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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

Lobbying is part of the democratic process. There are many interests in society and it is right that their voices be heard and considered by the government and parliament when deciding on law and policy.

It is important that there be rules to keep things transparent but lobbying is not a problem in itself.

A simplistic example might be: Let's say that a group calls for a ban on all vehicles then it is right for groups relying on vehicles to make their voice heard to explain what the negative impact would be. Once government and parliament have heard all sides then they can make up their mind. If whole groups are banned from expressing their point of view and from defending their interests then it is no longer a democratic free society.

Interference by foreign powers is a different thing altogether.

Calls to ban lobbying are the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.

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Your voice being heard is one thing. What we have here is the consequence of huge wealth disparities. Those with the money can influence the “democratic” process in outsized ways. That is the opposite of democratic.

Yes, the system is "pay to win", always has.

The implication of your comment is that "those with money" should be silenced or at least treated differently... slippery slope again.

You can limit the amount of money spent on lobbying and/or political activities. That's about it, and that's already not easy to do.

No, my point is the root cause is wealth inequality, which is fundamentally undemocratic, and a different issue than free speech. The solution is wealth expropriation, not censorship.

Right, so it's "democratic" as in "dictatorship of the proletariat", then. Yes that does sound like many commenters!

Wealth inequality is not inherently undemocratic, WTF. There's way more poor people than rich people, meaning poor people have more votes and say in democracy. Lobbying is undemocratic since it bypasses democracy.

Trying to get millions to agree on things is hard, that’s why they focus on bs. They have us fighting a culture war so we won’t fight a class war. That’s why controlling media and other propaganda is so important

Exactly.

No, their voice should have exactly the same value as everyone else's.

no less, no more.

Unless we are done with pretending that there are no power disparities.

And one of few ways to do so is to either:

- completely ban lobbying, any form of privilege/monetary exchange is considered a bribery. Introduce a public open dialogue when working on a new legislation. Rich can still make their own campaigns for specific issues - just targeting voters, not politicians directly.

- introduce system of checks and balances where any form of lobbying must be publicly visible and attached to image of politician, so voter can easily make informed decision. Including something correlated with amount of money donated, counting shell organizations in it too.

good luck - no politician will vote to cut their own paycheck.

> lobbying is not a problem in itself.

It kinda is though, since massive sums of money never comes for free with no strings attached but favors are expected in return. And those strings attached typically are to undermine the best interest of the working class to enrich those paying the lobby money.

>Calls to ban lobbying is the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.

Where do you see me calling to ban lobbying?

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