List of Special Interest Groups

Economics Political Theory
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1

I need a concise list of special interest groups that influence government for their own benefit at our expense. I’d like to include examples in a variety of categories, some that spend a relatively large amount, some that are recognizable and a few statist billionaires.

Here’s my list so far. Most of which came from OpenSecrets.org.

Are there any important examples that I’m missing? Perhaps in other categories (agriculture, religious, etc.)?

AAJ (American Association for Justice)

AARP

ActBlue

AFLAC

AFL-CIO

AFSCME

AIG

American Bankers Assn

American Federation of Teachers

American Hospital Association

American Medical Association

American Postal Workers Union

AT&T

Bank of America

Bear Stearns

Chevron

Citigroup

Exxon Mobile

Fannie Mae

Foreign Government Lobbies

Freddie Mac

GE

General Motors

George Soros

GlaxoSmithKline

Goldman Sachs

IBEW

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Laborers Union

Lockheed Martin

Microsoft

Military–industrial complex

Morgan Stanley

National Association of Realtors

National Auto Dealers Association

NEA

Pfizer Inc

SEIU

Teamsters Union

The Federal Reserve

Time Warner

Trial Lawyers

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

UFCW

United Auto Workers

UPS

Verizon Communications

Walt Disney Co

2

American Federation of Teachers… they do some horrible things… it is basically a whole bunch of teachers that are pissed off because they think they are underpaid…

3

But remember how do we tell the difference between public and private. In the uk all the government departments and organisations are actually registered corporations. You can find them in companies house database. So that does not neccessarily make an organisations public or private. What about the percentage of revenues that is government related. Say 100% of the revenue of a registered corporation is government related. Would they be considered to be public? There is this list of government departments with high governmetn related revenue.

So if your revenue is 100% government related then you will have an interest in manipulating the government to your benefit. This can give the organisations a competivive advantage in the market. This is one of the major arguments for an anarchist society, the organisations exploit the trust that the government has with the population and we end up with a quasi-fascist dictatorship by utilsing a mediaocracy.