It's called money. In the US, elections are largery determined by who could spent the most money. Therefore elected officials are incentivised to keep rich people close. Whenever rich people's power is threatened by a political initiative, lobbying and grey zone bribes are used to maintain the status quo.
Capitalism leads to the concentration of wealth that allows these incentives to appear.
Edit: How I enjoy the salty tears of people who drive by downvote without a rebuttal out of cognitive dissonance. Delicious.
> In the US, elections are largery determined by who could spent the most money.
They really aren't. The vast majority of elections are determined by the partisan make-up of the district in question.
For the most part, you seem to have inverted causation. It looks like more popular candidates attract more money, not that candidates with more money end up being more popular.
I added this to my reading list, looks interesting, thanks.
Though I'm very opposed in general to the idea that causation is one sided here.
I can easily see it as a cycle. Popular candidates get more money, can buy more attention which makes them more popular, get more money, buy even more attention, and so on.
There's also the gnarly topic of money and the big media which is involved at every step here as well.
It's an extremely complicated topic with many moving parts interacting in all sorts of interesting ways.
I’m sorry but you’re going to need to be more specific. The U.S. isn’t the only country that uses money.
You say capitalism allows for the concentration of power. You’ll need to explain how other systems of government get around concentrating power in a game theory stable way.
Your argument, as written, boils down to “If people didn’t have money they couldn’t use money to bribe politicians and therefore politicians would be free from influence.” And you use that to lay the blame at capitalism’s feet. This is likely not what you think - but it’s how I’ve read what you wrote.
> who drive by downvote without a rebuttal
We don’t comment on downvotes here. That’ll get you more downvotes.
> How I enjoy the salty tears of people
This isn’t Reddit. We don’t communicate this way here.
Again, false dichotomies. I only said capitalism allows for concentration of wealth, and therefore power. I said nothing about other systems.
And I spoke about the US specifically because capitalism is implemented differently in different countries. More on this in my responses to your siblings.
It's definitely a matter of the way you've read my post. You're inferring a lot of stuff I didn't say, which doesn't logically follow from what I did say.
As for the edit, I'm just testing a psychological pet theory of mine.
You are railing against democracy, voting and election campaigns. You're rightly pointing out flaws in them. The solutions that have been proposed for those flaws are called small government.
The same corruption happens in every other system including socialism but even if that system abolishes money the corruption would be done through power, coercion, and influence.
Again with the false dichotomies. You should get that checked out.
I am not railing against democracy. I am saying democracy is being undermined by certain unchecked aspects of capitalism, specifically in the US. In many European countries, this is much less of a problem because campaign finance is very strictly regulated. And in general the solution employed in Europe has been more financial regulation, not a small state. And it's been highly effective.
And yes, socialist countries can also be corrupt, and definitely have been. I never said otherwise. Saying X about capitalism is not automatically saying !X about socialism.
Similarly, saying that socialism can also harbour corruption is not equivalent to saying capitalism has nothing to do with corruption in capitalist countries.
I am saying it concentrates wealth yes, and that this leads to corruption when the relationship between wealth and power isn't sufficiently tamed through various regulations.
You are assuming there is a magical threshold for "bribing" wealth that capitalism enables.
Second point, wealth is by definition a creature of rarity. The same is true of influence. Everyone has some degree of influence over others but useful influence is what one person has that others don't. So you can't really evenly distribute wealth over any meaningful time period. You can certainly eliminate mechanisms for relating it to other uses but then you've destroyed it.
The problem you are trying to articulate has been studied. It is actually the concentration of power that is the problem. Influence, wealth, coercion are traded by some to those that hold power in order to direct it in a way that they want -- this is called corruption.
Both capitalism and socialism are economic systems. When combined with democracy they can enable corruption because it is the concentration of power in the hands of the leaders that is the critical element -- not what is used to trade for it.
When you're looking at European socialist countries you'll find the successful ones are either low population or the power int the hands of the leaders is fairly restricted because of societal structures. Meaning the instrument isn't there. Ask soon as you scale it up it rots a lot faster than ay capitalist society.
Capitalism leads to the concentration of wealth that allows these incentives to appear.
Edit: How I enjoy the salty tears of people who drive by downvote without a rebuttal out of cognitive dissonance. Delicious.