4 ms·

> Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues How is it even possible to isolate capitalism from regulatory capture? Capital a

by jahaja 7y ago

> Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues How is it even possible to isolate capitalism from regulatory capture? Capital accumulation inherently creates power and influence, so regulatory capture is surely just the perfectly logical second phase?

epistasis 7y ago
You separate democratic procedure from capital. This is why the Citizens United ruling was such a disastrous decision for the US. However, capital doesn't necessarily mean election wins or regulatory influence, even now. Bernie Sanders raised immense amounts of money, more than Joe Biden did, but Sanders still was not able to win out in most states. There's more to politics than money, though money can definitely raise the volume of one's voice.
- jahaja 7y ago
  > You separate democratic procedure from capital Uhm, that's very easy to say, but how is that even possible? Even here in Scandinavia, where money interests isn't as blatantly involved in politics as in the US, most of the media are aligned to corporate interests and vast amount of money are spend by corporations to fund and campaign for right-wing business parties and policies. Why would Biden need money in competition with Sanders when he got the entire establishment on his side?
  - epistasis 7y ago
    When voters in South Carolina go to vote, did they listen to money, to their own hearts, or to "the establishment"? In any case, they did not listen to capital. And this is one way that politics is separated from capital. There can never be perfect separation, all of society is connected to all of its parts in tricky ways, but part of maximizing that separation is to discover and acknowledge where capital has control of democracy and come up with ways to separate. No ideal is achievable, we can only strive to improve.
    - jahaja 7y ago
      Alright, so you're telling me that people of the US actually democratically doesn't want healthcare, paid vacation, parental leave, sick pay, etc etc. that's been available for decades in Europe? For me this is obvious evidence of out-sized corporate control of the political process.
- adamsea 7y ago
  Yes and no. I agree there's more to politics than money, but, I think it is fair to say that, whatever legitimate reasons many Democratic Party voters may have had for not voting for Sanders, there is a general media and institutional bias against the Progressive political movement Bernie Sanders represents. And, not surprisingly, the root of much of that bias is money, in the form of industries which stand to lose (healthcare comes to mind) if the U.S. elected a politician with a Progressive agenda.
- refurb 7y ago
  I think separating the two is harder than it seems. A big part of government work is economic in nature, so there inevitably is overlap between the two.
jussij 7y ago
Now I can't speak for other government systems around the world, but here in Australia a big step forward would be as simple as having open and transparent government. Currently we have a Federal Government that loves slapping 'secret and confidential' stickers on as many of it's documents, just to keep them secret. Add to that they spends large amounts of time, money and effort fighting to keep these details secret by vigorously challenging freedom of information request. Then we have the problem where all layers of government love getting into bed with big business, while keeping the details of these arrangements secret using 'commercial in confidence' contracts. Just one example of the later is how the New South Wales Government entered into a secret deal with a private toll road company, agreeing to make major road changes (i.e. closing public roads) in an effort to force traffic through the new toll road tunnel. None of this was made public at the time and would never have been released to the public had the toll company not gone into receivership. This brought the matter before the courts and the court forced the government to hand over these secret documents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel To me this is a classic example of the problems with modern governments, where they are more interested in working for big business, rather than serving their constituents.
- jahaja 7y ago
  Yup, I agree. I just can't really see how it's possible to incentivize this at all. To _not_ pursue regulatory capture seem to require an altruistic mindset, which I'm not naive enough to expect from businesses. In Sweden we luckily still default to making almost every government document, including e.g. all police investigations that reaches the courts, public for all who requests them. It requires special circumstances to make them confidential and nothing that can be done in the loose manner you're describing.
- refurb 7y ago
  Reading the Wikipedia article, the lack of government transparency is crappy, but I don’t blame the tunnel company for asking the government what their plans were for the existing roads. You can’t build a traffic tunnel on the hope that people use it. You’d need to figure out what’s happening with the rest of the roads, then make a call to build or not. If the plans for the other roads change, the value of your tunnel might go to zero.
IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
its actually very easy. 1) regulatory capture exists is because you give power to individuals to make decisions for the collective. 2) freedom of speech will always mean if I have money, I can spend it any way I want. That will never change. Therefore, it is impossible to limit money in politics. Once you understand these 2 principles, its very simple to understand the solution. Money will always impact politics. You simply need to raise the price enough so that you won't end up in regulatory capture. 1) Dillute power. Cause representatives to govern a fixed number of people. For example, 1 house member for every 50,000 people. So the house would go from 431 to 6500. That would make it very expensive to hire lobbysts to capture. 2) Limit power. Term limits for aggregate public service so people can't peddle power of public office. This makes lobbying expensive since you can't permanently buy favor. 3) Randomize outcomes. By far the most powerful. Introduce uncertainty into election successs. Randomly switch winners for the house with state at all levels. So for example, a citizen from VA running for president could end up instead as a state senator for VT, or FL (and vice versa). Same thing for vice president, and any other public post. You want to make sure the "bet" on a candidate win is a very long tail in outcomes so that lobbyists don't really know what power they are actually buying by contributing to the candidate's campaign. Given that we had people like Bush, Obama and Trump in highest office, with varied levels of public office "experience", I think it is a given that there is no real qualification for running for X, other than being a US citizen of a certain age, and actually winning. That's how you fix the current corporatism running amok in america.
Eridrus 7y ago
This isn't just a big business problem, there is plenty of regulatory capture on behalf of other interest groups (eg doctors keep the supply of new doctors low). There is no enduring structural answer to this problem, it is fundamental to democracy. The only answers are to struggle for our goals in the political and cultural arenas to hope to marginally improve the situation.
- jahaja 7y ago
  While it's true that there will always be special interest groups, it's not true that the current situation is even close to "more or less the best it can get". There's too much power in far too few hands due to capital accumulation. This is not a natural law.
  - Eridrus 7y ago
    I was not arguing that this is the "best it can get", just that there is no structural answer to these challenges. There's no way to setup our institutions such that they cannot be influenced by interest groups, so the only thing to do is be vigilant and fight the good fight. If you look at the whole range of regulatory capture we see, it's not just billionaires who have managed to get what they want, it's all sorts of interest groups who have succeeded in enshrining the interests of incumbents into law. Good for you for being riled up about the concentration of capital, but addressing that is nowhere near a magic bullet for addressing regulatory capture.

