Can Government and Corruption in Government Be Controlled?

Standard government presents problems of control as the Framers recognized in part, but their solution and compromises, varieties of which are now standard in many countries, brought a corrupt and corruptible government into being. Philip Giraldi reminds us of the extensive corruption in those paragons of government — the western democracies. This raises the questions: Can corruption in government be controlled? Can government be controlled? Neither is possible when government has the last word and is the top gun.

If we must live with territorial governments for the time being, can their enormous costs at least be controlled to a degree such that their supposed benefits exceed the costs of control? Can their negatives at least be ameliorated? There are ways to do this, but they all involve a much higher degree of citizen control over government. These methods can’t be implemented when citizens are highly divided, as they are in many countries including America. The answer is therefore “no”, not at present. Government cannot be controlled and its corruption limited by instituting new political means that better control agency costs, because people will not agree on the changes.

Under these conditions, we may as well set our sights on completely voluntary solutions, i.e., free market solutions. We may as well think about reducing politics to nothing or next to nothing.

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9:55 am on June 4, 2014