conclusion given that the overriding trend of the last 50 years is Europe following the deregulatory approaches pioneered by the US. The 1996 telecom act, for example, was highly influential abroad. Likewise, most Western European countries regulate electricity markets in ways very similar to the US.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    I never said other countries weren't following our lead, just that it got worse here sooner
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It seems abundantly clear there should be a right for a citizen to communicate wishes to their elected representatives. Corporations do not elect representatives. Lobbying companies do not elect representatives. Seems clear which needs to be got rid of.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Okay, so if citizens decide to band together to petition their representatives, that isn't allowed? Also, in the United States, you do not need shareholders to form a corporation. You are already a corporation in and of yourself. If you want to fund your activities via your own money, you do not technically even need any corporate body to conduct in business. Business is an individual right.
  - infogulch 7y ago
    Can that band not have some reasonable restrictions? Some random examples: the band must be a nonprofit, it may not be funded by corporations, limits on the type and amount of spending, they're required to publish sources and destination of income, etc, etc.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      > the band must be a nonprofit Sure! So, I'll start a software company, let's call it Maxisoft. Then, I'll start a non-profit, "the Maxisoft benefactor's mutual benefit corporation" (A non-profit producing body) who just happens to share officers with Maxisoft (after all, since we're all in business together, it makes sense that we're all friends, right). > limits on the type and amount of spending Why? Don't individuauls have an unlimited right to spend as much as they want seeking redress of grievances? Board members could just vote officers a higher salary and then the officers can simply use the corporation's assets (now their own via the magic of payroll) to do the same lobbying, and certainly, you cannot be against the right of an individual (in this case an officer of the corporation) from asking his/her representative for change? > they're required to publish sources and destination of income I fail to see how this isn't a massive breach of an individual's right to privacy, but either way, for the most part, donations to a political campaign are public. Ultimately, IMO, your regulations fall flat, because they all get in the way of an individual right to seek redress. In every case, there is a straightforwards way around the regulation, and there is no way to stop what you are trying to stop without stripping some people of their individual right to petition their government. Thus, we ought to reject all the regulation as an unnecessary overreach.
harimau777 7y ago
In turn, I think that the reason that we have to make tons of laws is that we have setup a society where corporations answer only to their shareholders. If corps are expected to do anything to make money as long as it isn't technically illegal, then it follows that we would be forced to make more and more laws to constrain them.
- jlawson 7y ago
  Don't corporations also answer to employees? Employees will quit if they're dissatisfied enough, or just never apply in the first place. Don't corporations also answer to customers? Customers will stop buying from a corporation if prices are too high or service is too poor. The people who really need protection are the third parties who can get stuck with externalities from activities they had nothing to do with.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
Rights are pretty useless things if you cannot afford to exercise them, or even if you try, you can be consistently outgunned. Most citizens do not have the time to personally go lobby, they got rent to pay, while a minority can pay teams of professionals in $1000 suits, to go and lobby on their behalf, whilst they are asleep on a nice beach somewhere. I, in no way want to ban citizens from lobbying. I just think that perhaps 'lobbying' could do with a narrower definition and 'criminal interference in the electoral process', a wider one.
JaimeThompson 7y ago
Try getting a meeting with some of your reps as a normal citizen is very difficult however it doesn't seem like large companies have much trouble at all...

Symmetry 7y ago

It isn't quite as simple as that. Congress needs information to create good legislation. That information has to come from somewhere. Ideally Congress would raise taxes to pay experts to tell them about things they have to regulate. Sadly, people don't necessarily like seeing Congress raise taxes to spend money on itself and this has proven an effective weapon that some politicians, especially Republicans, have used to overthrow incumbents. So at least in the modern era we don't do nearly enough of that and even before our current era of open primaries and ideological partisanship we no longer have that at all and didn't have enough of it, to be honest, even in the day of the office of technology assessment and such. So we rely on lobbyists now to explain to our legislators when the "system of tubes" metaphor for the Internet breaks down. Hopefully we can get multiple competing groups in the door to prevent the advice from being too one sided but at the same time everyone presenting has an agenda. Which probably costs the taxpayer more than hiring experts would but that cost isn't obvious the way a line-item on the budget would be. And as bad as the current system is having legislation just based on what representatives know would probably be worse.

nickpsecurity 7y ago
" Ideally Congress would raise taxes to pay experts to tell them about things they have to regulate. " You just showed how simple it is to switch the incentives. I'll add that taxpayers pay for the campaigns instead of corporations. Whoever wins at each level of elections gets a larger amount to campaign with. If contributions are allowed outside that, it's only individuals with a cap. It's a felony to violate these rules. Work from there.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  This idea has been floated, but the Supreme Court disagrees. Short of amendment or a shocking reversal in precedent, it won't change.
atlasunshrugged 7y ago
Shameless plug because I think they're cool but there is a middle ground to get info to Congress, a nonprofit that provides fellowships to technologists to advise Congresspeople on tech matters, they just opened applications for their new cohort https://www.techcongress.io/ https://www.techcongress.io/