Yes, there are loopholes that sufficiently motivated individuals can use to elude regulation to a certain extent, but this doesn’t mean that they are as effective as just giving cash. Cash is much more fungible than anything else.
Cash gives the person who writes the bill power. If a political party pays the money they got donated by a corporation for a polling firm to target ads than the polling firm serves the interests of the political party.
If the person who writes the bill is a corporation who then donates the resulting data, the polling firm has interests to shape the data in the interests of the corporation.
The political party and politicians prefer receiving cash. The lobbyists on the other hand don’t prefer to give cash. If you now come and pass a law that makes it harder for politicians to accept cash to use for political purposes you weaken the politicians and therefore strengthen the lobbyists.
Which is of course exactly how we get such laws in a society in which lobbyists hold a lot of political power and want more power.
The only way to get around lobbyists increase their power is to actually give other political actors more power. That means public funding of elections.
Yes, there are loopholes that sufficiently motivated individuals can use to elude regulation to a certain extent, [emphasis mine]
And that’s precisely the problem. The net affect of these regulations is to limit political influence to those who are sufficiently motivated. This is already the mechanism behind things like regulatory capture, these laws just make the effect worse.
Possibly. But the point is how much political influence you get. Influencing politics with direct donations is much more efficient than eluding regulation.
You are being hypercritical.
Yes, there are loopholes that sufficiently motivated individuals can use to elude regulation to a certain extent, but this doesn’t mean that they are as effective as just giving cash.
Cash is much more fungible than anything else.
Cash gives the person who writes the bill power. If a political party pays the money they got donated by a corporation for a polling firm to target ads than the polling firm serves the interests of the political party. If the person who writes the bill is a corporation who then donates the resulting data, the polling firm has interests to shape the data in the interests of the corporation.
The political party and politicians prefer receiving cash. The lobbyists on the other hand don’t prefer to give cash. If you now come and pass a law that makes it harder for politicians to accept cash to use for political purposes you weaken the politicians and therefore strengthen the lobbyists.
Which is of course exactly how we get such laws in a society in which lobbyists hold a lot of political power and want more power. The only way to get around lobbyists increase their power is to actually give other political actors more power. That means public funding of elections.
And that’s precisely the problem. The net affect of these regulations is to limit political influence to those who are sufficiently motivated. This is already the mechanism behind things like regulatory capture, these laws just make the effect worse.
While allowing to donate millions of dollars extends the political influence to the average person?
My point is that the barrier to entry to donate large amounts of money is lower than the barrier to elude regulations.
Possibly. But the point is how much political influence you get. Influencing politics with direct donations is much more efficient than eluding regulation.
No. Political influence tends to be zero sum, thus the fewer competing sources of influence there are, the more of it you have.
I don’t think so. If nobody spends in political influencing, people will still vote for somebody.