Fully agree on the root cause, but not on the solution.
We should strive for extremely limited power by our public representatives, so their corruption impact is reduced to a minimum. But not only limited power, but also limited budget access, as an extension to limit that power. And that actually means reduced taxation.
But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably the strongest branch of the government. Delayed justice is one of the most common ways of injustice.
Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders. Government has no say in that. That is unless companies break the law, and that's why a strong Justice system is necessary. With a reduced size of the state there's also way less risk of private companies and individuals to corrupt public representatives.
Monopolies are not always a negative outcome on a free market if the company in Monopoly situation reaches that position by offering better products within the law. However they can be specially dangerous when they're artificially created by the Government (e.g. allocation of a common resource to a specific company --> corruption almost always follows).
> But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably the strongest branch of the government. Delayed justice is one of the most common ways of injustice.
The judical branch should very much NOT be a part of the government itself, but a fully separate branch.
> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.
As we have seen in the past, we have the same, if not worse, power imbalances in private companies as in the public sector. I would therefore not call it irrelevant, but agree that the Justice system can help here if appropriatly staffed.
> Monopolies are not always a negative outcome on a free market if the company in Monopoly situation reaches that position by offering better products within the law. However they can be specially dangerous when they're artificially created by the Government (e.g. allocation of a common resource to a specific company --> corruption almost always follows).
Do you have a single example for a company who did not over time monetized its monopoly power to the detriment of the customer?
> The judical branch should very much NOT be a part of the government itself, but a fully separate branch.
If you don't give that entirely separate branch any executive power, it cannot enforce its rulings. If you do give it separate executive power, there is nothing to rein it in when it becomes corrupt.
I was thinking about this yesterday. For the US system, what if the top roles of an independent Prosecutorial Branch were appointed by the Judicial Branch, but Congress would control them by using the budget and impeachments? The President could still work with the appointees on setting the overall agenda and priorities. Executive control could be enforced with allowing or denying cooperation with executive agencies.
But Prosecutorial would have to be its own branch to avoid the current SCOTUS crushing on the "unitary executive" theory.
Correct. If you conceive of the “rule of law” as being the operating system kernel on top of which the rest of society runs, then there are no checks on the law enforcers and interpreters.
This is not a theoretical problem. Prosecuting politicians is a preferred approach in dysfunctional democracies, like Pakistan: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly77v0n8e9o
It's fundamentally still a problem of asymmetry of power and connections.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of an FBI agent tasked with investigating this same case. The accused are very wealthy very powerful people with deep pockets. They can and will take action against you, if you're revealed to be chasing after them. Plus, their network of allies is so vast, that you cannot even trust your superiors or other government agencies to back you up. And indeed that is exactly what happened here.
> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.
And a few millions of people suffering because they're being misled into buying "wellness" solutions.
And a few hundreds of millions of people around the world suffering the effects of local pollution and clean water laws being skirted.
And a few billion folks who are gonna suffer the effects of climate change.
etc...
Other than the 6-7 billion humans who suffer due to private company corruption, it's basically only the shareholders.
> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant
I'll have some of whatever you're smoking.
It's not that useful separating public and private when there are revolving doors and the people who run the companies bribe — sorry, lobby — politicians. It's an incredibly intimate relationship
Politicians also go to the private sector after they retire.
Yeah that's the revolving door
Wouldn't limiting power also mean limiting their effectiveness? A government (at any layer) needs to have a certain amount of power, else they're just civilians.
As for budget, a country needs money to do stuff; if they don't have money they can't do stuff. Stuff can range from having the world's biggest army (several times over) to providing free education to everyone (the great social equalizer IMO, as in social mobility).
As for your justice argument, it depends - if power corrupts, wouldn't giving more power to justice corrupt them as well? You see what's happening in the US with various law enforcement branches getting A Lot Of Money - militarization of local police force for example, meaning they have the means to apply more violence.
TL;DR, governments and justice systems need a clear description of what they can and cannot do, and checks, balances and consequences when they don't.
> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.
This ignores the vast majority of anyone involved in a private company - the customers. Or even the not-customers that are still affected by what a private company does (think e.g. pollution), but that's where as you say the law should come in.
Weak public servants mean strong private actors: that's what's currently eating the US republic from the inside. You have a few billionaires (Trump, Musk, Bezos, Thiel, Ellison, Zuckerberg...) able to buy their way into power and keeping the opposition down. Reducing taxation only makes these people even more powerful, and worsen the situation. You can't have democracy when some people are able to get this much richer and more powerful than the rest, it's as simple as that.
Are you just completely unaware with what's going on in the US or something? The reason why we're here is because of corruption within private companies leading to mass accumulation of wealth which has reality-bending effects on politics. Trump and the cronies is as much a symptom as it is a cause; related to the way billionaires bought literally all of news and social media over 30 years and weaponized it for their own personal propaganda.
You're not going to solve this problem with a 'strong justice system', you're going to solve it by making sure no one can get that wealthy in the first place. I mean we're literally in a topic about Jeffry Epstein who is so deeply connected to everything that it would make your average TV show seem like a hack.
I always laugh when libertarians propose all kinds of mechanism to prevent the concentration of power in the public administration but at the same time see no problem with a few individuals concentrating exponentially the most important and corrupting of the powers: wealth.
God forbid a representative being reelected but there is no problem with a billionaire destabilizing dozens of democracies and around the world.
Libertarianism is just the blind worship of people who have money.
Yes. With enough money, power can be bought, judges can be bought, laws can be ...
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