Lobbying is literally half of what representative democracy is. First, you elect representatives to office. Then, you try to get them to do what you want. The latter is lobbying.

Of course, when money becomes a significant portion of how the second one happens, things can get complicated.

I’m not so sure. First the representatives are selected to be elected.

A significant portion of both of your suggested halves are “complicated” by money.

You could break it down further if you like, yes.

Everything is complicated by money. I wish we were better about shielding politics from money. So much about society in general is about money, it ain’t easy.

It's not democracy if one with the most money gets their way.

Well, money makes it a lot easier to get a message out to voters, and in a democracy voters are the ones ultimately in charge.

So in a democratic society where free speech exists there's only so much you can do to prevent that.

It's not democracy when it's not the votes that determine what government does, but money.

Eventually it is the fault of voters to keep voting for the same people.

Technically because citizens are also allowed to lobby, but in practice only corporations get to play, so it becomes "legal bribing".

The environmental movement and labor movement are two examples where citizens organize to go up against corporate interests and win pretty regularly and durably.

Most of those folks would not call it lobbying because of the negative associations of the word. “We have activists, our opponents have lobbyists.” But it works the same way.

It is specifically protected in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Emphasis mine.

You might want to look into the industry funding of environmental organizations and the decline of union membership before you decide with your whole heart.

Everybody lobbies for their own interests.

The issue that should rather worry you is that people

- don't delete their Meta/Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram/Threads/... account because of this proposal,

- don't strongly urge friends and colleagues to do the same.

Generally, a lobbyist is someone who is paid to give money to lawmakers.

And for a lawmaker who is considering retirement, "become a lobbyist" is often the most lucrative career option.

Now who are you imagining will pass effective laws against lobbying?

Because if someone tries to outlaw it, the lobbies will lobby very hard against it.

"Corporations are people, my friend"

Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney

Because freedom, and surveillance capitalism, have different effects depending on which side of the PR apparatus you find yourself on, and the laws that get passed are written by and for the industries and not crabs in the barrel voters who rely on them for income.

Power corrupts.

You have the right to remain silent, but you must assert it verbally.

Are you sure it was to get paid, not to avoid prosecution? It could be both among other reasons.

It doesn't matter as in this scale power ~= money ~= time so it's interchangeable, this prick can get paid in all of these commodities