by jahaja 7y ago

epistasis 7y ago

You separate democratic procedure from capital. This is why the Citizens United ruling was such a disastrous decision for the US. However, capital doesn't necessarily mean election wins or regulatory influence, even now. Bernie Sanders raised immense amounts of money, more than Joe Biden did, but Sanders still was not able to win out in most states. There's more to politics than money, though money can definitely raise the volume of one's voice.

jahaja 7y ago
> You separate democratic procedure from capital Uhm, that's very easy to say, but how is that even possible? Even here in Scandinavia, where money interests isn't as blatantly involved in politics as in the US, most of the media are aligned to corporate interests and vast amount of money are spend by corporations to fund and campaign for right-wing business parties and policies. Why would Biden need money in competition with Sanders when he got the entire establishment on his side?
- epistasis 7y ago
  When voters in South Carolina go to vote, did they listen to money, to their own hearts, or to "the establishment"? In any case, they did not listen to capital. And this is one way that politics is separated from capital. There can never be perfect separation, all of society is connected to all of its parts in tricky ways, but part of maximizing that separation is to discover and acknowledge where capital has control of democracy and come up with ways to separate. No ideal is achievable, we can only strive to improve.
  - jahaja 7y ago
    Alright, so you're telling me that people of the US actually democratically doesn't want healthcare, paid vacation, parental leave, sick pay, etc etc. that's been available for decades in Europe? For me this is obvious evidence of out-sized corporate control of the political process.
adamsea 7y ago
Yes and no. I agree there's more to politics than money, but, I think it is fair to say that, whatever legitimate reasons many Democratic Party voters may have had for not voting for Sanders, there is a general media and institutional bias against the Progressive political movement Bernie Sanders represents. And, not surprisingly, the root of much of that bias is money, in the form of industries which stand to lose (healthcare comes to mind) if the U.S. elected a politician with a Progressive agenda.
refurb 7y ago
I think separating the two is harder than it seems. A big part of government work is economic in nature, so there inevitably is overlap between the two.

