Hm, this argument sounds morally equivalent to pacifism, and I don't mean that in a good way. While in an ideal world there would be no lobbying, in the real world, if the bad guys have lobbyists, the good guys should too, if just to defend themselves from the lobbyists of the bad guys.
The problem with lobbyists is that there are always competing interests on any issue and legislators should weigh them with the overall good of society in mind. But lobbyists' campaign contributions make it hard for legislators to fairly weigh the competing interests, instead they favor the guys that cut them the biggest check. So all our legislation is now tailored for the wealthiest and most powerful interests.
There is no problem with private economic interests consulting government. It is in the interest of society for government officials to hear what is best for the economy from the major economic organizations.
Lobbying is berated because economic organizations should not be granted larger influence on governmental officials than the people en mass in a democratic republic, and most people would argue that is the current state in the US.
It's a self-reinforcing thing. Corporations don't hire lobbyists until their interests are threatened by government. For example, Microsoft didn't start giving money to Congress until the DOJ started investigating them. Same for Google.
Once a company invests in lobbying, lobbyists have an incentive to keep clients on retainer, so they look for rent-seeking opportunities that they can justify on an ROI basis. Hence all the shenanigans around taxes. Spending $500k on a lobbyist to save $1 million in taxes is a no-brainer.
If lobbying were just groups of vested interests putting their best foot forward, that would just be free speech.
But "Lobbying", the practice, is understood by the public to be the process whereby monied interests essentially buy votes via graft, bribery, etc and/or buy votes via contributions to re-election campaigns.
The result being that it is (usally) not the speech and thus the data or moral argument that changes minds in government, but the money.
It's not. If not for lobbyists we'd have no bill of rights, we'd all still be driving cars that exploded whenever they got rear ended, our rivers would still catch fire on a regular basis, etc.
That is, all this "good" lobbying was by organizations operating on behalf of a large group of individuals who don't have the same shared profit-driven interest.
So profit = evil is the crux of the argument? The Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit while many Sierra Club sponsors are businesses who benefit from the regulation they promote.
When people or organizations get together and lobby the government so that their business or industry makes more money as a consequence of the changes they're lobbying for, then yes, that's bad. Sure, corporations should be able to influence policy, but this influence must happen democratically and out in the open, and potentially opposing parties must have an opportunity to comment.
The fix doesn't lie, however, in hoping that businesses will voluntarily stop lobbying, so I won't criticize back-country tourism companies from giving money to the Sierra Club to ensure that their venues remain unspoilt. Even if a business didn't want to, it might nonetheless feel compelled to lobby congress for reasons of competitive advantage. When many entities feel compelled to act in opposition to their ethics, it's a sure sign that the system they operate in is broken.
(That said, many businesses sponsor the Sierra Club for P.R. reasons, which is fine and categorically different from the "bad lobbying" explained above)
