[shadowfiend]

Yes, because once all that power exists at the state level instead, the companies will all surrender and stop trying to incentivize officials into giving them a competitive advantage.

No, more likely they'll just move to the state level. And it'll probably cost them less at that, since state officials are significantly less visible and will have less power.

[cookiecaper]

>No, more likely they'll just move to the state level. And it'll probably cost them less at that, since state officials are significantly less visible and will have less power.

Isn't this also a function of our federalized mindset? This country was designed to function almost exactly inverse to the way it works now -- the more local the representative, the more powerful he should be. It was set up this way to allow more influence from individuals and less influence from outside forces; when you have 3000 or 30,000 constituents, it's a lot easier to pay attention to individuals and to engage in meaningful discussion than when you have 3 million (or more) constituents.

If we fixed the system and put power back where it belonged, wouldn't the prominence follow the power? Wouldn't individual state-wide media outlets become more important than national media outlets? Wouldn't our state representatives become visible again as the primary movers and shakers?

The federal legislature was intended primarily to deal with international affairs, boring stuff like treaties and tariffs. We should keep that their only sphere of influence. At least then corruption would have to work 50 times over to take effect in every state, whereas now you can buy a handful of corrupt politicians and the whole country is stuck with the results.

[_delirium]

> It was set up this way to allow more influence from individuals and less influence from outside forces

Empirically that's not what happened: 19th-c local and state administrations were hugely corrupt, in bed with businessmen and power brokers (some local, some national) and largely unresponsive to their constituents. In fact that was some of the reason federalization was popular, to reduce the power of the local machines (and was also one of the reasons behind going to direct election of Senators). The 1950s-60s saw another wave, as the lawless Southern local governments and police forces had to be overridden by the national government.

[einhverfr]

The difference though is that as you move to a more local level, the ability of people to organize in opposition or support gets greater. There are problems on the state/local level, but not quite the same as on the federal level.

I was in Jakarta recently and saw a diagram of the process to get an ID card. Very clear flow chart, going around in an infinite loop. The way out of this infinite loop, I am told, is to hire an agency to process your application. Of course we call that corruption, but when we pretty much require an immigration attorney in the US to navigate through bringing one's spouse or fiancee into the country, we call that professionalism. I think on one level, we have to accept that some level of corruption is inherent in human organization and it is a problem to be managed rather than eliminated.