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What is Rawls' Answer to Corruption?

This column illustrates why I'm a libertarian:It's easy to look at the Blagojevich case and see a failure of personal ethics. It is about character. But it's also about how government itself creates the very conditions for corruption. Think of all the special privileges governors can bestow: subsidies for stadiums, public-works contracts, special taxes and fees, not to mention myriad regulations with myriad loopholes. Chief executives ? mayors, governors, and presidents ? are supposed to be the chief enforcers of the law. Today, though, they are also chief bestowers of privileges. As such, the trading of favors is intense, leaving little bandwidth for actual public service. Society loses. The larger the government, the more opportunities for corruption...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).