
Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' - riffer
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googles-ceo-the-laws-are-written-by-lobbyists/63908
======
CWuestefeld
But are the voters any better?

 _The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies is a
2007 book written by Bryan Caplan challenging the notion that voters are
reasonable people that society can trust to make laws. Rather, Caplan contends
that voters are irrational in the political sphere and have systematically
biased ideas concerning economics. ..._

 _The book is notable in use of irrationality, a rare assumption in economics.
Yet the work is also a challenge to conventional public choice, where voters
are seen as rationally ignorant. Conventional public choice either emphasizes
the efficiency of democracy (as in the case of Donald Wittman) or, more
commonly, democratic failure due to the interaction between self-interested
politicians or bureaucrats, well-organized, rent-seeking minority interests
and a largely indifferent general public (as in the work of Gordon Tullock,
James M. Buchanan, and many others). Caplan, however, emphasizes that
democratic failure does exist and places the blame for it squarely on the
general public. He makes special emphasis that politicians are often caught
between a rock and a hard place: thanks to advisors, they know what policies
would be generally beneficial, but they also know that those policies are not
what people want. Thus they are balancing good economic policy (so they don’t
get voted out of office due to slow growth) and bad economic policy (so they
don’t get voted out of office due to unpopular policies)._

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Myth_of_t...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter%3A_Why_Democracies_Choose_Bad_Policies#Rational_irrationality)

~~~
yummyfajitas
To put hard numbers to it:

Suppose your personal stake in a presidential election is $50,000 (e.g., you
make $500k/year, and Candidate 1 will raise or lower your taxes by 2.5%/year.)
Your odds of swinging the election with your vote are 1 in 100 million
(assuming 100 million voters).

Your expected gain from voting is $0.0005. Therefore, you will not rationally
be willing to spend more than $0.0005 determining which candidate is best.
Further, you might deliberately vote for the wrong candidate for expressive
reasons. I.e., if you assign $0.25 worth of utility to supporting the guy you
want to share a beer with [1], or to proving you aren't racist, you will vote
for the worse candidate.

[1] Because the stakes are so low, most people didn't even bother learning
that this candidate doesn't drink. That would take more than $0.25 worth of
effort.

~~~
jpwagner
_Your odds of swinging the election with your vote are 1 in 100 million_

This assumption doesn't make sense

~~~
yummyfajitas
There are 100 million votes, one of which decided the election (the N+1'th
vote on the winning side, assuming N votes on the losing side).

If you prefer, you can play with binomial distributions to calculate P(side X
wins with N votes && side X wins with N-1 votes) [1]. Using the normal
approximation and ignoring the normalization prefactor (an overestimate)
exp[(n(p-0.5)^2 / 1(np(1-p))] odds of having your vote matter. For p=0.501
(i.e., voters are split 50.1%, 49.9%), that works out to about 10^{-87}. For
p=0.51, double floats are incapable of representing a number that small.

I stand by my statement. Your vote doesn't matter.

[1] Conceptually, this is slightly different from computing the odds that you
cast the deciding vote, but I realize it is more useful from a decision
theoretic perspective.

~~~
jpwagner
There's no point in putting it to "hard numbers" if you make terribly
impractical guesstimates.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Please explain which of my approximations you believe changes my results
significantly.

(By "significantly", I mean "increases the odds of your vote mattering to a
number greater than, say, 10^{-86}. )

~~~
jpwagner
I can't help you clean up the calculations because the entire premise that the
probability of "your vote mattering" times your potential financial gain from
one candidate over another gives any reasonable estimate of utility of a vote
is absurd.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It doesn't have to be financial gain - it can be altruistic gain from policy
choices. As I said in another post, if you personally would be willing to
spend $50k to legalize gay marriage (for example), you can replace $50k of
financial gain by $50k worth of utility derived from helping others.

------
stretchwithme
Switzerland is far more democratic than the US and the people are much more in
control of their government. Proportional representation, no one person in
charge as president and referendums on most significants actions of the
legislature make for a much more decentralized system. Its very difficult for
a vast industry special interests to insert itself into the process.

The key is not letting people decide everything for everybody, but preserving
the individual's ability to decide their own fate.

The developing "democratic" disaster in the US is not what the founders
wanted. They thought they had put things in place to prevent this, but they
failed. And its looking like only a major crisis that our leaders cannot cover
over will force us to reconsider how we operate.

