On Corruption. One.

Monday. May 9, 2016.

There’s no way to discuss this without the Democratic presidential campaign coming into it. The word has been embraced by Bernie’ supporters as a battle cry. It’s their Rebel Yell and they let loose with it not just when they charge at Hillary and the “Democratic establishment” but in their attacks on her supporters and any journalists and pundits critical of Bernie. They’ve narrowed the definition of the word to serve partisan and ideological ends which makes their application of it suspect. But so are the Hillary supporters’ attempts to deflect it or refute it. That’s politics. But my object here isn’t strictly political, and Bernie and Hillary don’t appear here as the particular politicians they are but as representative human beings. I’m not going to argue that Hillary isn’t corrupt or try to turn the tables and argue that Bernie’s really the corrupt one---Don’t kid yourself, I could do it. It’s being done by others. But I’m not going to, mainly because I don’t believe it. I don’t think he’s corrupt or at least I don’t think he’s any more corrupt than she is. As far as I’m concerned in this post, they’re both corrupt, because they’re politicians and politics is corrupting, but more because they’re human beings, and to be human is to be corrupted.

I’m a Puritan and this is a Puritan’s post.

Saw a bumper sticker recently, “Billionaires Can't Buy Bernie”, and my first thought was Why would they want to?

What value would they get for the money? He's the junior senator from Vermont. Before he ran for President he had virtually no influence on national politics or policy. He’s spent his Congressional career denying himself the opportunity to acquire influence. It's been more important to him to be a lonely voice of conscience than a mover and shaker within the ranks of the establishment. Which has made him something of a hero if not a saint but it’s left him with nothing to sell that billionaires would want to buy. That should change now. He has influence to spare now, if he makes the most of what he's accomplished over the course of the campaign. More sway within the party. More power in the Senate. More invitations to his make his case on TV and online and in print.

This may attract the attention of a few billionaires.

I’m not saying Bernie is bound to be corrupted. Just that'll he be facing different and greater temptations from here on in. And the temptations won’t only come in the form of money.

That money is corrupting is a given. The given. The larger the payout, the greater the temptation. That's logical and likely, but it's not a certainty that the tempted will always give in to the temptation. All that money flowing into the coffers of politicians in Washington and the state capitals from the rich and powerful is suspicious and worrisome. But the truth is that a thousand dollar donation from a trusted friend can be more corrupting than a ten-thousand dollar one from someone you know wants something less than noble out of you. To the latter you can say, I'll take your money, pal, but don't expect me to do you any favors and then you can consciously and stubbornly stick to your principles. To the friend who seems to be asking nothing of you you can say thank you and have that be the end of it until the day that friend needs a favor.  Then your friendship makes you feel obligated to help and the next thing you know you're both indicted.

Bernie is obligated to his donors, even to the ones giving less than $27. But the favor they're asking is for him to do what he's doing anyway. When something comes along that forces him to choose between what his supporters want and what he thinks is right, his supporters understand if he decides to act according to his best judgment and against their wishes because that's what they like and admire about him, his integrity on such matters. So there’s nothing inherently corrupt in his taking their money. I think accusations that he’s being corrupt by continuing to take their money even though he has to know by now he has no chance of winning the nomination and that talking and acting acting as if he does is disingenuous at best miss the point that his supporters want him to do this, take their money and keep on campaigning.

Believe me, all that money Hillary’s raking in from the rich and powerful bothers me. I haven’t seen any evidence that she’s been bought and paid for, but the offer’s on the table. Your conviction that she’s picked it up is just that, your conviction. She may have voted and acted in ways you think aren’t in the People’s interest, but you can onl assume she’s corrupt if you believe she's going against her principles in voting and acting in what you consider solely Wall Street's interest. You may think that Wall Street's interests are by definition corrupt, and I’ll grant you that a good case can be made for that. On the other hand, Bernie’s taking a lot of union money and cases have been made that unions are corrupt, so there's that. Even if they aren't, not every demand they make in their rank and file’s interest is in the People's best interests, and taking their money will eventually put you in the same position as taking money from that friend, only they're likely to be less understanding if your conscience tells you you can't vote their way.

