What do you imagine when you hear the word corruption? Money changing hands with a deep laugh? Hidden stashes of money in foreign countries for "retired" dictators? Little and not so little presents coming from companies to their worker's representatives or to foreign officials to "ease" the procedures?
But if you are only thinking in modern day examples, you only got half of the picture, if not less.
Corruption is as old as are power structures. In ancient times it was a major hindrance in the forming of big empires. Several methods were tried to prevent corruption, including the death penalty which, as with any other crime, it did not stop.
Probably the most famous example is the Roman Empire. After a century long increase in power and size, the Roman Empire slowly stumbled into ever more corruption, leading into deadly internal struggles that weakened the whole Empire until it more or less collapsed under it's own weight.
If the Roman people, who thought it is moral to kill your own family if it is good for the Roman state, could fall to corruption, surely every one else could. Is there a way to prevent that?
This were probably the thoughts of the US founding fathers.
They decided to put as many hurdles up as they could for anyone to be corrupt. Unfortunately they were betrayed by the American people.
The framers were worried that their new nation would fall prey to the corruption that had turned them away from England. The structure of the government they created in the USA was designed to prevent corruption, by spreading around powers, by making it hard for secret conspiracies to flourish, by creating checks and balances. The contemporary conservative account of this separation of powers is that it is designed to stop a despot, not a crook -- but the framers' own words tell a very different story.
The current view of corruption in the USA is that it is only corruption if it is quid pro quo - I make this and you pay me for it. Everything else is only free speech - say those who benefit from the corruption and happily "donate" millions to presidential candidates, may it be people or (even worse) companies.
But as Teachout shows, the Constitutional Convention, the Federalists Papers, the framers' diaries and letters, and the Constitution itself sets out a much more expansive definition of corruption: "self-serving use of public power for private ends, including, without limitation, bribery, public decisions to serve private wealth made because of dependent relationships, public decisions to serve executive power made because of dependent relationships, and use by public officials of their positions of power to become wealthy."
This is about Zephr Teachout (what a name!) book "Corruption in America", but you can read a lot about this topic in this 2009 paper: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/Teachout-Final.pdf
via BoingBoing
