Just how corrupt is our government?

RolandofGilead wrote:

Robear wrote:

Person A - has surplus food.

Person B - is starving.

Libertarianism is the idea that the death of person B is less important than the right of person A to maintain their property to their own benefit.

How did you come to this conclusion?

It's simple. A basic premise of libertarianist ethics is the primacy of the rights of the individual over the rights of the collective. That is, no one can take from you or require you to do anything for any reason without your assent. It follows that it is ethical under strict individualist principles (Objectivism, for example) to deny food to a starving person. (Just as, under *strict* collectivist rules, say in life under the Khmer Rouge, it would be ethical to, say, beat you to death for not giving up a share of your food to a starving person - neither extreme is useful or good.)

This is a well-known problem with individual rights ethics; it's not something I made up.

If you disagree with this conclusion, then you have admitted *some* collectivist principles into your system, and of necessity, individuals would have to do things they don't agree to. That can only be true if they are *coerced* in some way, and adherence to ethics against their own perceived self-interest would qualify as that. That would put you on the same scale as most of us; but the stance espoused by Aetius above is that all government - collectivist social structures, in other words - is an expression of repression through violence. The well-known idea that coercion of any sort, for any reason, is unethical.

So, are you willing to allow *some* collectivist principles into your libertarian state? If so, you need to dump Aetius' extreme position and start negotiating them. If not, then you're stuck with the ethical problem that no one has an obligation to help others, even in extremis, because that decision would be *forced* upon them by a situation that is not of their making. They would in essence be helping because they can, not because they *want to*.

If one has the stance that *all* governments and all who work for them are inevitably corrupt, one is stuck with perhaps a collectivist impulse, but no way to put it into action as a community. But if one believes that certain types of coerced behavior are good for the community, then one must necessarily admit that they *can* be made to work - taxation for services, for example, or individual service for community defense, or any of a number of *compromises* that are made in order to reap collectivist benefits while retaining individualist benefits as well.

tl;dr - Don't buy into extreme expressions from one side or the other, because you're going to get bit by the logical consequences of advocating those positions.

Also, no country is Libertarian and this still happens.

Are you arguing that it's entirely due to the presence of government? If not, then I suggest you consider that just as their are basic human impulses to act selfishly, there are basic impulses to act for the good of others. What you're seeing here is human nature, empathy vs selfishness, not the inevitable result of government but something far deeper, and also something that conflicts with an even more prevalent impulse, that which has us help others.

Any system which does not allow for *both* human tendencies - ie, which condemns either individuality or collectivism as unacceptable for some reason - is fundamentally broken. Communism is one extreme; despotism is another; but it's pretty obvious that basing governance on just one or the other principle is a recipe for failure.

Edit - obviously, I saw your other comment after I wrote this; if you'd like to address it that way, perhaps more succinctly, feel free.

RolandofGilead wrote:

A system can only afford individualism if one has autonomy, and autonomy is counter-productive if basic security isn't present. Also, any government at all is collectivist to some degree, even at a level of a village of ~150 people.
Also, because of the Libertarianism mentioned above, is it a coincidence or do you feel individualist == libertarian?
They are not the same.

Huh. Libertarianism is a strong expression of individualist philosophy and a rejection of strong collectivism. It's been taken that way since it originated. Do you have some other understanding of it's philosophical basis?

It comes down to this - how can you accept a statement that all government is simply large-scale bullying (or worse), if you're okay with *some* forms of government? How does that square itself in your system?

Edit - The ultimate question is, can you really buy into the kind of rhetoric Aetius employs? My cousin works for the Treasury Department, but he's a nice, quiet, harmless family guy. He's clearly not a sociopath who wishes to do horrific violence to people's lives. I've met *thousands* of government employees, and I can count the truly amoral ones on one, maybe two hands. I see far more in business, probably because it's got better salaries to start with. Even there, though, in companies whose reputations include abusive management, they are not common.

I get frustration with the state of government today, but is vilifying everything to do with it the right way to fix it? Do we really want to "burn it down and restart", is there no better approach than portraying government employees and politicians as amoral, violent and corrupt in their persons? Because that's what's going on here, with the Tea Party, and it's my belief that once you personalize politics, you put a whole class of people at risk of physical violence (something that we are already seeing come true in the US today.)

That seems deeply wrong to me. It seems to me that it will get people killed on a large scale, if it continues.

Reaper81 wrote:

One night a year, society truly is a meritocracy.

How is that? The Purge doesn't account for ability, but rather station. You could have tremendous abilities, but lack station because of misfortune. And the reverse is true. It is in no way a meritocracy.

BoogtehWoog wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

One night a year, society truly is a meritocracy.