A politician with too great a regard for his principles and who stubbornly sticks to doing what he knows to be right to the point that he puts himself in the position of being of unable to do anything for the People's good except shout about how righteous he is is corrupt. He's been corrupted by his own virtue or rather by his pride in his own virtue.

Pride, after all, is a deadly sin.

Depending on the moralist making the case, it's the worst of the seven. Others would argue it’s anger. But pride is at the root of almost all the others.

They’re all corrupting of course---pride, lust, anger, envy, gluttony,greed, and sloth---and good people are as subject to them as the wicked. There’s another word for what they are beside sins.

Feelings.

The names are in a way pernicious. They’re evil-sounding names for normal, even healthy feelings. The words make it sound like having feelings is sinful.

Nothing wrong with having feelings, unless you’re a Vulcan. Nothing wrong in acting on them, usually.

But the words---the sins---are descriptions of feelings that have gotten out of control. Sin---or Vice, if you’re uncomfortable calling things a sin--- is giving in to our feelings at the wrong time and to the wrong degree and purpose. Virtuousness is resisting or at least controlling our feelings.

The ancient Greeks had it that the source of all corruption and evil is one of our most basic, admirable, and useful feelings, the one that's cured diseases and has us visiting other planets. Curiosity. Everything went wrong because Pandora just had to see what was in that box.

Adam and Eve can be said to have been undone by curiosity too but it's more telling to emphasize what they were curious about. That apple was from the tree of knowledge. Ok, literally, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But traditionally simply knowledge. We're fallen and exiled from the garden because we wanted to know.

The lesson of both myths is that to be human is to be corrupt.

Everything about being human is corrupting. Everything we do or feel introduces temptations. People are corrupted by ambition, by success, by fame, by desire, by love, by loyalty, by want and need. Hunger, illness, and fear are corrupting. Religion is corrupting. But so is a lack of faith. Pragmatism. Realism. Idealism. Pessimism. Optimism---there goes Mr Micawber waiting for something to turn up. Despair, of course. But hope too, if it keeps us from dealing practically with the circumstances of the moment in the hope something better will come along. Too much hope can be a form of despair.

Charity can be corrupting, both the giving and the receiving. It’s possible to be too charitable, to give irresponsibly. And of course accepting charity can be destructive of character by creating both dependency and the expectation that you don’t have to solve your own problems or get yourself out of trouble so why bother to avoid creating problems or getting into trouble?

This is one of the reasons we liberals want to do something drastic about wealth inequality. Why we want to “soak” the rich with taxes. Why we want more and stricter regulation of business. Why we want to prosecute more banksters and other white collar criminals. Because the rich and powerful are too charitable towards each other.

The rich and well-to-do are rich in more than money and property. They are rich in friends or at least sympathetic connections and relatives with money and property and sympathetic connections of their own. They enjoy a system of mutual support and aid that amounts to a private safety net. Essentially, they live in a private welfare state. They are relieved of the necessity of having to be responsible and take responsibility. They can do pretty much whatever they want, take, take, take and give nothing back, delay no gratification, and cause and get into whatever trouble their appetites and whims lead them into, secure in the knowledge that they’ll pay no price, somebody will come along to bail them out, pay the bills, and smooth things over.

Wealth and comfort like that are corrupting. Poverty is terrifically and tragically more corrupting. People whose every thought and ounce of effort for most of the day is goes into putting food on the table that night and keeping a roof over their heads for the next month don’t have much left over for planning and provisioning for the longterm future. They don’t have the resources that the middle-class and the wealthy can make use of to keep themselves out of trouble or much recourse when they get into it, so why bother worrying about it and wasting steps to avoid it? What’s the point of delaying gratification when you know that delaying it will cause it to disappear? Poverty is soul-crushing, heartbreaking, and mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting. It robs people of self-respect and, worse, it robs them of hope. For the poor the worst of the deadly sins isn’t pride or anger or envy or greed. It’s sloth. Which is not physical laziness. It’s the failure to exercise virtue---to control self-destructive and self-damning feelings. But why make the effort if you’re too tired and despondent to care and you know it will all come to naught anyway? The point of a welfare state---that is, a charitable government---is to save people from corrupting despair.

