What is the root cause of political corruption?
The functional theory argues that corruption comes with rapid social and economic modernization and is more likely to occur in societies with few established institutions and social norms...
Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.
George Bernard Shaw
The love of complexity does not necessarily imply intelligence, it is many times simply characteristic of being pedantic. Without common sense, solutions to problems that may provide a bulk of answers that you need are delayed for a better “nuanced” plan. Without common understanding, a society will not arrive at a civil solution due to oversized influence of powerful government institutions. The same holds true for rooting out political or public corruption. Our issues are not confined to government officials as there are people behind curtains behind yet even more curtains and two way mirrors yelling out “Pay not attention to man behind the curtain”. This is the first part of a series of articles on how political corruption has exploded in the face of numerous studies, analysis and proposed solutions that have not had their intended effect.
This is the first part of a series on the attempt to find the root cause of political corruption using numerous studies, analysis and other complex data collation methods while ignoring common sense factors.
The main theme is how the endless search for root cause in the face of the obvious, delays, or even prevents actual resolution to corruption. Endless studies and abstract theories redirect attention away from individuals as the source of corruption. It also avoids the question of whether we cede too much power to political systems to begin with. Corruption has exploded while sociologists model and theorize. If you're cold, shut the window, don’t futz with thicker curtains and improved heating systems and solar flare charts.
These articles will also focus on our dependency on the big ceremony of experts preening before us as we sit inert in the audience. This dependency also breeds further corruption as we will see.
My coauthor and I are based in Michigan, and we are living through some of the worst corruption our country has seen. It goes beyond political corruption and has spread to our economy, contributed to the decay of medicine and the doctor patient relationship, and affected our schools and free speech. The source of this decay is beyond politics, as we’ll see that there is a cultural mechanism employed to facilitate the acquisition of power. It is our belief that the solutions are not what academics and policy wonks recommend, we think that we have a rich history that has provided us with these answers, yet these are scorned by elite thinkers because they are simple solutions. They are not necessarily easy to achieve, but they are simple, understandable principles that when applied work. Sort of like “the path of the righteous man is beset …” from Pulp Fiction.
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