Ladas wrote:
Human nature is the primary corrupter of government officials. Private business doesn't lead a "noble" man to corruption. That path is already there, and any number of vehicles will move them down it.
Noooo human nature is what those who corrupt exploit, to their own end.
Our system of elections requires that senators basically raise 35K a day (probably more, now). Private business makes up the lions share of donations to candidates (Which is one of the reasons Obama's election was so astonishing - the average donation to his campaign was less than 100$, iirc). Lobbyists come to legislators with very large checkbooks and the ability to move and influence people, so long as those legislators are willing to play ball. It's legal bribery, and I don't know how anyone could think that it *doesn't* fit the bill as corruption.
The point is that we often overlook the source of corruption, preferring the intellectually lazy path of simply saying "politicians are bad" instead of digging into the reasons why politicians are often viewed negatively.
Some say that politics naturally attracts bad people. If this is true, then the amoral and often immoral nature of business must also attract some pretty bad people, too. It takes an immoral person to sign off on sweat shop labor, dangerous working conditions, armed enforcement of obscene work hours, and the exploitation of natural resources belonging to developing nations. And yet, many of our captains of industry (which are so revered by so many of us) do all that before their golf game at 3, all in the name of capitalism. It takes an immoral person to look for an excuse to drop a cancer patient from coverage on a technicality. It takes an immoral person to refuse a product recall because the estimated wrongful death payout is cheaper than the recall. It takes an immoral person to give the order for their private security firm to assist in the torture of detainees. It takes an immoral person to fund central american death squads. It takes an immoral person to insinuate themselves into the CIA in order to use it for their own business ends. Private industry does all of that, and has done all of that, throughout our history.
Except said representatives don't get to just *be* politicians, they are elected. Since they are corrupt or do corrupt things, this means deductively, the collective whole must *want* corrupt policiticians. Representative democracy and all. Thus, you can't blame the politicians for being corrupt and having a Congress/Senate vote; that is the fault in tandem which the *voter* shares.
The consumer is the *most* "amoral" figure in your above scenario. They are the ultimate *enablers* of such behavior. You rail against business because they are beholden to only "profit" and the shareholders but you forget that those things ultimately answer to the *consumer*.
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