A couple nights ago Jon Stewart interviewed Ron Paul on the Daily Show. Midway through the interview Stewart asked Paul how to fight corruption and corporatism in the absence of any regulation or in the absence of any controlling entity.
It's a good question and Congressman Paul had a good answer: We prevent it. He went on to say that if a company is successful because they make a desirable product and people are willing to pay for it, that's great. However, if a company is pulling in loads of cash because they managed, through wheeling and dealing, to secure sweetheart deals with the government (ahem, Halliburton), that's corporatism and it's evil. The only way to truly prevent it is for the government to have less power.
The flaw in assuming that more regulations can prevent corruption is that regulations are written by politicians and they are at least as greedy as business people. Worse, politicians have the "legal" ability to confiscate and/or print money. That's a super power Lex Luthor could only dream of. Put differently, Apple has to seduce us with iPods for us to give them our money, but the government simply bills us for unsolicited services and payment is demanded.
With force on their side, the only roadblocks to government corruption are the integrity of politicians and the accountability of the people. Although pocketing the money outright would be suspect by the general public, with enough savvy they are able to divert it as they see fit. Occasionally politicians cross the line and
their corruption gets them in trouble. But for most of them, packaging corruption as altruism appears effortless.
One would think that watching them
enjoy sweetheart deals from companies who get legislative favors, witnessing their travel expenses soar as they flit all over the world,
SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef,
acquiring and using the finest private jets,
staying in exclusive hotels and enjoying stellar cuisine, all on the taxpayer dime, would be as galling to the American public as Marie Antoinette's extravagant lifestyle was to the French. Unlike the queen, however, our politicians are savvy in packaging their excesses. Ask questions and they will say it's all for the public good - they're snorkeling and dining for the people.
So because politicians are greedy, when we plead with them to protect us from greedy business or Wall Street we often get a synergy of avarice that is more than we bargained for. Corporatism inevitably follows. Politicians come riding in on their white horses to save the day and hey, you wouldn't notice if we just sweetened things a bit for us in the process, would you? Namely, many politicians make certain that their legislation benefits them, either directly or indirectly. Cookies come in many forms: Besides the aforementioned special deals, they may get campaign cash, the benefit of monetary fines that benefit state coffers, higher stock prices for companies in which they have an interest or
out and out material favors.
Here's a newsflash: Despite what so many of the WGP (World Greed Police) want us to believe, there is no magic wall between greed and the public sector. Greed has been with us since the dawn of humanity and is only exacerbated by permitting politicians the power to dole out goodies. As Thomas Sowell noted, “If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.”
No, the answer to corporatism is simple and it doesn't involve more regulations. Fraud has always been illegal. To fight corporatism, we need the government to stop stealing from us, stop the profligate spending and get out of the goodie business. If the favors stopped coming and the contracts dried up, corporate lobbyists would find themselves out of work. Even better, Washington DC would attract politicians with the public interest in mind, rather than their own.
Blucie.com 
