Facts for sale? How corporate lobbying creates common knowledge

The term ‘corporate lobbying’ has become a bit of a buzzword when it comes to political talk. It get thrown around, usually understood on a vague, ad-hoc basis as some vaguely undemocratic ‘thing’ which is ‘probably generally quite bad’. Rarely does it constitute the heart and soul of the after-work discussion that politics-types (such as myself) hold without friends and family…

..or does it?

What a lot of people don’t realize is the sheer magnitude of the corporate lobbying industry, and how much it contributes to the formation of mass public opinion. And yet, why should this come as a surprise? It must be effective, else why would the financial sector have spent £92 million on lobbying in the UK alone in 2011?

The vast majority of us like to think we’re immune. We indulge ourselves in a false sense of security, insulated from the bullshit advertising and fake news in our bunker of intellect. “Yes, maybe advertising campaigns and propaganda fool a lot of people, but I read Vice News! I have not one, but three different news apps on my smart phone!” But here’s the thing – Corporate lobbying isn’t just some shady political practice aimed only at the gullible, it’s a massive, lucrative industry, bursting with lots of clever people motivated by lots, and lots of money, all in pursuit of control over one priceless commodity: truth.

As such, complex methodologies have been developed and deployed to fool even the shrewdest of citizens and politicians. In the rest of the article, I hope to describe some of these techniques so that the readers will be more able to separate the science from the sludge in future.

Lobbyists have special techniques designed specifically to deal with cases in which objective scientific fact suggests that their products and policy preference may be damaging. They might, for example, attempt to dodge the bullet altogether. Many people don’t realise that no science can be ‘proven’ in the logically pure sense, science is about proof ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Lobbyists abuse this fact to undermine the credibility in scientific consensus. Anyone ever been told that Evolution by natural selection is ‘just a theory’? - This is what we’re talking about. – You probably didn’t hear the same person mention that it’s a theory with vast oceans of evidence, and huge expert consensus – to all intents and purposes, a ‘fact’.

They can go further by creating and funding their own research institutes, staffed with researchers whose continued employment depends on pumping out papers which support the corporation’s agenda. It might be difficult to have this ‘research’ posted in an academic journal, but it can be placed favorably in a google search. So, if Tobacco-Corp wants to cast doubt on the connection between smoking and lung cancer, they can ensure PDF papers of the anonymously funded ‘institute for (insert science-sounding words here)’ discrediting the link, are placed at the top of relevant google searches, conveniently free to download. They may even be able to convince the mass media to show their phony research alongside real scientific data in their broadcasts, for the sake of ‘providing a balanced argument’.

If this fails, they may end up giving up the fight. They may allow that smoking is terrible for you. But try and regulate it for the benefit citizens? Unleash the buzzwords. “Nanny State!” They’ll call! “What about the right to freedom?! And Liberty!” Alas, when it comes to regulating so that corporations can only use suppliers who refuse to use child labour or sweatshops? “No sorry, this is bad for the economy, other countries will profit from your higher production costs, anyway.”

If worst comes to worst, they can threaten to rebase their operations in other countries who are willing to profit from your moral fortitude. Do they really intend to leave? Maybe, maybe not. It isn’t really important to the lobbyist. The threat is though.

Thus the power of corporate interests to shape debate, discussion and common held beliefs, is startling . It is no coincidence that corporate-backed market deregulation in the 80s and 90s, such as the dropping of the New Deal regulations in the US, brought in during the aftermath of the great depression, preceded the largest global financial crises since that time.