In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash.

Perceived levels of corruption by country, 2014, according to Transparency International. The reader will note how cloesly this corresponds with GDP. 

Here's a chilling statistic, from Robert Reich in the Christian Science Monitor: “In 1964, Americans agreed by 64% to 29% that government was run for the benefit of all the people. By 2012, the response had reversed, with voters saying by 79% to 19% that government was 'run by a few big interests looking after themselves.'”Looking at the trend lines here, the first hit seems to have been the Vietnam War, circa 1967-8. The biggest hit seems to have come with Watergate. Since then, the confidence has not returned, but has on the whole slowly continued to slide.

Nor is it just government. Trust in all other social institutions seems also to have fallen over the same period: in the press, the churches, the schools, the professions. What we are seeing here, in sum, is a sense of declining morality within the ruling class.

I fear this lack of confidence is probably justified: those on top have increasingly become immoral and self-seeking over this period. One might hypothesize that they were always this immoral, and the only difference is increased scrutiny. But I don't think the evidence supports this. In 1960, anyone of prominence in the US would at least have given lip service to the truth and importance of morality. Now, much conventional morality, and even at times the very idea of morality, is openly scorned among the gentry.

It is a very bad portent for the health of the US. The single greatest asset any society can have is a general confidence in the social contract; a basic trust, a gentlemen's code of conduct that need not be enforced by law. Losing it is the difference between America and, say, Paraguay.

If gentlemen cannot be counted upon to be gentlemen, no amount of law enforcement can make much difference. For who then can trust the police?

If the majority of people believe those in control are merely out for themselves, this justifies them in turn in ignoring any rules that do not seem to be for their own personal benefit.

Society collapses into the primordial war of all against all.

In the meantime, any rival society that can do better than this is certain to conquer.

Perhaps the only thing that preserves America in its preeminence now is the equal or greater decadence of all visible competition.