I'm not strictly talking about the crime of corruption. I'm talking about corruption of our morals, business leadership values, the relationship of business to their communities, and ultimately it has manifested in widespread, persistent and destabilizing distrust in institutions. Call it decadence if the word fits the mind better. Still this is a huge subject that best comes in the form of book recommendations but I'll talk high level which is what I was aiming for anyway.
Right. I'd argue even defining corruption is pretty malleable nowadays. There were eras where there was epidemic 'cash passed in envelopes' corruption. But our parents/grandparents grew up in a nation that had far more civic responsibility burned into their bones. Even then we saw convicted "dirty politicians" taking bribes. And they were convicted in greater numbers in the past. At one point it was seen as deeply unpatriotic and law enforcement did a good job of investigating it. The rub then is why did convictions become less prevalent? Did politicians become more ethical. I think we know that isn't true. I'd argue more that now you don't need to take a bribe anymore. Congresscritters and politicians are often wealthier when they come to Congress now. If not, the revolving door pays eventually. Or get payment via through family members.I think we also need to define what we mean by corruption and what "past selves" we are talking about, specifically.
For instance, would a modern day Jim Trafficant stuff his freezer with cash or instead see a spouse land a half million dollar consulting gig upon election? And we just saw Cruz got SCOTUS to sign off on his campaign loan/indirect bribe scheme.
I'd call that corruption of a sort but it's been blessed. Anyway one of the things I think about is how much should we trust corruption figures from a system that runs like this? The corruption is baked into this system. I think our "past selves" would clearly recognize that this as clear corruption but we're all boiled frogs now. Well sort of because I think the best proxy metric is trust in institutions. It is the lens through we can see how expectations for self-dealing behaviors deviate from the reality. At least that's one way I interpret it.
I honestly think it's true. America is in deep, deep (terminal IMO) decline as the nation we grew up in. I don't know how we restore faith in our institutions at this point without a major shake up. It just doesn't seem possible.It's an interesting thought, though.