America’s reigning systems are deeply corrupt. Our national corruption differs significantly from the corruption seen in many other parts of the world where, for example, an individual may directly bribe a police officer to avoid arrest for the violation of a minor crime. America also largely lacks mafia-style corruption, wherein local government agencies and law enforcement are effectively controlled by drug cartels or other crime syndicates. Instead, American corruption exists at the top level of national and state lawmaking bodies, major corporations, finance, and the legal system. Our corruption is openly and legally entrenched. Despite their technical legality, these practices and systems meet any reasonable definition of corruption.
Modern political lobbying is an effectively institutionally corrupt practice. Large corporations and special interest groups fund the campaigns of politicians in order to influence the outcomes of the political process. While voters are theoretically the ultimate deciders of elections, the better-funded candidate wins roughly 90% of the time during open elections, and roughly 88% of the time during primaries. Although citizens are equal under our one-person-one-vote system, the rich are far more equal than others.
Campaign contributions create a nexus of corrupt common interest between wealthy corporations, mass media, and political candidates. Even in the absence of direct quid pro quo corruption, politicians must keep their corporate benefactors happy, or they will lose out on the funding for campaign advertisements that secure their position. The system helps keep non-mainstream candidates marginalized, solidifying our two-party system. Furthermore, corporate donors benefit from closely-fought elections and intractable political deadlock, since the more competitive political campaigns become, the more influence monetary contributions can have in deciding the outcome. Corporate-owned media helps filter out voices outside the two-party mainstream. Mainstream media instead keeps viewers engaged with political dramas heavy on personality and cheerleading, and relatively light on meaningful policy.
Lobbying is another form of high-level institutionalized corruption. Influential lobbying groups working at the behest of powerful companies or interest groups “suggest” wording in new laws which lawmakers then include in legislation nearly word-for-word. It should come as no surprise that the biggest spenders on lobbying are organizations that secure much of their profits from sucking on the generous teat of Federal government spending and money conjured by the Federal Reserve, including weapons manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, financial firms, and media conglomerates. In many cases there is an essentially circular flow of money, in which the recipients of massive government contracts and subsidies spend some of their money on lobbying and campaign contributions to ensure the continuation of their contracts and subsidies. Additionally, lawmakers are allowed to buy and sell stocks of publicly traded companies without major restrictions. They can thereby directly profit from intelligence they receive and the legislation they vote on. Entrenched, wealthy organizations benefit enormously and unfairly from an incestuous and wasteful system institutionally incapable of self-reform.
Government officials deem sufficiently large financial institutions and some other major corporations “too big to fail”. Such firms operate with full faith that Uncle Sam will bail them out of their poor choices and the consequences of their risky behavior. This dynamic incentivizes their bad behavior, and ultimately ensures that, if a company becomes big enough, the American taxpayer will ensure its survival.
The revolving door of political and corporate positions is yet another medium for corruption in the United States. Many politicians and their close advisers “retire” into lucrative jobs as industry lobbyists. Financial firms may pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for giving speeches at company events. Lucrative book deals are another form of legalized bribery. These practices further entrench the convergence of interests between elected politicians and the richest individuals and corporations in our society.
More broadly, America’s wealthy experience extreme advantages in our legal system. The richer one is, the more they can spend on lawyers to protect them from the civil or even criminal consequences of their actions. This puts them at tremendous advantage when compared to America’s middle class and poor. In many cases, prosecutors may be more willing to accept lenient plea bargains with wealthy defendants to avoid time-consuming and costly trials. If an individual (or corporation) is sufficiently wealthy, they may avoid prosecution or civil suits entirely.
Institutionalized corruption helps to accelerate our national collapse because it makes our systematic problems harder to solve, contributes to gross inefficiencies in government spending, and serves as a major catalyst for popular discontent. The politicians, corporations, and lobbyists who effectively control our system have no interest in threatening their privileged positions by enacting meaningful reforms. The corruption also unfairly benefits established interests and therefore stifles competition, creative destruction, and innovation. There is very little accountability for the extremely wealthy and powerful politicians in our political and economic system. Even when they “fail”, they rarely suffer any meaningful loss in material comfort. They operate primarily in their generally tight-knit peer circles – formed of individuals, who, like themselves, benefit from the system – they are blinded to the grievances and sufferings of ordinary Americans.
Common people may despise elite corruption, but they generally accept it so long as the system continues to function and provide material benefits to the masses. There are numerous examples of apparently corrupt, but also widely successful polities, such as the Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. However, corruption enormously enhances systemic threats when it creates fossilized inefficiencies, and more importantly, when the material wellbeing of the common people decreases. In such cases, popular dissatisfaction and disgust, along with the inability of a system to sufficiently reform itself, creates sudden and explosive instability. People can accept the failures and shortcomings of a system that is seen as fair. People are far less inclined to patiently and quietly accept an unfair system that fails to enhance their wellbeing on the individual, familial, and community levels. The combination of corruption and economic decay is deadly.
National Collapse
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