~~~
jellicle
It's important to recognize that the United States is version 1.0 of
democracy. The U.S. system of governance hasn't changed significantly since
its inception; the 12th, 17th and 22nd amendments are the only "bugfixes", and
they're quite minor.

Other nations have had several advantages. Smaller populations, making
experimenting and changes easier. Ability to see what the U.S. did wrong and
learn from its mistakes. And so on. Democracy is at at least version 3 today,
but the U.S. is stuck at version 1.0 and will be for the foreseeable future.

To put it another way, the U.S. Constitution is mostly from 1789, while the
Swiss Constitution is from 1999. Does anyone think there might have been some
advances in the science of democracy over those 210 years?

~~~
bbgm
Excellent point. What I have never understood is that while the US
constitution is relatively robust and, for the better part, has withstood the
test of time, it is a document written to reflect the late 18th century, yet
for some reason 21st century America seems to believe that it is a near
immutable document and set of ideas. There is a need for a "refresh", or at
least people should be willing to consider what aspects of the constitution
have not aged as well as others.

~~~
1337p337
Well, part of the cleverness built into the constitution is a meta-rule
describing the process for changing the constitution. Every system accumulates
cruft, but if we have a mechanism to apply patches, then we can (in theory)
accomplish some refactoring without an upheaval.

The only issue is that modern politics in America is a lot more like trench
warfare, with lines drawn and and fixed. Opinions on every issue fall along
party lines, with a few exceptions.

~~~
mdaniel
I hope dearly that Lawrence Lessig succeeds in actually calling a
constitutional convention (<http://www.callaconvention.org>), if for no other
reason than to strike out your "in theory" qualifier.

------
riffer
This drove me to just now sign up at:

<http://www.votizen.com>

Their tagline is 'making your interests special interests.' Their investors
include Founders Fund, Conway, Dixon, McClure, Rabois, etc. And they are
pretty clear that what they're pursuing is an 'unmatched opportunity to change
representative democracy' (i.e. aiming high).

~~~
jessriedel
I'm interested, but their "about" page isn't detailed enough. What do they do?
I guess they give you the contact info for your representatives and then
provide verification for the representative that you are a voting constituent?
What do they do to organize ("match") people?

~~~
sachinag
For now, yeah. It's an extension of how the Startup Visa movement used gov2.
Elected officials and their offices really only want to hear from their
constituents; if you make it easier for them to verify that feedback is coming
from their constituents while you simultaneously make it easier for
constituents to engage, then (theoretically) through the size of the crowds,
you can drown out highly motivated special interests. (Of course, lobbyists
are free to use Votizen and are the short-term potential advertisers on the
platform.)

------
danielnicollet
Financial lobbying should be outlawed. It's very equivalent to the ability to
buying votes and we know that buying power is very unequally spread across the
country. I find it shocking that anyone would doubt that. BTW, financial
lobbying is outlawed in most other democracies.

What I find more interesting is Schmidt's new interpretation of the Google
motto "Don't be evil":

"The end of the interview turned to the future of technology. When Bennet
asked about the possibility of a Google "implant," Schmidt invoked what the
company calls the "creepy line."

"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he
said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.

At the same time, Schmidt envisions a future where we embrace a larger role
for machines and technology. "With your permission you give us more
information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of
our searches," he said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you
are. We know where you've been. We can more or less now what you're thinking
about."

~~~
dctoedt
> _Financial lobbying should be outlawed._

From the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the
right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances."

Suppose we posited that corporations per se have no rights, only people do.
Even so, the individuals who work for a corporation, or own shares in it,
would still have that First Amendment right.

~~~
danielnicollet
Corporations are not people - that's commons sense - and by allowing them the
rights enjoyed by human beings, it gives shareholders a compounded right to
influence government: \- through their own human vote, \- through the power
lobbying, which allows them to not only influence votes in congress but even
to initiate legislative cycles with laws which are usually written by a
lobbyist or a former lobbyist in the staff of a congressman. Excuse my tone,
but please wake up people! I am ready to do something about it beyond voting
(some sort of activism). Are you?

~~~
dctoedt
Try a thought experiment: Imagine that "Google Inc." had no _legal_ meaning
except as a convenient identifier for a collection of individuals -- viz.,
Google's stockholders -- acting in concert.

