Few understand the real reason democracies are corrupt. In democracies, legislators have the power to send armed forces to collect taxes. Elections are costly, so Legislators will generally provide coerced benefits to any special interest for a mere 1-2% of the gross benefits that the legislation obtains.
Today, for instance, it was reported that one of Warren Buffet’s companies spent 1,000,000 in lobbying for a special rule relaxation that increased their profits by 86,000,000.
That’s peanuts. Vastly larger funds are available, for one instance, from those who want to maintain, and increase, the public education monopoly. Public educators pay a few percent of their income to their unions. Their unions keep some of it for their own highly paid employees and operations. They send the rest to legislators. They, in turn, write the legislation to levy the taxes to provide the increased funding.
Most such funds make their final trip to the legislators under the cover of “campaign contributions”. This process shows the endemic flaw in democracy. It is unavoidable. In the larger sense of things, such corruption is not bad.
Catholic Fundamentalism explains the real reason democracies are corrupt. “When His chosen people wanted to replace God’s judges with Kings, God let them, despite warning them that they’d be more enslaved. When they tired of Kings, they asked for democracies. So, God provided them. Democracy is The Loving Programmer’s way to give every person in a democracy many opportunities to lie to, and steal from, their neighbors. If people don’t have a chance to steal, is it fair to let them go to Heaven for being honest?”
That is the real reason democracies are corrupt.