jussij 7y ago

Now I can't speak for other government systems around the world, but here in Australia a big step forward would be as simple as having open and transparent government. Currently we have a Federal Government that loves slapping 'secret and confidential' stickers on as many of it's documents, just to keep them secret. Add to that they spends large amounts of time, money and effort fighting to keep these details secret by vigorously challenging freedom of information request. Then we have the problem where all layers of government love getting into bed with big business, while keeping the details of these arrangements secret using 'commercial in confidence' contracts. Just one example of the later is how the New South Wales Government entered into a secret deal with a private toll road company, agreeing to make major road changes (i.e. closing public roads) in an effort to force traffic through the new toll road tunnel. None of this was made public at the time and would never have been released to the public had the toll company not gone into receivership. This brought the matter before the courts and the court forced the government to hand over these secret documents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel To me this is a classic example of the problems with modern governments, where they are more interested in working for big business, rather than serving their constituents.

jahaja 7y ago
Yup, I agree. I just can't really see how it's possible to incentivize this at all. To _not_ pursue regulatory capture seem to require an altruistic mindset, which I'm not naive enough to expect from businesses. In Sweden we luckily still default to making almost every government document, including e.g. all police investigations that reaches the courts, public for all who requests them. It requires special circumstances to make them confidential and nothing that can be done in the loose manner you're describing.
refurb 7y ago
Reading the Wikipedia article, the lack of government transparency is crappy, but I don’t blame the tunnel company for asking the government what their plans were for the existing roads. You can’t build a traffic tunnel on the hope that people use it. You’d need to figure out what’s happening with the rest of the roads, then make a call to build or not. If the plans for the other roads change, the value of your tunnel might go to zero.

IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago

its actually very easy. 1) regulatory capture exists is because you give power to individuals to make decisions for the collective. 2) freedom of speech will always mean if I have money, I can spend it any way I want. That will never change. Therefore, it is impossible to limit money in politics. Once you understand these 2 principles, its very simple to understand the solution. Money will always impact politics. You simply need to raise the price enough so that you won't end up in regulatory capture. 1) Dillute power. Cause representatives to govern a fixed number of people. For example, 1 house member for every 50,000 people. So the house would go from 431 to 6500. That would make it very expensive to hire lobbysts to capture. 2) Limit power. Term limits for aggregate public service so people can't peddle power of public office. This makes lobbying expensive since you can't permanently buy favor. 3) Randomize outcomes. By far the most powerful. Introduce uncertainty into election successs. Randomly switch winners for the house with state at all levels. So for example, a citizen from VA running for president could end up instead as a state senator for VT, or FL (and vice versa). Same thing for vice president, and any other public post. You want to make sure the "bet" on a candidate win is a very long tail in outcomes so that lobbyists don't really know what power they are actually buying by contributing to the candidate's campaign. Given that we had people like Bush, Obama and Trump in highest office, with varied levels of public office "experience", I think it is a given that there is no real qualification for running for X, other than being a US citizen of a certain age, and actually winning. That's how you fix the current corporatism running amok in america.

Eridrus 7y ago

This isn't just a big business problem, there is plenty of regulatory capture on behalf of other interest groups (eg doctors keep the supply of new doctors low). There is no enduring structural answer to this problem, it is fundamental to democracy. The only answers are to struggle for our goals in the political and cultural arenas to hope to marginally improve the situation.

jahaja 7y ago
While it's true that there will always be special interest groups, it's not true that the current situation is even close to "more or less the best it can get". There's too much power in far too few hands due to capital accumulation. This is not a natural law.
- Eridrus 7y ago
  I was not arguing that this is the "best it can get", just that there is no structural answer to these challenges. There's no way to setup our institutions such that they cannot be influenced by interest groups, so the only thing to do is be vigilant and fight the good fight. If you look at the whole range of regulatory capture we see, it's not just billionaires who have managed to get what they want, it's all sorts of interest groups who have succeeded in enshrining the interests of incumbents into law. Good for you for being riled up about the concentration of capital, but addressing that is nowhere near a magic bullet for addressing regulatory capture.