There is a sharp difference between regulation and advocacy.
Regulation seeks to enforce penalties against offending organizations. It requires a HUGE bureaucracy which is both costly and dangerous (unfair privilege and power can easily be exerted). Oftentimes you need a oversight committee to "regulate the regulators". It also creates the WRONG incentive. The incentive created is one of "well, if everyone is following the rules we need to have something to do so let's regulate MORE". In fact, let's use regulation as a form of income. If this regulation framework is an outsourced corporation to do the bidding of government, you REALLY have a problem (that should be obvious by now).
Advocacy on the other hand is providing information to make voluntary choices. It's an Opt-In process and requires little or NO bureaucratic involvement. You just see what you like and you say "I want to tell people about that". There is no incentive to profit from the regulation and you REALLY don't need much government involvement or oversight at all. What you do need however is the TRUTH or at least the "advocates perspective" and you MUST ensure that all advocates are heard equally.
So let's go over some examples of how an "advocacy framework" would work compared to a "regulatory framework". The ultimate goal of creating corporations based on the Advocacy Corporation Type (instead of a C Corp for example), is to build an ecosystem that "self regulates". This is not to say that all situations will benefit from just advocacy but it having an "advocacy layer" in society and formally institutionalizing it into some kind of transparent structure (instead of a "lobbying class"), could prove useful.
So onto the examples:
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Problem:
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Chopped up body parts are ending up in our food becasue the meat packing plants provide poor safety conditions for their workers (pointed out by Uptown Sinclair in "The Jungle").
--Regulatory:
Create an FDA to FORCE companies improve safety by having "Inspections" and ensuring that companies follow the prescriptive guidance of the regulatory body OR THEY CAN'T SELL their products and will be shut down for endangering "public safety".
->
Result: Public is PROTECTED from UNKNOWN dangers; Company cannot continue behavior
-> Option For Corporations: BUY the FDA; Fix the public safety issue (Do Cost/Benefit Analyis)
--Advocacy:
Create 100 companies that are of an Advocacy Type, each with it's own media, and provide an unstoppable media awareness campaign; suggest practices that would allow the 100 companies to invest in and transparently endorse companies (i.e. provide financial incentives) that DO follow their recommendations (similar to how ISO 9000 works + additional financial incentive) - provide tax deductions for people who drove companies to act more "socially responsible".
->
Result: Public is INFORMED about KNOWN dangers; Company CAN continue behavior
->
Option For Corporations: PR Campaign To React to "Damaging Information"; fix safety issue; public pressure too great - can't lobby govt -can't buy regulator - can't apply media spin effectively - MUST act responsible [This has now been made the Only reasonable option to create shareholder value - the other options are discontinue product or ignore the danger but THAT will not increase shareholder value]
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Some problems like corporations sending children down into mines or issues of the maximum number of hours people SHOULD be working CANNOT be addressed by Advocacy alone they need to be addressed by regulation. So it appears like Advocacy is ONE form of governance and regulation is another. When we had a healthy media, that was not consolidated and owned by corporations (5 Corporations OWN the major media in this country today), we HAD advocates and advocates when met with resistance, kicked it up a notch and sought legal relief.
Now the pendulum has swung the other way. EVERYTHING is handled by regulation. Sexual harassment, inappropriate conduct, hate speech, jokes in poor taste, general levels of immaturity and all points in between are points of LITIGATION and REGULATION. This is VERY dangerous to a democracy based on notions of freedom.
So BECAUSE we lost our media to the corporations we have reacted by OVER LEGISLATING and OVER REGULATING. Clearly if someone tells a joke in poor taste you should not be able to press charges against a company for not "ensuring that people don't tell jokes in poor taste". We are not robots. More importantly, this is the PERFECT place for an Advocacy Corporation type to work within. Just create some bad press for a company that allows it's employees to tell jokes in poor taste and they can then come out and say "look, this was the joke: - do you find this funny? - No? OK, we'll we will try to set up some internal policy to discourage this" - and not risk getting penalized for "discriminating" against people who "tell bad jokes in poor taste". It's a joke - someone is going to be offended - the workplace does not need to be this place of unreal people (but I am getting off topic).
The point is you could actually have Advocacy Corporations promoting "supporting companies that allow their employees to tell jokes in poor taste" and other ones "discouraging companies that allow their employees to tell jokes in poor taste" - and the government would have NO INVOLVEMENT whatsoever here other than providing tax deductions for people who donate to EITHER Advocacy Corporation.
Each advocacy corporation in this sense, would have it's own set of people and organizations it actively supports and invests in though a transparent process. Bill Mahr, George Carlin and HBO might be some of the people and organizations "supported" by the advocacy corporation that agrees with telling jokes in poor taste, for example. The Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson may be standing on the side of the advocacy corporation (AC) that disagrees with telling jokes in poor taste. The people would donate to both and the AC's would invest in their "advocates" - maybe each would have a set of reporters reporting on "offenses" or perhaps the negative impact of creating a "robot like" employment environment. So you see the AC is very multifaceted.
Now, lets look at something a lot more practical.
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Problem:
Your cable company has no respect for your time; your time is worth $50 an hour and they are careless with your time - putting you on hold for hours at a time transferring you between departments trying to get "the left hand to know what the right one is doing".
Regulatory:
-> Force companies to respect your time and collaborate more effectively [not going to happen]
Advocacy:
-> Create an AC that goes to people like you and reports on these behaviors that ONLY invests in companies that have respect for people's time (that is the advocacy charter). This over time will change the game because if a company could get a call from anyone and all of the sudden get an infusion of cash they may train their people better; they may collaborate better they may get systems in place that help this transition more efficiently; Your AC may even have a software engineer as an "advocate" that you can refer to these companies and fix their internal problems. So you have a company that did not care about "customer service" and all of the sudden because the company is "afraid" that someone might call and be someone who could drop cash into the company as an investment - the customer service improves (i.e. you never know who's going to call).
So here are just some thoughts on how a Advocacy differs from Regulatory and how in most cases, its the better way to go.
Help me make debating the merits of the Advocacy Corporation the 2008 Election Issue.
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