Marginal Revolution: Say's Law of Lobbying

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Say's Law of Lobbying

The Washington Post has just finished a 27-part series on lobbying. It's an interesting series full of colorful characters and great anecdotes but very little on the root of the problem. In the conclusion, I found just one sentence:

As the reach of the federal government extended into more corners of American life, opportunities for lobbyists proliferated.

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on April 8, 2007 at 02:24 PM in Political Science | Permalink

Comments

Olson's Law, actually.

Lobbying isn't going to go away, of course; but establishing a healthy relationship between government and lobbyists is critical, and something we're not doing.

Posted by: Isaac at Apr 8, 2007 4:26:11 PM

wapo as usual is dead wrong.
lobbying has expanded for three reasons.
1. the current administration wanted this result.
2. there has been little enforcement of laws that
curtail abuses of lobbying.
3. the Congress since 1994 has been exquisitely eager
to be lobbied.

Posted by: rod at Apr 8, 2007 4:44:00 PM

I 'heart' you Alex. You and Tyler are great, but you have a way of piercing through all of the mess. Anyway, happy Sunday.

...Oh, and as rod has so eloquently pointed out: The desire to purchase a service-available was invented in 1994!

Never would have known, I guess you get schooled everr day. ;)

Posted by: steveintheknow at Apr 8, 2007 4:55:57 PM

Trying to rid the government of lobbyists (and for that matter, eliminating the effects of money on politics) is a lot like the search for perpetual motion, except that the seekers will never be convinced of its futility.

Posted by: Rich Berger at Apr 8, 2007 8:30:53 PM

The number of DC lobbyists more than doubled btw 2000 and 2005. I think it's hard to argue the causal factor is the growth of government during that period. Instead, I would consider the Bush administration and the Republican Congress's close relationships with lobbyists as the most likely causal factor. There have been reports of lobbyists writing the first drafts of key legislation.

A fair test would be change in lobbyist numbers over the next two years. Has anyone seen historical studies of lobbyist activity?

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101632.html)

Tom G.

Posted by: Tom G. at Apr 8, 2007 8:37:42 PM

Rod said:
"wapo as usual is dead wrong.
lobbying has expanded for three reasons.
1. the current administration wanted this result.
2. there has been little enforcement of laws that
curtail abuses of lobbying.
3. the Congress since 1994 has been exquisitely eager
to be lobbied."

I love this post. What a wonderful exposition of ideological blindness. I could restate this post in much simpler terms. Here is my attempt: "If only the democrats were in power there would be less political capitalism." The outgrowth of this psychotic belief is that if the "right" people hold office then government regulation will not be captured and all of the sudden the public sector will produce many more socialy optimal outcomes. I believe a post of such a faithful inclination is only fitting for easter sunday.

Posted by: John Pertz at Apr 8, 2007 10:31:58 PM

Two reasons why there has been such growth in lobbying since 1994:

a) So many of the previous lobbyists had contacts exclusively with Democrats (and in many cases were former Democratic officeholders themselves) that an entirely new set of rainmakers had to be hired. The old ones were not fired. They simply continued making the rounds of their contacts in order to line up the votes.

b) As one of his last acts as POTUS, Clinton released his people to seek lobbying careers immediately after his administration ended.

chsw (ex-Washingtonian)

Posted by: chsw at Apr 8, 2007 10:51:30 PM

An excellent distillation, Alex.

Posted by: rluser at Apr 9, 2007 4:03:12 AM

John Pertz:

That's not really ideology, more of political personaility cultism.

Posted by: John S at Apr 9, 2007 4:08:51 AM

It's a pity the federal government never learned how to reduce the power of lobbyists in defence
contracting and other areas before they extended their reach into more corners of the American life.

Posted by: Ronald Brak at Apr 9, 2007 4:42:47 AM

糖尿病中国糖尿病网心脑血管文秘糖尿病症状

Posted by: 糖尿病 at Apr 9, 2007 5:14:43 AM

I basically agree with 糖尿病, except that I'd note that 糖尿病症状 does not always imply 心脑. Homework
assignment: figure out why.

Posted by: Person at Apr 9, 2007 9:35:30 AM

This is a very easy concept to understand. Beggars increase in numbers as expectation of alms increases. Expectations are increased as more crumbs are thrown from the table.

Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at Apr 9, 2007 12:25:06 PM

Sasha Volokh has had an interesting series of posts on lobbying by prison contracters. She claims that these contractors have a public goods problem when it comes to getting more people imprisoned, so we should expect less lobbying from them than if it were all managed by the government.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_08-2007_04_14.shtml#1176127418
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_01-2007_04_07.shtml#1175867096
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_01-2007_04_07.shtml#1175786156
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_01-2007_04_07.shtml#1175694973
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_01-2007_04_07.shtml#1175612410

Posted by: TGGP at Apr 9, 2007 4:51:58 PM

I believe that one has to collect the

legal information

or news from many sources. After compiling the information, it can be analysed clearly and easily.

Elsa

Posted by: Elsa at May 1, 2007 10:46:30 AM

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