I’m not going to try to summarize the whole article here – I suggest everyone read it, however. James Fallows discusses the issue of “structural corruption” in US government. The concept is often raised in the discussion of foreign countries, from China to Afghanistan, but it needs to be pointed out much more often, as Fallows does, that the US has it too. And it has it very, very badly.
One very annoying element of US exceptionalism shared by both the left and right, very broadly, is the weird, unrealistic belief that the US has no corruption, or in any event that it has much less than “other countries.” This really annoys me. I think the only difference between US corruption, and that of other countries more noted for corruption, such as Mexico or even South Korea, is that US corruption is so exclusively “structural” that it’s easily “depersonalized” and pushed from one’s mind.
I like Fallows’ reminder that it’s a really big deal, nevertheless. I find the concept of “structural corruption” to be a powerful one, intellectually. Please read his article.