A) Should Congress be able to restrict the right of those people to hire
professional advocates to petition Congress for the redress of their (real or
imagined) grievances?

How would a "no" answer be reconciled with the First Amendment passage quoted
above?

B) If yes, should the shareholders have the right to vote to designate some of
their number -- viz., Google's board of directors -- to decide what specific
policies will be advocated on behalf of the shareholders?

~~~
ericd
It's not just a collection of people, though - almost all of its power is
concentrated in the hands of an extremely small number of people, who can
force everyone to act in concert according to their own will.

~~~
arvinjoar
So if a group of people have voluntarily agreed to incorporate, could that be
called force, ever? I don't see how a "small number of people" can "force
everyone to act in concert" when they have voluntarily incorporated i.e.
allocated some of their capital or labor to some other party.

~~~
ericd
The executives determine the entire direction of the company. The people at
the bottom are generally there to make a livelihood, not to endorse the
political ideas of those at the top. A decision by those executives should not
be considered the will of that entire company, for political purposes.

~~~
danielnicollet
I agree 200%. If anyone thinks that corporate governance has anything of a
democracy, they've missed the point. I actually think that corporations must
not be democracies. It's a good thing that they are somewhat authoritarian
because modern democracies are not efficient enough and too bureaucratic for
many economic activities. On the other hand some societal issues are too
morally essential to be run by authoritarian corporate rulers. That's exactly
why I want these people out of politics. Right now they have way to much
political clout through lobbying.

------
nkassis
"America's research universities are the envy on the world," he said. "We have
90 percent of the top researchers in the world. We also have a bizarre policy
to train people and then kick them out by not giving them visas, which makes
no sense at all."

I think he has a very good point there. Even more so for graduate students. If
they've been here for 4+ years, and are skilled it should be very easy for
them to get permanent residency.

~~~
jfb
US immigration policy is particularly inept. As a citizen, I had only the
vaguest sense that this was so, but having started a company with two
immigrants, the depths of the stupidity have become manifestly clear.

Personally, I'm largely in favor of the free migration of labor, but
regardless of one's beliefs w/r/t immigration -- and there are principled
arguments for all sorts of positions on this issue, I feel -- _nobody_ can
defend the pig's breakfast that we currently have. And nobody's talking about
fixing it, either -- all the public conversation about immigration is about
Mexico, which is surely important, but hardly the only thing what needs
fixing.

------
cies
I wonder who still believe they live in a democracy (i.e. people rule). Modern
democracies are supposed to represent 'the people', yet in practice people
only get to vote once in ~4 years and large businesses (using lobby) can use
their money to pressure every day.

Every political science prof will say lobbies are more powerful then votes. so
why still call it a democracy? What would be a cover-up lie then isn't it?

I think businesses should not run coutnries because they are not creative --
they simply and soley try to maximize profit. People can make a nation
friendly, homey and caring; business cannot.

------
ebaysucks
The reason China will outperform the west is because it's not a democracy.

In a democracy, politicians rent the country. In China, the leaders own it.

People care more about their property if they have a long term interest in it.

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald
the end of the republic."

~~~
cabalamat
> _The reason China will outperform the west is because it's not a democracy._

You may be right. On the other hand, there are plenty of autocracies that show
no sign of outperforming the west.

~~~
ebaysucks
Indeed, the statement is contingent, not necessarily true. The leaders of the
autocracies need to be benevolent and think long term.

It all comes down to respect of property rights. Democracies respect property
rights to a limited but non-zero extent. Chinese leaders now respect private
property more than most Western democracies.

~~~
gte910h
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030800083.html)