How is that? The Purge doesn't account for ability, but rather station. You could have tremendous abilities, but lack station because of misfortune. And the reverse is true. It is in no way a meritocracy.

One person's meritocracy is another person's oppressive, violent society of privilege. Hence my comment about 'actualized libertarian values.' I doubt there's many libertarian (small 'L' or big 'L') adherents in the US that would advocate giving the land they live on back to its "rightful" Indigenous owners.

This whole thread is depressing.

That it is. I don't think people realize how horrifyingly violent burning it all down and building it back again, if it even could be, would be. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't.

Especially since we got here by implementing libertarian ideas as policy - deregulation of markets, polluting industries, resource harvesting, businesses and other things that are abused by private companies; equating money with speech; purposely weakening government oversight and even criminal investigative ability; and implementing so-called "Free Market" ideas into government. All of these ideas trace back to American libertarian thought, and all of them have deeply injured the country.

The corruption always exists; the struggle is to throttle it back while still providing useful services. But it's incredibly frustrating to see people look at a problem that's been largely driven by libertarian ideas and proclaim that if we just did *more* of that, things will get better. The last 35 years show us otherwise.

Robear wrote:

Especially since we got here by implementing libertarian ideas as policy - deregulation of markets, polluting industries, resource harvesting, businesses and other things that are abused by private companies; equating money with speech; purposely weakening government oversight and even criminal investigative ability; and implementing so-called "Free Market" ideas into government. All of these ideas trace back to American libertarian thought, and all of them have deeply injured the country.

The corruption always exists; the struggle is to throttle it back while still providing useful services. But it's incredibly frustrating to see people look at a problem that's been largely driven by libertarian ideas and proclaim that if we just did *more* of that, things will get better. The last 35 years show us otherwise.

Exactly, if only corrupt sociopaths work in government where power is clustered wouldn't they then move to the new power structure?

I have personally witnessed more sociopathic behavior in business (for profit and private, non-profit) than in city government. Some people love to talk about the idea of the self-important, power-mad bureaucrat but I doubt those same people have ever actually worked in a civil service field before.

Reaper81 wrote:

Exactly, if only corrupt sociopaths work in government where power is clustered wouldn't they then move to the new power structure?

I have personally witnessed more sociopathic behavior in business (for profit and private, non-profit) than in city government. Some people love to talk about the idea of the self-important, power-mad bureaucrat but I doubt those same people have ever actually worked in a civil service field before.

Any sociopath worth his/her sociopathic salt (product idea? It's a job creator) would go after State or Federal levels. City is some basic stuff.

There are many fewer restrictions on behavior in business than in government. You can make more money that way, too.

boogle wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

Exactly, if only corrupt sociopaths work in government where power is clustered wouldn't they then move to the new power structure?

I have personally witnessed more sociopathic behavior in business (for profit and private, non-profit) than in city government. Some people love to talk about the idea of the self-important, power-mad bureaucrat but I doubt those same people have ever actually worked in a civil service field before.

Any sociopath worth his/her sociopathic salt (product idea? It's a job creator) would go after State or Federal levels. City is some basic stuff.

I should clarify my statement. I meant in my job. I regularly interact with state and federal employees. On the whole, I feel better about those I work with in civil service than those in private business.

To be clear, I am not saying all government employees are ideologically pure, honest, good-hearted people. There are disgusting f*ckwits to be sure.

...And so we learn nothing, except that the rhetoric has reached a point where it feels dangerous to people like myself, who have worked in and around government for much of their career. Aetius came in and said that I and the people that I know to be harmless and largely oriented towards service are dangerous psychopaths ruining people's lives in horrific ways, and that's his right. But my reaction, and that of others here, is aggressive, because the claims are among the most offensive, conspiratorial and misguided ideas ever posted here.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not close-mouthed resistance. If you're going to buy into "burn it down and start over", when that concerns the fate of hundreds of millions, you're going to be challenged.

I'm sure I have a reputation of jumping on libertarian arguments here. I generally find them incoherent at best, and notably, when people were willing to discuss them here, they went in two directions - back towards the center, or in one case straight to outright discrimination. But when someone says that the "historical trend in government is to be overwhelmingly populated with amoral power-hungry sociopaths", well, that is just lunacy. The fact that we are at the point where this is not the domain of crazed bomb-throwers, but is instead considered mainstream enough to be talked about in public, that's terrifying to those of us who do work in that environment, because it seems to give credence to the idea that such abusers of power don't deserve to live. They deserve to be "burned down".

