Many people accept corruption as a normal and inevitable part of the political process because of the old saying that "absolute power corrupts absolutely". This attitude produces a healthy awareness of the possible problems of power but I believe that corruption should be viewed as possible but not inevitable. If all politicians are equally corrupt then the most we can do is minimize the damage done. This is why many people will vote for anyone who says they'll cut taxes and shrink government regardless of whether they actually do it. I don't believe that government should should be shrunk to the degree that libertarians want. Shrinking a corrupt government isn't enough to fix it. We need to talk about a variety of issues besides the size of government such as the "shape" of it. Government has harmed people in other countries more than our own. We're more likely to be harmed by another citizen than the police.
Thank you. Governments have always struggled with corruption. This was true when Xeres was stabilizing the early Persian Empire -- he struggled with methods to hold the satraps accountable. At the time the government amounted to less than 1% of the GDP of the underlying economy, so by modern standards the government was miniscule. But it still had corruption. Merely shrinking the government does not solve the problem of corruption, but rather, there must be multiple, redundant, overlapping systems of accountability to stamp out corruption. It can be done, it just has to be a focus. The USA government actually does a good job with any one particular project when the USA government assigns an Inspector General who is specific for that project. For instance, our aid to Ukraine has been almost completely devoid of corruption because the Republicans insisted on several layers of accountability, so we've had an army of accountants watching every dollar spent on the aid. Presumably we can learn lessons from these specific programs and then generalize them to whole government.
Many people accept corruption as a normal and inevitable part of the political process because of the old saying that "absolute power corrupts absolutely". This attitude produces a healthy awareness of the possible problems of power but I believe that corruption should be viewed as possible but not inevitable. If all politicians are equally corrupt then the most we can do is minimize the damage done. This is why many people will vote for anyone who says they'll cut taxes and shrink government regardless of whether they actually do it. I don't believe that government should should be shrunk to the degree that libertarians want. Shrinking a corrupt government isn't enough to fix it. We need to talk about a variety of issues besides the size of government such as the "shape" of it. Government has harmed people in other countries more than our own. We're more likely to be harmed by another citizen than the police.
Thank you. Governments have always struggled with corruption. This was true when Xeres was stabilizing the early Persian Empire -- he struggled with methods to hold the satraps accountable. At the time the government amounted to less than 1% of the GDP of the underlying economy, so by modern standards the government was miniscule. But it still had corruption. Merely shrinking the government does not solve the problem of corruption, but rather, there must be multiple, redundant, overlapping systems of accountability to stamp out corruption. It can be done, it just has to be a focus. The USA government actually does a good job with any one particular project when the USA government assigns an Inspector General who is specific for that project. For instance, our aid to Ukraine has been almost completely devoid of corruption because the Republicans insisted on several layers of accountability, so we've had an army of accountants watching every dollar spent on the aid. Presumably we can learn lessons from these specific programs and then generalize them to whole government.