"As long as the problem of landownership is not solved, conflicts on unfair
land seizure cannot be avoided. Since land is in the hand of the government, a
developer can bribe an official and make the official claim that the land is
seized for public use," said Liu Xiaobo, a leading political dissident. "If
the developer could get the approval from the official, he is legally entitled
to seize the land."

~~~
ebaysucks
I agree China is far from perfect - central government, even with the best
intentions, will always be inhuman and inefficient. However, sometimes less so
than under mob rule.

------
SkyMarshal
First time Iv'e heard the term 'creepy line' from Google:

 _"The end of the interview turned to the future of technology. When Bennet
asked about the possibility of a Google "implant," Schmidt invoked what the
company calls the "creepy line."

"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he
said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line."_

------
sigzero
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist
until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public
treasury."

You only have to look and see what is happening to see that it is true.

------
mathogre
...and one key body of lobbied law is called the Code of Federal Regulations
or CFR. It is an Executive Branch body of law, "judicially noticed" and
therefore unquestionable as to its legitimacy. Regulations are drafted by
bureaucrats in federal agencies, published as draft in the Federal Register,
and eventually accepted into law. Once published in the CFR, it is law. A few
of the Executive Branch agencies include DEA, FTC, FCC, and DOT. Check it out.

<http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/>

------
metamemetics
The U.S. can maintain its dominant economic position indefinitely if we reform
immigration to hoard the brightest minds and stick to the entrepreneurial
model. If we agree to never hinder startup business creation cross-party, the
China large-company model of government will not be able to adapt\innovate as
quickly in the future once it's done catching up to what others have already
done.

------
lwhi
I find it amazing that Schmidt is highlighting the obvious flaws that are
built into the political system by lobbying - which are pretty obvious to most
people .. and is complaining that it's difficult to change the political
system because of it, when Google is a major player in the lobbying game, a
major player which is most probably in the game to win itself.

He mentions that incentives drive politics - which is true, but surely
lobbying is just the visible vehicle of incentives driving politics? If he
views incentives as a fact of life .. why is lobbying not accepted with a
similar amount of cynical reasoning?

Maybe Google is trying to work out how they can affect politics in a more
effective way, as something other than a lobbyist?

He talks about America's strengths in education, but that graduates (useful to
Google) aren't able to be granted visas automatically.

He highlights how China's success is based around its shrewd use of business
strategy and technology. He talks about how China has a top-down approach to
orchestrating change, but he doesn't mention how censorship and control of
information also features heavily in Chinese politics. Also, if his metaphor
is extended .. what role do the citizens of a country run as a business have?

As a comparison, he also indicates how he feels that Google's omnipresence
(power) is set to grow in the future, regardless. He also talks about the
power that technology has as a disrupter, a couple of times. On one level, I
think he's highlighting Google's clout.

The thrust of the conversation seems to be based around the concept of a what
a tech company (e.g. 'Google') could offer a government, in terms of business
strategy and enabling change through technology.

I'm not a Luddite, but on a couple of levels the interview worries me. He's
professing that technology is good because it reduces what the human mind
needs to be capable of - while at the same time, the technology that Google
amasses is going to grow far more capable. All the while, he's insinuating
that Google's in a unique position to shape the political landscape.

When it comes down to it, I don't trust his reasoning and I don't totally
understand his incentives.

------
mmaro
Schmidt compares China to a business but then shies away and says he doesn't
mean it literally. This analogy/truth is far more important than he admits.
Anyone interested might enjoy:

[http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/rotary-...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/rotary-management-next-big-thing.html) (what
a corporation would be like if run like the U.S. government)

[http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/landsca...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/landscape-of-bewildering-
contradictions.html) (follow-up)

------
known
Spengler asserts that democracy is simply the political weapon of money, and
the media is the means through which money operates a democratic political
system. The thorough penetration of money's power throughout a society is yet
another marker of the shift from Culture to Civilization.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2C_media.2C_and_money)

------
readtodevelop
I think that children at school should be given some money and learn to manage
their education and hire their teachers, that should be a unique experience.
They would learn to govern themselves and the value of honesty. That would be
a great revolution.

The more you are able to control your surroundings the more you realize that
your action is a crucial factor in your life. Errors are one way to learn,
that is the lesson to remember.

------
1337p337
I think most people actually do know how influential lobbyists are, as
evidenced by candidates' perpetual battle to portray themselves as more
resistant to special interests than their opponents.

But the mobile phone comment is even more indicative of how out of touch the
guy is. We don't need to record Congress with mobile phones: we've had C-SPAN
for years. In fact, you can get videos from it online from a number of
sources.

------
readtodevelop
Is not who wrote the law, but in which conditions laws should be applicable.
United Nations and poor countries, you can write the law but poor countries
will continue to be poor because they don't have the power to impose their
reality. If you don't have power you are invisible.

Google has power, so he question who wrote the laws and he knows that power is
a way to rewrite the law.

------
known
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

------
Locke1689
The full interview is worth watching -- pretty interesting.

[http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid30183073001?...](http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid30183073001?bctid=622689013001)

------
lwhi
By adding in a typo like 'now what you are thinking about', the author of the
article can also be pretty sure what we're thinking about .. sloppy
journalism.

------
known
In democracy only 20% people will vote as per their conscience.