If you post that here, you should expect to be challenged. Sorry if that's inconvenient. If you think "government", or any other organization, is something abstract without the complications and complexities of normal human societies, as Aetius has proposed, and can be safely criticized in terms that would make Mao blush without drawing a response, then you've got a broken view of the world. The extreme rhetoric is inflammatory. Governments are just like businesses or any other large organizations in their constitution and behaviors and in the people who make them up. Power can be found outside of government, too, and often is - today, one could argue that "big business" has more power than government. But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the same level of amorality, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Projecting that fear and hatred onto government is necessarily condemning the people who make it up with the same argument. Especially when the argument is based upon the people in government being evil. That's ultimately self-defeating, because if true, it means we can't have government (or big business, or organized religion, in fact any hierarchical organizations) at all. Clearly, that's a false assumption.

But in any case, there are real people behind the facade of government, and some of them are here. Millions of people across the country fall into that category, and tens of millions more are directly connected to them via business activities. Most of them are "amoral power-hungry sociopaths"? That's so obviously wrong that it's clear that the anger is being directed that way from outside. And I for one am not afraid to speak up when the claim is made.

You guys who think government needs to be "burned down" and completely rebuilt need to ask "Cui bono?" and then look at the backing of the people who are telling you that. But if you don't like hierarchies and abuse by the powerful, you're in for a big shock.

And hey, cool it on the rhetoric.

Reaper81 wrote:
Robear wrote:

Especially since we got here by implementing libertarian ideas as policy - deregulation of markets, polluting industries, resource harvesting, businesses and other things that are abused by private companies; equating money with speech; purposely weakening government oversight and even criminal investigative ability; and implementing so-called "Free Market" ideas into government. All of these ideas trace back to American libertarian thought, and all of them have deeply injured the country.

The corruption always exists; the struggle is to throttle it back while still providing useful services. But it's incredibly frustrating to see people look at a problem that's been largely driven by libertarian ideas and proclaim that if we just did *more* of that, things will get better. The last 35 years show us otherwise.

Exactly, if only corrupt sociopaths work in government where power is clustered wouldn't they then move to the new power structure?

I have personally witnessed more sociopathic behavior in business (for profit and private, non-profit) than in city government. Some people love to talk about the idea of the self-important, power-mad bureaucrat but I doubt those same people have ever actually worked in a civil service field before.

I think the idea that 'all government is evil' deliberately hides the differences between civil servants and elected officials. I'm mostly distrustful of politicians, but public sector workers are no more or less trustworthy than private sector individuals.

It's useful to anti-government yahoos to point at the failings of elected officials while ignoring the work of the innumerable cogs that do their best in tough circumstances to keep the machinery of government running.

Robear wrote:

But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the same level of amorality, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Wait, what?

Not that I disgree with the rest of the post, but what?

Who has argued that religion and business are "overwhelmingly populated with power-hungry, amoral sociopaths"? Did you read Aetius' post? This is well beyond "the Constitution needs to be fixed" or "Congress and the President approve abusive and intrusive policies" or even "some politicians and priests and business leaders break the law". This is 'corruption is not only prevalent but required to get ahead', and the people involved are actively inflicting horrific damage on society because of their amorality.

That's a far cry from the Church covering up pedophilia, or religious ideas being harmful in general, or billionaires funding think tanks and political movements that some of us disagree with. This is not "the ideas these people have are bad for reason X", it's "they are mostly amoral sociopaths".

Edit - It's also possible you were questioning the equivalency I made between large organizations...?

Reap, for one, specifically said he has seen a lot more immoral behavior in businesses than government.

But he was not starting from the same extreme position as Aetius, that I can see.

Perhaps I could be more clear:

But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the same level of amorality, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Should be:

But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the level of amorality claimed by Aetius for government, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Is that better?

Robear wrote:

But he was not starting from the same extreme position as Aetius, that I can see.

Perhaps I could be more clear:

But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the same level of amorality, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Should be:

But I don't see anyone arguing that the Church, or businesses, or NGOs, or any other organizations with a similar size and scope of government have the level of amorality claimed by Aetius for government, even though they offer similar paths to power.

Is that better?

Serious question I have been mulling lately: Is it worth the time and effort to address extreme, absurd, or grossly illogical positions in order to effect change?

Specific to this thread: the thread title supposes a state that I find experientially rare and phrasing of the title promotes a foregone conclusion for the question raised.

Is it better to just let it go unchallenged, perhaps?

If someone came in and said all Christians were amoral, power-hungry sociopaths actively inflicting horrific damage on society and suggested that Christianity (not just the Catholic Church) should be burned down, would they get a pass? I mean, that's well beyond even Paleo's position, and people argue with him all the time...

Robear wrote:

Is it better to just let it go unchallenged, perhaps?

