Freedom of $peech is a broad umbrella. And at least in America, we are incredibly business friendly while being rather cavalier regarding consumer protections.

Freedom of $peech is a broad umbrella. And at least in America, we are incredibly business friendly while being rather cavalier regarding consumer protections. At the same time we are an incredibly litigious society, so you end up with a perverse situation where laws, regulations, and bureaucratic inefficiencies choke up the efforts of businesses and nonprofit organizations (and even local governments), but individual consumers still regularly get fucked with absolutely no recourse. Other than shelling out for a lawyer and taking someone to civil court themselves. Lobbying is it's own can of worms as a system with perverse incentives and ethical quagmires. But good luck getting any traction trying to change the way that works.. anyone in a position to make changes to it stands to benefit from this way of doing things (and has probably been indoctrinated into believing it is an effective and equitable system in any case). At least our brand of political corruption is (mostly) out in the open and "on the books." Businesses and NGOs get tax write-offs for their lobbying expenses, so there is plenty of documentation.