On the other hand, there are problems with giving people “free stuff”. People do become dependent. They don’t need to learn to take initiative or responsibility or exercise self-control. Even FDR worried that some of his programs could be ways of putting people on “the dole.” It’s good for people to have to work. It’s good for them to contribute to their own upkeep and health and well-being. It’s important to give people something to strive for, but then it’s good that they then strive. People should be independent, self-reliant, and, to the degree it’s possible, self-sufficient. They want to be. Charity that saves people from having to make the effort and take responsibility is corrupting. And degrading.

I’d better watch out. This kind of talk can get me called a neo-liberal, which reminds me that words can be corrupting along with a facility for using them.

Intelligence can be corrupting. Very smart people are routinely too smart for their own and other people’s good.

Politics is corrupting.

Really, Lance? No kidding? Politics is corrupting.

Shut up.

Wiseguy.

Politics is corrupting because…

End of Part One.

Comments

[Fiddlin Bill]

Trump is a necessary and sufficient reason to vote for Hillary. As Bob Dylan sang once and Hillary can sing today, "can I help it if I'm lucky." Not voting is not a moral option. Therefore, reasonable people will vote for Hillary.

The problem Hillary Clinton has is the millions she made for giving speeches. It's not about finding some quid pro quo. There doesn't have to be such a thing. That's literalism. The other problem Hillary Clinton has is triangulation, and how over decades that strategy erodes one's reputation for honesty. I believe she won't try to put 12 million Latin American undocumented people in cattle cars. I don't believe she will continue to reject the trade agreement under discussion. And the other problem she has (that's three) is Bill Clinton, Impeached President. All these problems are really more the Democratic Party's than Hillary's. Why was Hillary Clinton a fait accompli when the election season began? Because deals were made. Bernie Sanders got "big" because he was so far outside the loop that he didn't make the deal. Rachel Maddow did. Melissa Harris Perry--remember her?

The other problem the Democratic Party has is, what happens after four years of a Clinton Administration. We don't know the answer to that yet. And let me assure you--I will vote for Hillary Clinton for President. Donald Trump is a gun to all our heads. I'll even say "Yes M'am," and dance.

[Lawrence]

I have never thought that Hillary Clinton is or would be corrupt in the sense that she would accept a payment of some kind to do something against her principles. This is not how I would generally define corruption. It seems especially odious to imagine such a case. Money causes people to define or redefine their principles in the interest of money. So my misgivings about her Presidency are that she is all to eager to be a friend to capital. As President Obama has done. As he has chosen to do, when there were other choices available. I consider public office to ideally be in the service of all the people. Therefore I view favoring capital to be corruption. I say this first, because, as you noted, capital is taken care of by virtue of their class membership. Second because capital is the enemy of labor. And that is me, and no doubt you, and many people who do not understand that if you aren't capital, you are labor. Perhaps there is a way to organize society so this is not so. But that is not where we are. We should take them at their word when they say that a corporation only exists to create shareholder value. We should take them at their word when they say 'I'll be gone. You'll be gone.' to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. We should take them at their deed when they actively pursue or blithely ignore every atrocity from slavery, to rape, to destroying the planet in pursuit of a marginal increase in their profits. Capital is the enemy of the American people. Of the entire human race. We should seek to confiscate their wealth not for revenge, or redistribution, but simply to deprive them of the power to do harm. This is more than even Senator Sanders has proposed. And although I am encouraged by some things I have read about Hillary Clinton lately, I have no illusions that she accepts any of my premises. You would probably say no politician would. Not today, certainly. Bernie Sanders has proven that you can't scare the kids by yelling 'socialism'. You won't scare them with this either. Chris Hedges said our world will never get fixed until the wealthy are made to live in it, and not in the world that their class membership affords them. Hillary Clinton does not live in our world. When the planet is well and truly wrecked Chelsea and her friends from Davos and Aspen will be have what relief from it can be bought. My daughter and her children will starve in a desert war zone. And I am not suggesting for a moment that Hillary Clinton is some kind of sociopath who wants this outcome. I am suggesting that if preventing this future would inconvenience capital, she will not chose that path. And concerning the moral hazard of free stuff, that is slave morality. The wealthy do not work. Ever. They may have employment or partake in economic activity. But for them these things are hobbies. Amusements. I am well aware that many people, perhaps even most, benefit from the purpose that work gives them. But does the work we do have purpose or meaning anymore? I refer to the concept of 'bullshit jobs' with which you are no doubt familiar. Just as you could drop an awful lot of helicopter money on society and not cause (hyper)inflation, you could give people a great deal of leisure before we became paralyzed by ennui. How much of the problem is that people have internalized the message that ones worth is defined by money and work? It would at least have the virtue of being a new problem. The poor have been with us always. And how many times have I heard those words used to mean the opposite of what was intended? So of course I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton in November. And I hope I have been wrong about her.