If someone came in and said all Christians were amoral, power-hungry sociopaths actively inflicting horrific damage on society and suggested that Christianity (not just the Catholic Church) should be burned down, would they get a pass? I mean, that's well beyond even Paleo's position, and people argue with him all the time...

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Reaper81 wrote:

Serious question I have been mulling lately: Is it worth the time and effort to address extreme, absurd, or grossly illogical positions in order to effect change?

I guess it is if you think change would actually happen. I see quite a few threads/posts that I don't bother spending my time to formulate a reply because what would be the point other than maybe self-satisfaction.

Reaper81 wrote:

Serious question I have been mulling lately: Is it worth the time and effort to address extreme, absurd, or grossly illogical positions in order to effect change?

Specific to this thread: the thread title supposes a state that I find experientially rare and phrasing of the title promotes a foregone conclusion for the question raised.

Speaking of grossly illogical positions....

Specific to this thread, the thread title supposes a state that you could find experientially rare, but still be true. Government is a big thing, with many moving parts, of which you personally have exposure to a tiny, tiny fraction of.

The foregone conclusion is that "there is corruption in government", which should be a foregone conclusion, because we have stacks of evidence proving that it's the case.

Robear wrote:

Who has argued that religion and business are "overwhelmingly populated with power-hungry, amoral sociopaths"? Did you read Aetius' post? This is well beyond "the Constitution needs to be fixed" or "Congress and the President approve abusive and intrusive policies" or even "some politicians and priests and business leaders break the law". This is 'corruption is not only prevalent but required to get ahead', and the people involved are actively inflicting horrific damage on society because of their amorality.

That's a far cry from the Church covering up pedophilia, or religious ideas being harmful in general, or billionaires funding think tanks and political movements that some of us disagree with. This is not "the ideas these people have are bad for reason X", it's "they are mostly amoral sociopaths".

Edit - It's also possible you were questioning the equivalency I made between large organizations...?

Did you mean this argument?

Yes, if you like. Once again, I'm arguing against reducing problems to one simple cause (as well as also arguing against vastly overstating the problem).

Jonman wrote:

The foregone conclusion is that "there is corruption in government", which should be a foregone conclusion, because we have stacks of evidence proving that it's the case.

I don't think anyone has a problem with that version of the conclusion, Jonman. I think the problem is how far people like Aetius take it. To the point that if he were talking about most other social institutions, or races, or even religions, he'd be roundly condemned for making the argument.

Once you depersonalize something, it's very easy to turn it into The Worst Thing Ever. But it's almost never correct.

What Reaper was addressing was the relative rarity of corruption in government, especially compared with Aetius' claims. It's not unknown, but we're also not living in the state which Aetius believes we are, governed by amoral sociopaths in a system where corruption is required to move up.

That system would be unimaginably worse than we have now.

Nomad, Jonman... What is your take on what Aetius stated? You in, or out?

Robear wrote:
Jonman wrote:

The foregone conclusion is that "there is corruption in government", which should be a foregone conclusion, because we have stacks of evidence proving that it's the case.

I don't think anyone has a problem with that version of the conclusion, Jonman. I think the problem is how far people like Aetius take it. To the point that if he were talking about most other social institutions, or races, or even religions, he'd be roundly condemned for making the argument.

Once you depersonalize something, it's very easy to turn it into The Worst Thing Ever. But it's almost never correct.

What Reaper was addressing was the relative rarity of corruption in government, especially compared with Aetius' claims. It's not unknown, but we're also not living in the state which Aetius believes we are, governed by amoral sociopaths in a system where corruption is required to move up.

That system would be unimaginably worse than we have now.

That would be Objectivism.

Objectivism... Like I said, immeasurably worse than what we have now...

Robear wrote:

Nomad, Jonman... What is your take on what Aetius stated? You in, or out?

I think that if we draw a stark dividing line between politicians and civil servants, then I think a lot of what Aetius says holds water with respect to the former.

Aetius wrote:

The default assumptions should be that a) politicians are self-interested, like everyone else, and b) they are in a position where corruption is not only easy and natural, but is both institutionalized and a requirement for success.

This right here is pure fried gold. I honestly don't see how you can argue this point in good faith, especially when applied to the national political stage. It's not a case of "is there corruption", but rather "how much corruption is there".

That said, when it comes to the other hundreds of millions of government employees, I'm sure that Reaper's point is true too, that for 99.99% of them, corruption is not anything they have any exposure to. Your average IRS or FDA employee, for instance, has barely a chance to engage in any corruption, let alone embrace it.

Jonman wrote:

Your average IRS or FDA employee, for instance, has barely a chance to engage in any corruption, let alone embrace it.

That is absolutely not true, unless you're limiting yourself to janitors and cafeteria workers.