The Question of Business Being Another Interest Group

Is business just another interest group? While at first it may not seem like business giants such as Facebook, Lockheed Martin and various medical businesses are just another interest group, but there is more that goes on behind closed doors. This essay will set out to clearly define through the use of creditable and reliable sources, that businesses are just another interest group and the various ways they attempt to influence the public and government policies. This paper will discuss various interest groups, the way these interest groups lobby, and various examples of big businesses being another interest group. Additionally, it will also be discussed that not all businesses are indeed interest groups.

To further support the above thesis, this essay will examine varied reasons as to why businesses are just another interest group. Interest Groups, also known as “special interest groups” or a “pressure group” are a cluster or group of people that seek to influence public policy in their favour (Thomas, 1998). An interest groups goal could be anything, a desire to change policy to exclusively benefit themselves or a policy that benefits the wider community which is done through lobbying. There are three main types of interest groups, and they fall under three categories, economic, public and government interest groups. Economic interest groups are the largest type of interest groups, they include big businesses as well as big labor, such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Federation of Labor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). Public interest groups usually do not profit directly from the policies they seek to change. Instead they gain funding through attracting donations made individuals and other foundations that support their venture. The majority of businesses that make up this category are “consumer advocacy groups and environmental organisations” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). Some of these businesses include the Environmental Defense Fund and the League of Women Voters. Government interest groups are considered as any businesses relating to local and state government. These interest groups main goal is to help their local and state governments access federal grants. Some government interest groups include the National Governors Association and the National Conference of Mayors.

Lobbying is an “important part of the democratic process” where any individual can communicate their own personal views on matters relating to the public interest (Queensland Integrity Commissioner, 2019). Lobbying is carried out through a variety of forms, some of these include writing to individuals, invite decision making individuals to meet certain members that support your interest group, and donating to campaign funds for state members. The way lobbying is organised is businesses will approach a lobbying firm to lobby for a policy change. This change is usually to solely benefit the business/interest group. Lobbying “refers to asking an elected official or key decision-maker to vote a certain way or take a specific stand on a piece of legislation, rule, issue or policy” (Gender Health, 2009). According to Preservation Action, one of the most effective ways to lobby is done through a face-to-face meeting with the elected official or key decision-maker (Preservation Action, 2017). In Australia, there are 218 lobbies firms which are registered in Canberra with two of the largest lobbying firms being Barton Deakin and Hawker Brittion (Knaus, 2018). The current Australian Lobbyist Register withholds quite a lot of information about the specifics of each lobbyist group. For example, it doesn’t clearly state which lobbyist is lobbying who, or what the clients are lobbying about (Australian Government, 2019).

Furthermore, the Australian Lobbyist Register also doesn’t communicate with us whether certain individuals have connections to the government (Australian Government, 2019). This is because lobbyist groups must only declare former government representatives. Due to this, a lot of the registered lobbyist groups in Australia have hidden or unknown people “with significant histories in government, including state premiers or ministers, state political staffers, federal opposition or backbench staffers” (Knaus, 2018). The two lobbyist groups mentioned above Barton Deakin and Hawker Brittion, lobby for some of the biggest businesses in the world, such as Amazon, McDonalds, Apple and KFC, just to name a few with some of these businesses overlapping between the two lobbyist firms (Australian Government , 2019). It should also be noted that Hawker Brittion is mostly associated with Labor, while Barton Deakin is more aligned with the Liberals (Dumas, 2015).

One of the most popular forms of business that regularly requires lobbyists are big pharmaceutical companies. As of 2018 The Guardian reported that “almost 70 pharmaceutical or health companies are currently engaging lobbyists” (Knaus, 2018). A prime example of a health organisation turning to lobbying would be the American Medical Association and the National Pest Management Association to get funding required to beat and fight the effects of the Zika virus (Wilson, 2016). This lobbying campaign started from interest groups such as National Pest Management Association and the American Medical Association having one common goal, to cure the zika virus. This lobbying campaign took 7 months at Congress USA before eventually legislators finally agreed to a deal that allocated $1.1billion U.S. dollars to fight the spread and effects of the infamous Zika virus (March of Dimes, 2016). This is a clear example of a Business/Organisation being an interest group, as two businesses had a common interest, which was to beat the Zika virus. These two businesses then lobbied together through lobbyist firms such as March of Dimes in the USA to help influence Congress to act on the issue.

Moreover, another example of a business being an interest group would be Lockheed Martin in a 2010 case. Lockheed Martin is a global aerospace, security and advanced technologies that has worldwide interests. They are the world’s largest defence contractor who is mostly responsible for providing aircraft and missiles to U.S. defence force (Lockheed Martin, 2019). In 2010 Lockheed Martin spent $13.7 million on lobbying. This expenditure was to ensure that Lockheed and Martin would resign as the USAs main Aerospace defence contractor for foreseeable future (Open Secrets, 2019). Lockheed Martin provides diverse levels of financial support to various representatives that promote national defence and other relevant business issues. Some of these representatives include candidates for the House and Senate, committees that overlook the business and was the highest contributor to the House of Armed Services Committee (Federal Election Commission, 2019). Lockheed Martin was also the top donor to the Senate Appropriations Committee, who oversaw all the unrestricted spending in the Senate (Hartung, 2011). This is another prime example of a business. Additionally, not all businesses are interest groups. Finally, in may be concluded that yes, most businesses are just another interest group. Multibillion-dollar businesses like Apple, Amazon and so on all call on lobbyist groups to help influence decisions made by governments and individuals to further benefit their own interest group.