[Lance Mannion]

Lawrence, by "Capital", do you mean the system, the synecdoche, people with money to invest, or money itself?

"I consider public office to ideally be in the service of all the people. Therefore I view favoring capital to be corruption.

Aren't people with capital and who build factories and run businesses and, you know, hire labor part of all the people?

Fiddlin',

"Why was Hillary Clinton a fait accompli when the election season began? Because deals were made"

You don't think that she came within a hair of beating Barack Obama for the nomination in 2008, served as Secretary of State since, and consistently made the lists of the world's most admired women had anything to do with it?

[Falstaff]

Honestly, I feel kind of bad for Clinton.

It isn't her fault that the zeitgeist seems to have completely done a 180 by the time she's finally got a real chance to make her run for the White House. It isn't her fault that her choice, when she was young, to try and work within the system is now seen as her capitulating to Moneyed Interests. (As I think I remember you writing some months back, Lance, as the senator from New York State, she's -- what? Supposed to ignore the financial industry?)

I don't agree with about half her policy ideas, conservatively (the half I do, I like very very much). I still don't think she's the best candidate to take on Trump (Pierce has a piece today at Esquire that speaks to some of my concerns), and that worries me (the fact that there are still people who seem excited about Trump worries me! I'd thought that by the time he attracted this level of scrutiny, he'd be becoming *less* popular, not more) -- but I'd still be perfectly satisfied with her becoming president. I don't want her to be my second choice, but... well, she is. I think you're right here, Lance -- if Clinton *is* corrupt (which I'm not sure I grant, but say I do) she's only corrupt in the way any other conventional politician is corrupt. I mean, I don't often call people out for being naive -- glass houses and all -- but... yeah.

[Lawrence]

Capital isn’t just money. A dollar or a trillion of them has to be used by a person to have agency. They give each other power. But it is also the desire to use power for exploitation. Exploitation with no range function or boundary. Exploitation with no end. Again, this is what they say quite plainly if you listen. FDR created the New Deal to save capitalism, and they hated him for it. Eisenhower remarked to his brother that no one would ever seriously attempt to destroy Social Security. And didn’t George W Bush attempt precisely that thing? And don’t we have that fight in Congress over every budget approval? Bill Clinton had already made the deal to privatize Social Security and it was only averted by a spat with Newt Gingrich and the breaking of the Lewinsky story. And for most of my entire life in the workforce I have listened to management tell me how lucky I am to be employed at all because of The Economic Crisis. Because there always is one. S&L in the eighties, recession in the early nineties, the .com bubble, Enron, and the one we’re still in. And every time wages and employment get suppressed and capital is made whole. We also now know that the carbon energy extraction industry knew about global warming long ago and engaged in active disinformation campaigns to protect their profits at the expense of the future of the human race. Capital is destructive. Left unregulated it cannot be otherwise.
As to the nice capitalists who invest and hire labor, and aren’t they part of the ‘all of the people’ I mentioned, yes, and also no. Technically yes, of course. No in the sense that they themselves do not often do not see themselves as citizens of any nation. No in the sense that, as you pointed out, membership in their class confers so much advantage that they do not require protection. Indeed, the national state has been so weakened that it must repair itself so that it can stand up to capital. Are there nice capitalists? It is my understanding that Costco and QT minimarts are labor friendly employers. I don’t know their positions on ethical supply chain sourcing, or whether worker safety and workplace harassment are more than cynical jokes that they employ HR personnel to affect concern for. Generally, late stage capitalism broadcasts a palpable contempt for labor. We aren’t people. We are a cost. And costs are to be controlled. The example of General Motors spending ruinous amounts of money on robots in an attempt to break the UAW comes to mind. To the extent that they can get rid of us, they will. http://www.ginandtacos.com/2014/01/13/roger-against-the-machine/
And of course it didn’t work. Haven’t you noticed that the ruling class can’t even make the trains run on time anymore? In the year I was born one of the greatest public private partnerships ever conceived put men on the moon. Today, the most expensive defense appropriations program in the history of the DOD can’t build a tactical fighter that performs as designed. Many of the contractors involved worked on both programs. The system is breaking down. We are where Rome was when they couldn’t secure the borders of the Empire anymore. And in Rome’s case, what our historians call the end was just a day nobody observed when the last Emperor ceded control to the German mercenaries who ran the army. It was this blog, if I remember correctly, where I read ‘If you’re not concerned with the care and feeding of millionaires, then you’re a leftist, not a liberal. And it’s a proud tradition.’ It was a couple of years ago, so I may not be exact. But I ask, what is the social use of a billionaire in a society where there is poverty?

