Everyone knows “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Given the fact that this knowledge is universal, what chances do we have for an uncorrupted government? My guess is that the chances are few at best.
Reading the papers this morning on the FBI raid on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens’ House yesterday, searching for information concerning bribery, including a lavish refurnishing of his home, I recalled him as the man who promoted the “bridge to nowhere” (which, according to recent reports, will be built despite protests). As the former Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he had one of the most powerful positions in Congress (and still has a lot of power even after the Democrats took over the Senate). He oversaw almost 1 trillion bucks in spending, a lot critical to Alaska, if not of real necessity to US taxpayers.
Stevens is an 83 year old man and has been in office 24 years. As such he is an elder statesman. But like so many of our long-term politicians, in both parties, the rise to power often has emphasized greed over wisdom.
It is this natural affinity to the corruption of power that has given us a lobbyist industry to prey on it. As I understand it there are five times the number of lobbyists than there are Congressfolks (indeed, many of them are former Senators and Representatives!), and they form a wall between the elected officials and the electorate.
The system, then, provides the incentive for corruption.
Take earmarks… the way a legislator adds his or her private projects to a bill after debate has ceased, but before it is approved. When Pelosi and Hoyer took over the House, they were clear that they would remove or reduce earmarks. Then they became noticeably silent about the situation, finally trying to justify a new way of controlling them. Yeah. Sure.
Once in power, the tendency toward corruption seems to start dropping roots… almost unnoticed at first, then, when it is too late, perfectly clear.
If the corporate institutions that control the lobbies thought there was a better way to get what they wanted, things would perhaps change. But why would they kill a successful thing? The pharmaceutical lobby alone is a good example… we pay the largest prices in the world for prescription drugs (unless we are under the VA), even if we are on Medicare. Why? Because lobbyists won… and actually wrote the laws (and provided jobs for our legislators like Tauzin who now make six- and seven-figure incomes from the business.)
Every election we hear candidates run on platforms which are against corruption. We retain our hopes. We believe them. And, almost invariably, we get screwed.
If this could change, I know we would all work for it. But it seems unlikely.
If we take your position seriously – and I think there certainly is a good case to be made for it – then the question becomes what to do about it.
One can throw up one’s hands in disgust or despair and walk away (which is what happened to many burned-out ’60’s protesters), and lead a life of quietism.
One can try and pass laws like campaign finance reform, knowing that they are only a stop-gap until folks figure out a way around them, and then you have to make new anti-corruption laws, resulting in an endless cycle trying to enforce morality. Or in more general terms, one can “try to get people to be good.”
Or one can be realistic about this and say “OK, there are always going to be people trying to make a buck at someone else’s expense – How do we change the rules of the game so the maximum amount of good and the least amount of harm is done?” One example of this is using tax policy to encourage certain “socially desirable behaviors,” (setting aside the question of who defines desirable) like giving to the poor or buying a home and becoming a solid/stolid member of the community.
(There may be other choices I’m forgetting at the moment; let me know what they are…)
Of the three options above, option #3 has the advantage that it has no assumptions that people are any more or less that what we see around us – and so has a higher likelihood of success than trying to inspire a revival of morality (not that revivals can’t happen, they’re just not the easiest, most probable path to follow). So, if something is not an immediate threat that needs to be banned (and can be at a not excessive cost to society, like the freons that destroy the ozone layer), then the pragmatic approach is to decide what you want to achieve, and put in place social, legal, and/or economic incentives and disincentives to get there: If you make it profitable to build solar cells and affordable urban housing, you will get solar cells and affordable housing. Until you do, it’s Big Oil and McMansions and suburban sprawl. I’m concerned enough about climate change at this point, for example, that if it takes letting Big Oil be the ones to make a killing off universal solar power by putting it into place (a la BP’s “Beyond Petroleum”) I’m open to suggestion. (Realistically, however, it’s the rare corporate dinosaur that manages to avoid extinction by evolving into a bird…)
Cynical? Maybe. But this child of the ’60’s is getting a little long in the tooth and we’re a far cry from the peace, love and brotherhood – not to mention clean, healthy planet – that we thought we’d be much closer to by now.
As the Bush years wind down, one finds oneself looking around like it’s the morning after a tornado hit, and thinking Now what the hell are we going to do?…
I’m open to suggestions from all quarters, with the emphasis on pragmatism, not doctrinal purity. We have a hell of a mess to clean up…
I’ve missed your comments and diaries, Knox – hope you’re doing well.
Aw shucks…
I had some things to deal with in the real world (both at work and family-wise), plus I felt like I was running out of things to say (Yeah, I know, hard to believe, LOL). However, lately I’m finding myself drawn back to shoot off my big mouth some more. (Or maybe it was the panda picture on the front page…)
I really do feel like “What the hell are we going to do now,” however.
Tennesee sounds a lot like Louisiana.
Accept the fact the all politicians are crooked, and look for ones that will do a good job, while helping themselves.
If they get caught, kick them out. It’s a sure sign of either incompetence or excessive greed.
the capitalist system as it is set up with our electoral system is ripe for corruption.