Greetings,
In the mid-14th century “corruption” meant rot, decay, or disease of living things leading to destruction or death, but it soon expanded to non-physical things like morals and governments. Today we tend to emphasize the non-physical and “corruption” means anything that makes a system produce results other than it was supposed to deliver. Governments are corrupt when they don’t deliver the goods, services, protections, or supports they’re designed to.
Of course, no government in history has been totally corruption-free; they exist across a spectrum. (Check out Transparency International to see how world governments stack up today). Corruption is more like a progressive disease than a sudden and unpredictable injury. While the shock of an injury would immediately drive you to care, some diseases are easy to ignore at first. It’s best to catch them early when the threat is small and the health of the rest of the system can help fight. Denial can postpone treatment until death is inevitable.
There are at least two options to deal with corruption… either accept it as the way of the world or find ways to minimize and manage it like a chronic disease.
Corruption is so endemic in some societies they just decide to roll with it. Baksheesh is the day-to-day corruption pervasive in many Middle Eastern and Asian societies. It includes the ‘social lubricants’ of tipping and charitable giving, but also lowest-to-highest level bribery in government and it’s not optional. You don’t get the services of government unless you grease the right palms. Other countries drop the pretense of government responsiveness altogether and go full Oligarchy, the system of ‘government’ sweeping the world in which the only purpose of government is to serve the rich. Problem solved… it’s not corruption if that’s what you expect in the first place!
If you don’t want to be sick then you have to fight the disease. US Government was once thought to be working properly when it responded to the needs of the rich… “what’s good for Standard Oil is good for America”, after all. But beginning in the late 19th century, largely in response to governmental jobs being used as political payback, many nations created professional, dedicated civil services. This set standards for self-dealing and legal lines that couldn’t be crossed. Since then, politicians of every stripe have been run out of office just for the APPEARANCE of corruption!
Avoiding the appearance of corruption, well before the actuality, is the way to go. Politicians and judges protest that they aren’t swayed by cash, sex, planes, trips, luxury busses, sweetheart deals, or other trinkets. Maybe they’re right and they’re above reproach, but the system itself can’t depend on their sterling integrity. That means putting systems in place to prevent temptation and prosecuting those who succumb. As an example, at a business level here at Tom Dwyer, we pay our Advisors on salary instead of commission. If your paycheck depends on a cut of everything you recommend it’s easy to see the temptation to pad those recommendations, even for the most honest person. We trust our guys completely, but if we want YOU to trust our advice then we have to build a system that transparently avoids any incentive for corruption at all. Similar guiderails are possible at every level of government. There have been, and are, limits on gifts or emoluments, reporting requirements, insider trading limits, and more. They’ll never be enough to cure the disease but they can keep it manageable… if we take the medicine as directed.
Make a great day,
Digging Deeper…
Corrupted Capitalism and Dithering Democrats, Robert Kuttner in The American Prospect, Feb 2025
Do not let the baksheesh take hold in American society, Reddit thread, 2024
How Corruption at the Top Erodes Support for Democracy, Karina Montoya at Stanford Business School, Oct 2024
Trump’s Middle East visit comes as his family deepens its business, crypto ties in the region, Will Weissert on AP, May 2025
US democracy at risk as corruption threats grow, Katz and Rippberger at Brookings Institute, Apr 2025
25 corruption scandals that shook the world, Transparency International
White House eased China tariffs after warnings of harm to ‘Trump’s people’, Stein et al, May 2025
A history of corruption in the United States, Christine Perkins at Harvard Law Today, Sep 2020
“Non-Corrupt Government”: Less Than Good, More Than Impartial, by Manuel Villoria, Department of Public Law and Political Science, King Juan Carlos University, Dec 2023
What are some historical examples of completely non-corrupt government? Quora thread
Corruption Perceptions Index, Wikipedia
The Weaponization Czar, Timothy Snyder on Thinking About, May 2025
Service 101: A Brief History of Tipping, FoodWoolf.com
‘It’s the Legacy of Slavery’: Here’s the Troubling History Behind Tipping Practices in the U.S., Rachel Greenspan in Time, Aug 2019
Do not let the baksheesh take hold in American society, Reddit thread, 2024
How Americans feel about the basics of tipping, Desilver and Lippert at Pew Research Center, Nov 2023
Qatari PM denies jumbo jet gift to Trump is bribery, Ruxandra Iordache on CNBC, May 2025
Trump’s New Qatari Jet Would Be Just Like the Statue of Liberty, Obviously, Jeremy Schulman on Mother Jones, May 2025
Trump and trickle-down corruption, Donnelly and Chakrabarti at WBUR, May 2025
The 10 richest Americans got $365 billion richer in the past year. Now they’re on the verge of a huge tax cut, Matt Egan on CNN, May 2025
