Lobbying IS a legitimate activity! I hate all the crap that I hear about the "evil lobbyists in Washington". They fulfill an important role.
To make an informed decision, which is what our politicians in Washington are supposed to do, not just respond to populism and mob voice, you need somebody to inform you. Lobbyists do that. That's their job. To inform congressmen and senators. What that politician does with that information, and how he verifies it's truth is another matter.
I suppose I would support your right to try to convince others to a point of view that you know nothing about. But in a better world than we live in, people would seriously question the wisdom of doing this, and talk about baseball instead.
Aren't many lobbyists resembling the "might makes right" practices? From what little I understand so far, there is quite a bit of money involved, and decisions do not always seem to be as honest and altruistic when the amounts get large enough.
And aren't the politicians replacing responding to populism and mob voice with the loudest voices nearest them? Especially those that may finance the politicians' agendas?
I am frequently bewildered by some of the decisions made and enacted/codified into law, and must conclude that I obviously do not understand all of the agendas being served in those instances.
It is beginning to seem to me that the current lobbying system is akin to the current union system in that it may no longer be as beneficial as it once was in its current form.
I agree with you. It seems in this day and age if you wanted to find some information about a topic you cared about you could gather enough information online or by asking some experts. Lobbyists tend to have a biased opinion.
I would love to see some social website experimentation with online voting, and caucusing/solicitation of voters' desires, correctly tracked to one per registered voter.
Might they not already exist?
If we can make one robust enough and popular enough, maybe it can be the model (or the actual tool) used by our wonderful pols...
I guess one problem with that is that it favors people with money too much. In principle I also believe in markets, but I think this is the point where the neo-capitalist logic fails.
As an example: I remember reading in "the armchair economist" how the author was angry at environmentalists because they denied him the right to pollute the environment if he was willing to shell out the money for it. He mentions that it might be worth 50$ per year to him to make sure lions don't go extinct, but not much more than that. Well maybe it would be worth 1000000$ per year to another person, but that person does not have the 1000000$ per year.
Tough luck one could say, but by that one would assume a certain definition of what is fair, and it is not obvious what consequences that definition would have in the long run.
To make an informed decision, which is what our politicians in Washington are supposed to do, not just respond to populism and mob voice, you need somebody to inform you. Lobbyists do that. That's their job. To inform congressmen and senators. What that politician does with that information, and how he verifies it's truth is another matter.
I suppose I would support your right to try to convince others to a point of view that you know nothing about. But in a better world than we live in, people would seriously question the wisdom of doing this, and talk about baseball instead.