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But when it comes to monopolies I just don't see them ever going away now. Too much globalization combined with lobbying power and corporate veils tl;dr: it do

But when it comes to monopolies I just don't see them ever going away now. Too much globalization combined with lobbying power and corporate veils tl;dr: it doesn't cost a million dollars to effect political change with money. I think politically engaged (and frustrated!) people overestimate the exclusivity of lobbying and the power of donations. My understanding (I can't find figures right now) is that you can get a lot of access for probably less than you think. Sick of potholes? Donate $1000 to your mayor and you might find yourself face to face complaining about how many tires you lose per year. I think someone wrote an article about how much it costs a single person with a single issue to get attention from a politician ('s team), or how little it costs, as the case may be. Yes, hiring a lobbying agency is more expensive, but that's more of a wide-spectrum approach. There is enough money in these HN threads for people to donate $1000 to each of several politicians in the pursuit of tightening antitrust enforcement, but there's probably just as many who support the current policies. I didn't say it would be easy, but with some money and organization it's not impossible. Of course that's how every special interest started...

whimsicalism 5y ago
Yeah, because the potholes can't donate $1,000 to the mayor to keep them around. Perhaps in a future world with sentient potholes, this will become more of a problem. Is it not obvious why this approach doesn't scale to confronting monopoly power?
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  The pot holes play a trivial role in the example. The point is that face time is much cheaper than people make it out to be, and politicians don't have time to be doing deep research on the hundreds of applicable topics they vote on. I believe it was Al Franken I heard talking about this, and he said that often times politicians end up voting with the lobbyist desires because no one ever lobbied the other side of the issue. For instance an energy lobbyist asking for the inclusion of exemptions for it's potentially overweight trucks on local roads to support the new gas well jobs created, that "will easily make up the potential and definitely trivial road repair costs". Nobody shows up to lobby the other side of the story. The energy company painted it perfectly as a 100% good thing, while someone could have donated $200 and after bit a research shown it was actually a sham and the official would have agreed. But no one did.

whimsicalism 5y ago

Yeah, because the potholes can't donate $1,000 to the mayor to keep them around. Perhaps in a future world with sentient potholes, this will become more of a problem. Is it not obvious why this approach doesn't scale to confronting monopoly power?

Workaccount2 5y ago
The pot holes play a trivial role in the example. The point is that face time is much cheaper than people make it out to be, and politicians don't have time to be doing deep research on the hundreds of applicable topics they vote on. I believe it was Al Franken I heard talking about this, and he said that often times politicians end up voting with the lobbyist desires because no one ever lobbied the other side of the issue. For instance an energy lobbyist asking for the inclusion of exemptions for it's potentially overweight trucks on local roads to support the new gas well jobs created, that "will easily make up the potential and definitely trivial road repair costs". Nobody shows up to lobby the other side of the story. The energy company painted it perfectly as a 100% good thing, while someone could have donated $200 and after bit a research shown it was actually a sham and the official would have agreed. But no one did.