Regulation: Used by The Powerful Against the Weak

[Ironside]

Well, apart from the infeasibility of instituting such an initiative, the resulting effects would be far from positive. Lobbying is a vital element of a pluralistic democracy. It is the glue that binds the people's will and the legislation that enforces it. How, for example, is your average congressman supposed to know the intricacies of the American health care system well enough to regulate it and at the same time be an expert on which of a slate of the latest military weapons systems deserve funding and which do not?

Usually that's handled by political specialisation (committees? I'm not sure about the US word for this). Senator A knows the healthcare, while senator B knows the military systems.

The problem is the political class, and it always has been. They are supposed to act as honest brokers between various lobbying groups - to distill their complex proposals into their main points and then judge which of those will best serve their constituents. This requires a group of people motivated by altruism instead of money and power. They are hard to come by, but they do tend to manifest in times of real crisis. The best policy, however, is to keep as much power as is practical out of the hands of politicians in the first place.

I'm not sure exactly how that's a solution. The free market is already the powerful against the weak (technically all vs all), is cheerished to be going for money and power and the control is the consumer. Aka the random guy on the street that needs to get the same information as that overloaded senator to make informed decisions, while working at the same time (unlike the politician, where this kind of information gathering is part of his job). It's not like the politicians makes the industrial lobby corrupt.

It's the work of media and population to ensure that the politicians doesn't coddle up to the powers in the industry. Dropping the politician is a far cry from a solution.