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The problem with lobbying is that it's too easy to use it to hide bribery. Portraying it as "just talking with your representative" is disingenuous when there's
by philipov 3y ago
The problem with lobbying is that it's too easy to use it to hide bribery. Portraying it as "just talking with your representative" is disingenuous when there's an entire industry established to influence legislatures on behalf of corporations.
- gruez 3y ago>Portraying it as "just talking with your representative" is disingenuous when there's an entire industry established to influence legislatures on behalf of corporations. I'm not claiming that an individual voter lobbying his representative by writing a letter or whatever is equivalent to some corporation hiring a lobbyist, but at the fundemental level they're the same: trying to influence the representative. The original proposes that we "forbid [...] lobbying", but it's unclear what that would mean. Taken literally, that would mean banning any attempts at influencing the representative. Is that what we want here?
- philipov 3y agoWe could try to forbid corporate lobbying being turned into an industry, but it's unclear how to effectively do that without unintended consequences. Since corporations have managed to weasel their way into the rights afforded to citizens, they would argue that they should also have the right to lobby the government. We need to somehow disenfranchise for-profit corporations without harming citizens' ability to organize civically.