‘Everybody Knows: Corruption in America’ and around the world

Eliyahu Tulshinski

December 29, 2022

Sarah Chayes is the author of “Everybody Knows: Corruption in America.” She ought to know. The daughter of a senior member of the Kennedy administration, she herself served in the Obama administration as special advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to holding a senior position in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and reporting for National Public Radio. The book’s synopsis explains the extent of the corruption.

America is corrupted, and everybody knows it. Vested interests have bent government powers to serve themselves, not the citizens, with dizzying results — egregious Supreme Court rulings, revolving doors and cozy deals between the state and the private sector, and forty years of financial meltdowns.

My City Hall

Of course, people are most familiar with corruption in their local government, whether they hear about it on the news or from an acquaintance or relative. Those same people may assume that the corruption is unique to their city or town, believing it to be an aberration from the generally moral behavior of the greater population, a morality found in some 95% of people, when not under stress, according to research by Psychology Professor Paul Zak.

Pathologically selfish

The problem with assuming politicians in other locales to be different, i.e. less corrupt, is that politicians may be overrepresented in what Zak describes as the “5 percent of the population who . . . are pathologically selfish.”

There’s actually good reason to believe that politicians are overrepresented among those whose personal drive for success may influence their ability to turn down corrupt offers for advancement. Political Marketer reports that politicians are indeed different from the general population.

Successful politicians share several personality traits in common. They’re all Charismatic. Confident. Determined.

A determined personality could lead one to work long hours to attain success, but it also lends itself to a proclivity for taking immoral short cuts to success when an opportunity presents itself.

Widespread

Chayes had a chance to test the ubiquitousness of political corruption, living in different parts of the world for extended periods. She found corruption to be rampant, as the continuation of her book’s synopsis records.

Chayes shows that today's corruption . . . is part of global history, going back to the invention of money itself. We're not dealing with 'bad apples' lining individual pockets, but the widespread standard practice of sophisticated networks spanning political and national boundaries.

So it’s not just familiar politicians who are corrupt. Even in far-off nations we can assume a great deal more than 5% of political leaders represent their own interests over their constituents. While living in Afghanistan, for example, Chayes found “corruption which has been obviously a sort of toxic and ubiquitous presence in Afghanistan.”

[L]et's just start with the real basics, like shakedowns, you know, by police officers. You know, you're driving down a road, and they step into the middle of the street. And they are supposedly doing a traffic check, but you have to pay them.

Chayes cautions not to assume that only a few rogue cops are involved in such shakedowns.

So, a lot of people will talk about that as petty corruption. The fact is that that money goes up the line. That street-level cop takes some of the money. And the rest of it is going all the way up the line to the minister of interior.

State ≠ citizenry

Chayes’ anecdotal observations are borne out by research conducted by Transparency International, a self-described “global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption.” According to survey responses provided by experts such as business people and country analysts, the United States is one of the less corrupt nations, ranking 27 out of 180 countries. The below visualization of the data, utilizing a scale of 0-100 where 0 is the most corrupt, thus shows 85% of the world’s governments to be more corrupt than the US.

Such widespread corruption distances leaders from the people they represent and creates obstacles for those hoping to change policy through the ballot box. In this reality, a 19th century adage attributed to diplomat and philosopher Joseph de Maistre may be less applicable. In 1811, de Maistre placed the credit, and blame, for a nation’s actions on its populace.

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle merite. (Every nation has the government it deserves.)

Deep Corruption

Check back as we continue our series on corruption and explore the extent to which the citizens of China, Cuba, Iran and Israel support, or do not support, their governments’ policies and read our other articles exposing the deep state.