A Criticism of Regulation: On The Causes of Lobbyism and Politico-Corporate Corruption

Lobbyists are not so much the problem, as they are the evidence of the problem. Before regulation, there were virtually no lobbyists, as there was no need for them-- if someone wanted to do something, they would do it-- in the beginning, the U.S. government was largely uninvolved in economic affairs, making the very concept of kissing the government's ass for concessions or "consideration" ludicrous. Fast forward through over a century of self-righteous progressivism and we have a few generations of Americans born into a country so disgustingly saturated in lobbied interest that the necessity of lobbyists in the politico-corporate world has become common sense.

Regulation was a good system in theory, and that's the reason why progressivists are so in denial of how much of a failure its been. Progressivism have been from the very beginning a movement pioneered by doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and bankers. A lot of intelligent and upper-class people pushed American Progressivism for the greater good, and still feel that it works because the theory is still solid. 

However, just like Progressivism, Communism was great in theory too. In fact, from a social democratic stand-point, one of the only major distinctions between Communism and Socialism, is that whereas Communism is revolutionary, Socialism is progressive. Note here that in this context, "revolutionary" means "quick and abrupt change", whereas "progressive" means "slow and gradual change". So the primary reason why progressivists haven't noticed their system has failed, is because it *hasn't failed yet*-- because the system is progressive, the entropy of the system is *also* progressive. 

So whereas the failure of Communism was perfectly obvious due to its revolutionary nature, the failure of Progressive Socialism never became obvious, because it's happened so slowly that most people don't even see things changing for the worse, they just see the "status quo". It's like trying to prove murder through Pine-Sol food poisoning (like in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense", versus being an eye witness to the beheading of a famous celebrity. 

Getting back to lobbyists, as I said they're only the evidence of the problem. The root of the problem is in human nature, that human beings are selfish. This problem is amplified with psychopaths, who are more callous, and more likely to be in positions of power *because of that callousness* (which is viewed by society as favorable for emotionally-detached domains such as corporate business, the legal system, and the political world), and more broadly with the very nature of how wealth and power affects people (that is, these two things corrupt people in possession of them, as the maxim goes "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!"

But we can't change human nature, and regulation has proved itself to only further complicate things, while at the same time creating the impetus for lobbying activism, inefficiencies from regulatory overhead, and (most importantly) the regulation-caused market inequalities and subsequent widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, and between the competitiveness of small business in relation to larger corporations who unlike small businesses can afford lobbyists and to pay for often trivial and extraneous regulations.

Ayn Rand gave a solution to that, and it was so remarkably simple that I can't believe that so many people haven't grasped it yet: She called it "ethical egoism", and it goes like this: (quoting from Wikipedia for practical purposes) "Ethical egoism (also called simply egoism) is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest". To sum this up for those of you who may have trouble applying that definition to this context, it's basically saying that if you leave people alone, they generally will do the right thing because it's in their best interests to. 

Ayn Rand was in many ways a genius, and her ingenuity in the crafting of a philosophy based on ethical egoism, is the application of the free market system to the human Ego, so as to show that the free market system is the best economic model because it's in human nature to want to do the right thing, so as to prevent (for example) a moral "zero sum game". 

I agree with Ayn Rand that because human beings are all to some extent motivated by a desire for some kind of personal liberation, Interference with that liberation (such as regulation and government intervention in the free market system, as was the case with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Income Tax) gives people more incentive to commit moral wrongdoing even from their own perspective. The reason for this is simple also: When "doing to right thing" doesn't produce self-liberation, we have a natural incentive to "do the wrong thing" in order to achieve the desired liberation that was not permitted (due to regulation) to be achieved in ways that are in everyone's best interest.

So ironic as it might seem given the bipartisan political consensus on the issue of regulation, the answer to getting rid of lobbyists, is largely to get rid of regulation. Yes there will still be a few psychopaths who will exploit the free market for their own again, But the moral incentive for such selfishness, both for psychopaths and for people in general, will be largely eliminated in lieu of a free market morality mentality.