Is Any Established Organization Corrupt?

Scoffing at the idea of a Chinese Community Party “anti-corruption campaign,” a Falun Gong commentator observes that all Chinese Communist Party leaders are corrupt. It’s like the Mafia, he explains. Anyone who is not corrupt is a threat to the others. He will not be allowed to take any position of power. He will always be an outsider. To rise in the party, you must have blood on your hands.

This is probably true of any well-established organization. Human nature demands it. What could prevent it?

It is apparently also true of the leadership of the USA. We see the curtain raised, at least partially, on “Hellfire Clubs” at Epstein Island and at P. Diddy’s “white parties.” Anybody who was anybody was there. To enter the elite, you had to do something compromising. This ensured you would never blow the whistle on others. You were then trusted by the others and given positions of prominence and leadership.

Only this explains the desperate opposition to Trump: he was not compromised, and so was a threat to the others. It seems also to explain the desperate opposition, within the Democratic Party, to RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, either of whom would have been ideal standard-bearers for the party in electoral terms. They were not trusted to do the wrong thing. Conversely, it explains how Bernie Sanders, or Pete Buttigieg, fell so meekly into line and folded what looked like winning hands in the primary process. They must have been compromised; the elite club had some hold on them.

Further, Trump’s record of accomplishment since being re-elected suggests how much corruption has held the nation captive. There were always special interests acting against the common good. 

It seems clear there is a similar dynamic in the Conservative Party of Canada; and in the Liberal Party of Canada.

And of course in the hierarchy of the Catholic church. This is necessary to explain the pontificate of Francis, which seemed to be fighting against the interests of the church. It is an open secret.

There is a similar dynamic in the universities and schools; one is not admitted to faculty, or to certification, unless one asserts certain approved and obviously false dogmas. If not necessarily oneself openly immoral, one must openly endorse immorality.

There seems to be a similar dynamic in the professions.

How can one break this sort of corruption?

Democracy is designed for this. There is nothing magical about the will of the people; the majority is not always right. But a periodic popular vote serves as a counterbalance against control by a corrupt clique. Without it, China is trapped. With it, albeit with great difficulty, the US seems to have begun a process of cleaning up the swamp.

The free market is designed for this. Given open competition, virtue will be rewarded with more customers. The problem with the professions and the academies is that they are cartels, where democracy and the free market cannot do their magic.

For the church, we have the Bible, and past ecumenical councils, as an objective check. And we have a free market: if any one denomination becomes too openly corrupt, any individual parishioner can walk out the door, and across the street to a different church.

For the academies, the internet may be bringing us a solution. YouTube allows for open public debate among prominent academics. There is coming to be an open market in virtual lectures. 

For the professions, AI and greater access to information with the internet may at least diminish their influence. Indeed, they may largely or entirely disappear.