[governance] Facebook spent $4 million to lobby U.S. lawmakers in 2012

[Guru गुरु]

  On 01/26/2013 03:58 AM, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <5102AD28.9090901 at ITforChange.net>, at 23:04:56 on Fri, 25 
> Jan 2013, =?UTF-8?B?R3VydSDgpJfgpYHgpLDgpYE=?= <Guru at ITforChange.net> 
> writes
>> you say 'different forms of democracy', is plutocracy another form of 
>> democracy?
>
> Only if everyone in the country in question is wealthy. So Monaco, 
> perhaps?

Ronald,
then can you explain what you mean by 'different forms of democracy' in 
which the lobbying power of money varies across countries?

Also
"The word plutocracy is almost always used as a pejorative to describe 
or warn against an undesirable condition,^[2] 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-2> ^[3] 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-3> and throughout 
history political thinkers such as Winston Churchill 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill>, 19th-century French 
sociologist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologist> and historian 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historian> Alexis de Tocqueville 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville> and 19th-century 
Spanish monarchist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchist> Juan Donoso 
Cortés <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Donoso_Cort%C3%A9s> have 
condemned those they characterize as plutocrats for ignoring their 
social responsibilities 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_responsibility> to the poor, 
_*using their power to serve their own purposes*_ and thereby increasing 
poverty and nurturing class conflict 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_conflict>, and corrupting their 
societies with greed <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed> and hedonism 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism>.^[4] 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-4> ^[5] 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-5> 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy)

*This seems to be the direction that US seems to be moving towards, with 
the vastly disproportionate influence of the monied in policy making.* 
This phenomenon is also true for most other countries including India, 
but with most large IT transnationals being head quartered in the US and 
with US domestic law unfortunately* the defacto global law, the 
need/scope for policy lobbying/corruption is much higher in the US.

regards,
Guru
* I would think it axiomatic that global democracy will require a league 
of nations and nationalities and not any one having any pre-eminent 
position, so it is disappointing (though not surprising) that we get 
responses on the list about 'US eminent role/ US exceptionalism' being 
good or inevitable. To quote that great American, Abraham Lincoln "No 
man is good enough to govern another man without that other man’s 
consent", something many Americans on this list and other nationals 
favoring US eminence in IG, may want to ponder about.
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