[Fiddlin Bill]

"You don't think that she came within a hair of beating Barack Obama for the nomination in 2008, served as Secretary of State since, and consistently made the lists of the world's most admired women had anything to do with it?"

I think you make a fair point, Lance. Perhaps her resume cleared the field of all other "serious candidates," with the personal situation Biden faced also playing a role in his particular final decision.

[Lance Mannion]

Bill, I think you're right. Probably a bunch of them were daunted by the prospect of running against her. Fortunately, one of them was Andrew Cuomo. But Biden had nothing to worry about on the resume score. Someday we'll find out just what exactly was going on with him.

[Lance Mannion]

Lawrence,

"Haven’t you noticed that the ruling class can’t even make the trains run on time anymore?"

I'm tempted to ask you when the trains ever ran on time, but, FWIW, Mrs M takes the train to work regular and it's almost always on time. The buses too.

"It was this blog, if I remember correctly, where I read ‘If you’re not concerned with the care and feeding of millionaires, then you’re a leftist, not a liberal."

Yep, it was here. But I've said it more than once. It's kind of a theme of mine. It's a sliding scale: how concerned a politician is with the care and feeding of millionaires is my measure of relative liberalism/conservatism. Too much care=conservative. None=far left. It's my way of saying that good governance requires more than just worrying about people getting rich. But a functioning economy needs to leave people free to get rich or else no one will do things like open restaurants or build houses or manufacture automobiles.

As for billionaires, I'm not sure their existence can be helped, but the Clintons have been very good at parting them from some of their billions through the Clinton Global Initiative and that money has gone to really helping alleviate poverty in parts of the world. So there's a use for them.

[Lance Mannion]

Falstaff,

Agreed. I'm afraid Trump's becoming more popular isn't due to people actually liking him. I think he's more like an infection. People everywhere throughout time have caught similar infections and there's no predicting the course or outcome of the disease. Things would have been different, though, if everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike, had seen the initial infection and gone right to work on stopping it from spreading. That would have meant turning to different establishment candidates than HRC and Jeb. I'm writing about who I wish it had been for the Democrats today.

[Phil Ebersole]

I don't think Hillary Clinton is corrupt. I don't have any reason to think she is doing anything against her personal convictions.

I just believe that, based on her record, her sources of financial and political support and the people she hangs out with (the Bushes, the Trumps, Henry Kissinger, Lloyd Blankfein) that a vote for her is a vote for perpetual war and financial oligarchy.

[Lance Mannion]

Phil, I don't think it's quite right to say she hangs out with the Bushes and the Trumps, but never mind. I'm more influenced by the people she really has hung out with, like Marian Wright Edelman, John Lewis, Dolores Huerta, Gracha Machel, Gabby Giffords, Jennifer Granholm, and Barack Obama.