vThe following post is in response to the question "Should political entrepreneurs exist, and does their presence hinder democracy?” posed by @alexmay2022
No, political entrepreneurs should not exist in our country because of their ability to create and change laws that would benefit their entrepreneurial endeavors. It is extremely easy for politicians to take “donations” to their campaigns by businesses in exchange for a law to be passed or denied. In our current political state, I would be willing to bet that many politicians have done some underground deals in exchange for a favorable law.
One example of this that comes to mind are the automatic motorized chairs at hotels by the pools and the hot tubs. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) included a part where hotels were required to install motorized lifts by every one of their pools and each hot tub. For newer models, these lifts could run as much as $3000 each. It would make much sense economically for hotels to provide one transportable lift that guests could move to where they wanted to, but the law mandated that these had to be installed in the ground and fixed. I guarantee you that some senator or representative got a massive donation by a chair lift company to include this into the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe even the CEO of the chair lift company happens to be the brother in-law of a senator, who knows. The point is that this stuff happens on a frequent basis in Washington and allows the people in charge to make profit in unfair ways. When a person has power, they will engage in anything that that power lets them do. Unfortunately, it gives the politicians an inherent advantage in what is supposedly a free-market economy, where everyone supposedly has equal opportunity. However, when there are politicians that have the ability to create laws to help either them or massive donors, I doubt there is true equal opportunity.