Sure they do, it’s called money. Like all US politicians (and many in other countries as well) they vote as they’re paid to vote.
Priority one in any attempt to fix the US needs to be overturning citizens united. There’s an admittedly long list of other things that need to be done as well, but getting corporate money out of the equation is a significant force multiplier.
The only long term way to permenantly prevent corporate money from corrupting a political system is to prevent that kind of individual wealth from existing in the first place and to transfer ownership of corporations to a larger group of people, such as the employees, which will then spread out the wealth of those corporations such that no individual will have the kind of money needed to buy politicians and judges/justices.
What will happen if corruption is simply regulated without preventing mass wealth accumilation is the regulations will just slowly be eroded over time again as greed will ultimately prevail since it is ultimately allowed to prevail. We’ve seen this happen throughout history, where powerful people will do anything possible to gain more power. Therefore, we need to eliminate that kind of power from existing in the first place, which in our current society is wealth.
We could also just kill the rich. It may not be the ideal solution but it is definitely a potential solution. I think we negotiate from a weaker position when we act like that isn’t an option. Taxation, wealth redistribution, and caps on political donations should be seen as the preferable option to public beheadings, which is how the masses used to settle these kinds of grievances when pushed far enough. I say we frame it that way instead of “please don’t do mean stuff anymore Mr. CEO”, which is what they hear when we talk about more civilized solutions.
Sure they do, it’s called money. Like all US politicians (and many in other countries as well) they vote as they’re paid to vote.
Priority one in any attempt to fix the US needs to be overturning citizens united. There’s an admittedly long list of other things that need to be done as well, but getting corporate money out of the equation is a significant force multiplier.
The only long term way to permenantly prevent corporate money from corrupting a political system is to prevent that kind of individual wealth from existing in the first place and to transfer ownership of corporations to a larger group of people, such as the employees, which will then spread out the wealth of those corporations such that no individual will have the kind of money needed to buy politicians and judges/justices.
What will happen if corruption is simply regulated without preventing mass wealth accumilation is the regulations will just slowly be eroded over time again as greed will ultimately prevail since it is ultimately allowed to prevail. We’ve seen this happen throughout history, where powerful people will do anything possible to gain more power. Therefore, we need to eliminate that kind of power from existing in the first place, which in our current society is wealth.
We could also just kill the rich. It may not be the ideal solution but it is definitely a potential solution. I think we negotiate from a weaker position when we act like that isn’t an option. Taxation, wealth redistribution, and caps on political donations should be seen as the preferable option to public beheadings, which is how the masses used to settle these kinds of grievances when pushed far enough. I say we frame it that way instead of “please don’t do mean stuff anymore Mr. CEO”, which is what they hear when we talk about more civilized solutions.