A Voters Guide – 10 Facts about campaign finance
6. Peddling Influence
Whenever government is brought into any aspect of the economy, so comes politics. The politicization of markets leads to partisan corporate alliances. The problem isn’t really that corporations are seeking to promote their own self-interests, it’s that government has too much influence to peddle in the first place.
If the government were to mandate regulation of pizza houses, owners of any pizza business would want some form of a lobby representing their interests in DC. While companies like Dominos, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns could afford lobbyists, the smaller individual pizza houses would likely need to ban together under some association in order to afford to do the same. Then the politicians need only dangle legislation in front of them to encourage a spending war by both parties.
While it may be silly to think of the federal government regulating pizza to that level, it demonstrates that the effect is the same in any industry. Industries like banking and automobile manufacturing obviously have leaders with more resources to throw at tipping the playing field in their direction than most.
It’s an unwritten rule of politics: If you involve the government, you’re involving politics, and thus you are creating a competition for influence and favor.
