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Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

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Re: Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

#21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying in some form is explicitly protected by the 1st amendment. The question is: If you form a contract for someone else to petition for a redress of greivances on you behalf, is that contract void?

1st amendment rights apply to people. They should not apply to corporations.

Corporations are made up of people.

How would you go about restricting corporate speech without restricting people's speech?

And, more so, why would you want to?

Scenario A: 1,000 people organize into a company. One of those people is the Founder/CEO who takes the vast majority of the money out of the company into his personal wealth. It is uncontested that this natural person can then use his wealth to buy ads/throw big dinner parties and invite politicians/etc. right?

Scenario B: 1,000 people organize into a company. They distribute the money of the company relatively equally, meaning that no single person in the company has enough money to buy ads/throw big dinner parties and invite politicians/etc. But they think it's important for their company to lobby. But in your world, they can't.

What principle is being served here? Make sure that only the personally wealthy can speak? That doesn't sound amazing.

What exact types of groups do you want to deny speech rights to? "Company" is a vague term. Do you want to deny speech rights to non-profits? To political parties? If you deny speech rights only to corporations organized under certain for-profit tax rules, do you imagine that it would be hard for Amazon to work around that rule?

Re: Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

#24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1st amendment rights apply to people. They should not apply to corporations.

And what about NGOs? What's the difference between NGOs and corporations?

NGOs are corporations, legally.

Re: Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

#25

I honestly don't know who is worse these days - wall street firms or big tech companies. These (Google, Amazon ... ) were the same companies that we looked up to, just a few years ago. How much things can change in such a short time :(

I think it was difficult to find understanding in an exchange broker, so we distrusted them. We wanted to change the world and build technologies befitting the 21st century, and could not see how they might grow into monsters. So many good intentions built by a tech giant made of ourselves.

Re: Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

#27
post #10

You either allow lobbying or ban it. Amazon used a legal process to tip the balance in their favour. The entire lobbying thing does sound to me like a hack in the entire democratic process. People should vote not companies.

Lobbying in some form is explicitly protected by the 1st amendment. The question is: If you form a contract for someone else to petition for a redress of greivances on you behalf, is that contract void?

That's what makes it an interesting problem. How can we reduce the influence on government that money allows? I think all meetings should be public, with publicly available transcripts and/or recordings. They are free to meet, but not in private.

Re: Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year

#28
post #10

You either allow lobbying or ban it. Amazon used a legal process to tip the balance in their favour. The entire lobbying thing does sound to me like a hack in the entire democratic process. People should vote not companies.

Lobbying in some form is explicitly protected by the 1st amendment. The question is: If you form a contract for someone else to petition for a redress of greivances on you behalf, is that contract void?

My limited (understanding) of the state of things in the US is that the lobbying itself is a problem mostly because the whole political system is driven by donations, which of course disproportionally come from the rich actors. Here in Poland the parties are sponsored by the state itself and donations are a very limited factor, which makes the lobbying not very effective and hence not a real factor.
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