~~~
mhb
Only 10% of statistics in comments are accurate.

------
wooptoo
Wow, non half-assed comments from Eric Schmidt.

~~~
zmmmmm
Oh, don't worry, he still managed to stab his own company in the eye like he
does in every interview:

"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he
said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line."

I cannot fathom why Google thinks it helps them to say things like this.

------
lzw
One thing that is missing from this discussion is the difference between the
situation we find ourselves in and our country as designed. The US was
designed to be a federation of states, in fact, it was created as a
confederation. The constitutional congress did create a central federal
government, but it created one with a strict limit on its powers in the
enumerated powers clause, and was only passed with an additional 10
amendments, all of which explicitly removes powers from the federal government
that it wasn't granted in the body of the document, but that the holdouts
wanted to make absolutely sure where held for the states and the individuals.

In the time since the writing of the constitution, the federal government has
grown in power, and now is in complete violation of the constitution. %99 of
the activities, or more, are illegal under the constitution.

This is the massive centralization of power that the founders attempted to
avoid.

Talking about lobbyists having too much power is like talking about the fleas
on the dog that is menacing you. It is the dog that is the problem. IF the
power were not illegally centralized in washington DC the lobbyists (and the
politicians) would not have the inordinate power they have.

Decentralization- that is, state level power- is more democratic because state
representatives are more attentive and easier to reach by voters. AT the state
level, an individual vote has much more impact.

~~~
_delirium
Are the states actually run better, though? They seem pretty inept to me
overall when it comes to things like economics, and are even worse than the
federal government when it comes to things like civil liberties (we'd be
totally screwed if the Bill of Rights hadn't been incorporated against the
states).

~~~
mdaniel
I have two comments about that, one idealistic and one pragmatic.

If I am not mistaken, the state-centric view taken by the founders was to
afford the people a vote-by-shoe-leather system. It literally was: "if you
don't like it here, leave" but without the bile.

Also, as was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, in order for your interests
to "win" in a federally-scoped election, you have to convince a ton more
people, who [as members of other states, natch] quite possibly have a very
different life situation than you do. In order for your interests to prevail
in a state-scoped election, you only have to convince a smaller set of voters
who are very likely in your same situation.

------
albertcardona
Eric sounds like a Hari Seldon[1] trying not to disclose too much.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)>

------
napierzaza
Yes, Google doesn't want to cross the "creepy line".

But at the same time...

"We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've
been. We can more or less now what you're thinking about."

~~~
yanw
"With your permission" is key here.

Technology can be ‘creepy’ (I don't like that word, it can mean too many
things) so by giving control to the user innovation is maintained and no lines
get crossed.

~~~
lwhi
"With your permission" means nothing.

Quite often the user granting permission has no idea what the implications
will be.

------
zeynel1
The US system is closely based on the "democracy" as practiced in the city-
state Athens. The following quote is from Lords of the Sea: The epic story of
the Athenian navy and the birth of democracy; p.95

\----------------

The oar and rowing pad of the common citizen of Athens might seem less
poetical and glorious than the hoplite's shield and spear, but all the world
now knew that the city's power rested on swift triremes and strong crews.

Abroad, the Athenian commoner ruled the seas. At home, he was still a second-
class citizen. The law allowed to him a vote in the Assembly, but he was
barred from holding public office.

The pressure of his daily work often kept him away from Assembly meetings.
Athens was in fact less a democracy than a commonwealth governed by the
richest citizens.

All archons and generals came from the ranks of the wealthy, and the bar of
property qualification was set so high that even the ten thousand hoplites
were excluded. The common citizen could do no more than choose his leaders:
leadership itself was denied him.

\-----------------

I believe the state of the average voter has not changed since then. And the
system is eternal; human life finite. It is a waste of time to try to change
the system.

~~~
danielnicollet
I think this is a very elegant cop out, but a op out nonetheless. Financial
lobbying is outlawed in many democratic countries. Why not america?

~~~
gizmomagico
Oh you can rest assured that corruption/lobbying is everywhere.

