<story><title>Kill Hollywood? Let&apos;s fix politics instead: kill lobbying.</title><text>I read the &apos;Kill Hollywood&apos; RFC, gave it some thought and came to a conclusion that killing Hollywood is not a Value Adding Intention (tm).  I understand that the RFC is a response to SOPA&amp;#38;co which is obviously pushed by Hollywood.&lt;p&gt;My thoughts went: &quot;Should we-the-people retaliate against some influential business (sector) every time they successfully lobby for their own interests against the interest of the wider public?&quot;&lt;p&gt;On which I concluded: &quot;No we should fix politics instead, that&apos;s where the problem originates, that&apos;s where we can fix it once and for all.&quot;&lt;p&gt;And the most obvious fix I see is to criminalize lobbying (= power to the wealthy) as it is against democracy (= power to the people) in its very nature.&lt;p&gt;Just to name a few sectors that successfully lobbied for changes that (imho) harmed the wider public: banks, car industry, big-oil, big-pharma, big-food, military contractors.&lt;p&gt;Some simple math: if business (sector) X puts in 5M for a lobby on issue Y; the probability of success on their lobby campaign is 0.5; then the payoff of the campaign is at least 10M.  Now where do those 10M come from?  From everyone that is not X.  In other words: the honest people --who do not try to influence politics outside of the public discussion-- lose from the wealthy mega-corps.&lt;p&gt;Lobbying is currently a fast growing industry itself:&lt;p&gt;http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/01/washington-lobbying-grew-to-32.html&lt;p&gt;So please YC use your influence to fight the real bad, and &quot;Kill the Lobby&quot; with an RFC :)</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>JunkDNA</author><text>I recognize that Lawrence Lessig is beating this particular drum lately, and he&apos;s probably way smarter than me. However, I can&apos;t escape the idea that money is the mother&apos;s milk of politics. It&apos;s like water in that it always finds a way through an obstacle, no matter how much you put in its way. If you eliminate overt lobbying, organizations will find a way to route around whatever laws are in place to lobby covertly, in ways that are likely much harder for the average person to detect.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I&apos;d point out that, depending on the form of a ban on lobbying, the recent SOPA protest might not have been able to happen. Google might have been prevented from blacking out their page as would Wikipedia, lest they run afoul of anti-lobbying laws. That&apos;s something worth thinking about.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s also not just the business sector that has lobbyists. There are tons of other groups. The Sierra Club and NRA are two biggies that come to mind. As an individual, it&apos;s much more efficient for me to throw in with one of those groups to ensure my interests are protected than it is to do it myself. Both are exceptionally effective at getting what they want because they spend all day keeping an eye on elected (and unelected) government officials and their continued existence hinges on their success.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not arguing that we have to &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; this current situation, but it&apos;s hard for me to think of a &lt;i&gt;better&lt;/i&gt; scenario that doesn&apos;t infringe on the rights of people to assemble as a group and voice their opininon via financial support, advertising, etc... Just because some of the time we don&apos;t personally like the result of lots of lobbyists, doesn&apos;t mean this is the root of all evil. In the end, all the money in the world isn&apos;t going to compel ordinary citizens to vote for someone who doesn&apos;t have their interests in mind. Exhibit A would be John Corzine who had an incredible fortune at his disposal in his reelection bid as governor of NJ and &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; lost to Chris Christie in 2009.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>peterb</author><text>Bad laws are stopped when citizens participate in the political process. I think people are realizing this. Social networks like twitter, facebook, reddit and hacker news makes organizing easier. They also make it easier to hear alternative voices (e.g. Lessig, Tim O&apos;Reilly) and criticisms of the mainstream media. The best way to handle bad actor lobbyists is to counter them with large numbers of organized, informed citizens who participate.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m hoping Dodd was right and this was a watershed moment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kill Hollywood? Let&apos;s fix politics instead: kill lobbying.</title><text>I read the &apos;Kill Hollywood&apos; RFC, gave it some thought and came to a conclusion that killing Hollywood is not a Value Adding Intention (tm).  I understand that the RFC is a response to SOPA&amp;#38;co which is obviously pushed by Hollywood.&lt;p&gt;My thoughts went: &quot;Should we-the-people retaliate against some influential business (sector) every time they successfully lobby for their own interests against the interest of the wider public?&quot;&lt;p&gt;On which I concluded: &quot;No we should fix politics instead, that&apos;s where the problem originates, that&apos;s where we can fix it once and for all.&quot;&lt;p&gt;And the most obvious fix I see is to criminalize lobbying (= power to the wealthy) as it is against democracy (= power to the people) in its very nature.&lt;p&gt;Just to name a few sectors that successfully lobbied for changes that (imho) harmed the wider public: banks, car industry, big-oil, big-pharma, big-food, military contractors.&lt;p&gt;Some simple math: if business (sector) X puts in 5M for a lobby on issue Y; the probability of success on their lobby campaign is 0.5; then the payoff of the campaign is at least 10M.  Now where do those 10M come from?  From everyone that is not X.  In other words: the honest people --who do not try to influence politics outside of the public discussion-- lose from the wealthy mega-corps.&lt;p&gt;Lobbying is currently a fast growing industry itself:&lt;p&gt;http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/01/washington-lobbying-grew-to-32.html&lt;p&gt;So please YC use your influence to fight the real bad, and &quot;Kill the Lobby&quot; with an RFC :)</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>JunkDNA</author><text>I recognize that Lawrence Lessig is beating this particular drum lately, and he&apos;s probably way smarter than me. However, I can&apos;t escape the idea that money is the mother&apos;s milk of politics. It&apos;s like water in that it always finds a way through an obstacle, no matter how much you put in its way. If you eliminate overt lobbying, organizations will find a way to route around whatever laws are in place to lobby covertly, in ways that are likely much harder for the average person to detect.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I&apos;d point out that, depending on the form of a ban on lobbying, the recent SOPA protest might not have been able to happen. Google might have been prevented from blacking out their page as would Wikipedia, lest they run afoul of anti-lobbying laws. That&apos;s something worth thinking about.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s also not just the business sector that has lobbyists. There are tons of other groups. The Sierra Club and NRA are two biggies that come to mind. As an individual, it&apos;s much more efficient for me to throw in with one of those groups to ensure my interests are protected than it is to do it myself. Both are exceptionally effective at getting what they want because they spend all day keeping an eye on elected (and unelected) government officials and their continued existence hinges on their success.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not arguing that we have to &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; this current situation, but it&apos;s hard for me to think of a &lt;i&gt;better&lt;/i&gt; scenario that doesn&apos;t infringe on the rights of people to assemble as a group and voice their opininon via financial support, advertising, etc... Just because some of the time we don&apos;t personally like the result of lots of lobbyists, doesn&apos;t mean this is the root of all evil. In the end, all the money in the world isn&apos;t going to compel ordinary citizens to vote for someone who doesn&apos;t have their interests in mind. Exhibit A would be John Corzine who had an incredible fortune at his disposal in his reelection bid as governor of NJ and &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; lost to Chris Christie in 2009.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chiaro</author><text>The way I see it, the only reason political parties need such vast amounts of money is to spend it campaigning. If you reduce the need or ability to campaign, by restricting advertising or making voting compulsory, the demand for money is lessened, and some industry or another threatening to pull their support isn&apos;t such a big deal.</text></comment>