Regulatory capture is a problem, but I think you'd have much worse problems regulating complex industries without talking to them.
For example, the FCC doesn't really exist to protect consumers from anyone, but to be the "traffic cop" protecting manufacturers and operators of radio equipment from each other. I have a hard time believing the FCC could make coherent rules and spectrum allocations without the affected parties being able to raise issues to it.
Ditto, for example, airlines and pilot unions being unable to raise concerns to the FAA.
Ideally, lobbying is a way to say:
"Hey! We do this thing you want to ban [guns | amateur radio | general aviation | take your pick], and here's why, and by the way, we vote."
"Hey! We have this serious problem in our industry, one of our peers is behaving badly, can we do something about this?" Net neutrality regulation, for example, comes from companies like Netflix advocating for their interests against companies like Comcast.
You can publish this on the web all you want, but Congressmen aren't going to read the whole internet every day. We need some kind of "push" mechanism to get issues in front of them.
Obviously there are many very serious failure modes, particularly when one side of an issue has a disproportionate budget compared to the other. But there are also important use-cases.
Lobbying is not so simple an evil. Lobbying backed by campaign contributions, on the other hand, is much more simply bribery.
I didn't say nobody could talk to industry. See points 2-4.
If, e.g., the FCC believes they need input, they can ask. I expect that regulators would get in the habit of requesting quite a bit of information on a regular basis.
If trade associations would like to get Congress to attend to an important issue, they can call up a newspaper reporter and try to interest them in an article. And note that there's nothing stopping an individual citizen from calling up a representative and saying, "I'm an airline pilot, and I am concerned about urgent issue X!"
Lobbying is an arms race. The best solutions to arms races is to limit to the lowest sustainable level. And it's important to note that lobbyists are not just competing with other lobbyists. They're competing with everybody who can't hire a professional lobbyist. That is, the majority of America.
Regulatory capture is a problem, but I think you'd have much worse problems regulating complex industries without talking to them.
For example, the FCC doesn't really exist to protect consumers from anyone, but to be the "traffic cop" protecting manufacturers and operators of radio equipment from each other. I have a hard time believing the FCC could make coherent rules and spectrum allocations without the affected parties being able to raise issues to it.
Ditto, for example, airlines and pilot unions being unable to raise concerns to the FAA.
Ideally, lobbying is a way to say:
"Hey! We do this thing you want to ban [guns | amateur radio | general aviation | take your pick], and here's why, and by the way, we vote."
"Hey! We have this serious problem in our industry, one of our peers is behaving badly, can we do something about this?" Net neutrality regulation, for example, comes from companies like Netflix advocating for their interests against companies like Comcast.
You can publish this on the web all you want, but Congressmen aren't going to read the whole internet every day. We need some kind of "push" mechanism to get issues in front of them.
Obviously there are many very serious failure modes, particularly when one side of an issue has a disproportionate budget compared to the other. But there are also important use-cases.
Lobbying is not so simple an evil. Lobbying backed by campaign contributions, on the other hand, is much more simply bribery.