“While it is true that you don’t typically have to
bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s
political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt
than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over
$18 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.
“1. A sure sign of corruption is an electoral
outcome like 2016. An addled nonentity like Donald Trump got filthy rich via
tax loopholes a predatory behavior in his casinos and other businesses and then
was permitted to buy the presidency with his own money. He was given billions
of dollars in free campaign time every evening on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and other
channels that should have been more even-handed, because they were in search of
advertising dollars and Trump was a good draw. Then, too, the way the Supreme
Court got rid of campaign finance reform and allowed open, unlimited secret
buying of elections is the height of corruption. The permitting of massive
black money in our elections was taken advantage of by the Russian Federation,
which, having hopelessly corrupted its own presidential elections, managed to
further corrupt the American ones, as well. Once ensconced in power, Trump Inc.
has taken advantage of the power of White House to engage in a wide range of
corrupt practices, including an attempt to sell visas to wealthy Chinese and
the promotion of the Trump brand as part of diplomacy.
“2. The rich are well placed to bribe our
politicians to reduce taxes on the rich. The Koch brothers and other mega-rich troglodytes explicitly told
Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in 2017 that if the Republican Party, controlling
all three branches of government, could not lower taxes on its main sponsors,
there would be no billionaire backing of the party in the 2018 midterms. This
threat of an electoral firing squad made the hundreds of bribe-takers in
Congress sit up and take notice, and they duly gave away to the billionaire
class $1.5 trillion in government services (that’s what Federal taxes are,
folks, services–roads, schools, health inspections, implementation of
anti-pollution laws–things that everyone benefits from and which won’t be there
anymore. To the extent that the government will try to continue to provide
those slashed services despite assessing no taxes on the people with the money
to pay for them, it will run up an enormous budget deficit and weaken the
dollar, which is a form of inflation in the imported goods sector. Inflation
hits the poor the worst. As it stands, 3 American billionaires are worth, as much as the bottom
150 million Americans. That kind of wealth inequality hasn’t
been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in the nineteenth
century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.
“One sign of American corruption is the rapidity
with which American society has become more unequal since the 1980s Reagan
destruction of the progressive income tax. The wealthier the top 1 percent is,
the more politicians it can buy to gather up even more of the country’s wealth.
In my lifetime the top one percent has gone from holding 25% of the privately
held wealth under Eisenhower to 38% today.
“3. Instead of having short, publicly-funded
political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of
Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which
candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to
spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All
American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable
people. They are forced into it by the system. The campaign season should be
shortened to 3 months (did we really need 2 years to get an outcome in which a
fool like Trump is president?), and Congress should pass a law that winners of
primaries don’t have to pay for political ads on TV and radio.
“When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated
in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence
searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the
L’Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential
campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a
rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took
millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the
police haven’t been anywhere near his house. American politicians don’t
represent ‘the people.’ With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the 1%.
American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.
“5. That politicians can be bribed to reduce
regulation of industries like banking (what is called ‘regulatory capture’)
means that they will be so bribed. Scott Pruitt, a Manchurian candidate from
Big Oil, has single-handedly demolished the Environmental Protection Agency on
behalf of polluting industry. This assault on the health of American citizens
on behalf of vampirical corporations is the height of corruption…”
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the
University of Michigan. His new book, The New Arabs: How
the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East (Simon and
Schuster), will officially be published July 1st. He is also the author of Engaging the Muslim
World and Napoleon's Egypt:
Invading the Middle East (both Palgrave Macmillan). He has appeared widely on
television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs,
and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14
books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary
Middle East is Informed Comment.
For
the complete article, Top Ten Signs the
U.S. Is the Most Corrupt Nation in the World by Juan Cole, click here.
