Mark Twain joked that congress is America's only native criminal class. It's human nature we're talking about. We' re foolish to expect no corruption in our politicians. The alpha animal in every pack is offered and trades in favours. You and I would do the same. The power and wealth that top dog politicians can redirect is a sought after food source. There will always be competition for it. Competition means schmoozing, bribing, marrying, flattering, having sex with, trading favours, and threatening shame and violence too.
Quoted by Instapundit: “If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President
was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of
Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair,
who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down
when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led
to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted
for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.”
Rather than change human nature so only the sinless shall run for office, I have two proposals:
1. Make it easy and legal for politicians to get rich in office. Offer every MP millions of dollars for achieving bench marks like seeing unemployment fall below 4% or 2 successive surpluses on their watch.
2. Introduce more of the market to the allocation of government largesse. Let thousands of people instead of merely hundreds have access to insider knowledge as the policy and tax pie is being baked and served. The internet and social media have that in their favour, that they bring more people to the table and bring them right now, to clamour for their reward. Competition for the spoils of government will make the re-allocation more efficient.
As Milton Friedman said: "Make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing." This exploits human nature instead of wagging a finger at it's failings.
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