# The US is more corrupt than most developing countries **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 20, 2018, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791 "2018-04-20T16:23:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/41 "2018-04-21T08:16:36Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > If the most old-fashioned of the long-ago Mafia leaders could be brought back from the dead and dropped off in Washington, would they cringe at how sleazy everything and everyone is? I have a feeling they might. There’s none of the old-fashioned “honor” to make Washington work the way Washington is set up to work. . According to law US enforcement officers who were undercover in the mafia in the 50s -80s the so called Mafia code of honor is a complete hollywood fabrication, and the mafia would eat their young. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/42 "2018-04-21T10:49:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 Do we understand that the super-rich are a different group of people from the rich? > > Wrong. The point was that the corrupt system favors the super-rich. Your comparison of voting by the poor and the merely rich was a confused digression. > > Or maybe you think David Koch and a typical successful dentist have similar life-styles and similar political sentiments; is that it? 😕 You really don’t want to respond to my excellent point, do you? There is a notable difference between how poor and rich people vote, so I ask why anyone should expect the results of elections to be substantially different under a new campaign finance system so as to result in policies that are better for the non-rich. To which you are only willing to reply, “Bu-bu-bu-but the SUPER RICH blah blah blah!” That is an emotional reply to a good question, not a reasoned one. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/43 "2018-04-21T16:01:37Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I didn’t check — is that the page you cited in a recent thread but, when interesting characteristics of the data were pointed out, you then claimed that the rankings in your own cited page _overestimated_ corruption in the U.S. and _underestimated_ corruption in China. That page, right? Post #19 is the only cite I’ve seen in this thread so far that gives rankings. And yeah, it’s similar to the one I used before in another thread we were discussing this same subject in. I never said that the US was overestimated, I did say that I thought China should be ranked higher (i.e. more corrupt), but that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/44 "2018-04-21T19:35:20Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > At the time it was happening, i.e., when Enron was fraudulently manipulating the energy prices, I don’t think Enron was a well-known company. It was only after everything came to light that it became well-known, so in this case I don’t see the unawareness as unusual, or unusually American. I can’t reconstruct the chronology of that conversation, but I do remember that Enron’s chicanery was very well known to me at the time; and (living abroad) the _New York Times International Edition_ was then my main (almost my only) source of such types of information. The person I talked to was intelligent, well educated, and with relatively active progressive politics. A claim was made that Americans are very well aware of the corruption in their country. _In my experience the exact opposite is the case._ It is _other_ countries where citizens are aware of corruption and fight to reduce it. In the U.S., it is mainly radicals on the left and on the right who decry corruption and each of those groups tends to misidentify where the real corruption problems are. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/45 "2018-04-21T21:36:49Z")
Corruption as it applies to govts means you have to pay people in power, into their pockets, to exercise the power of govt on your behalf (rightly or wrongly, have to pay the police to rightly leave you alone when you didn’t anything illegal, or be able to pay the police to wrongly leave you alone when they know you did do something illegal). I think the distinction between that and campaign finance regulation should be fairly clear in fact, as opposed to worked up rhetoric. But especially if in practice there are fact patterns like: 1. a lot of the money in political campaigns doesn’t come from narrow interests. Especially assuming we count unions not as narrow interests based on the relatively large number of their members. But anyway a lot comes from small individual donations. 2. standardized international comparisons of corruption count cases, insofar as info is available, where bribes are paid under the guise of political contributions. 3. the only somewhat strong relationship between campaign spending and getting elected. 4. that very rich individuals often use (mainly) their own money to finance campaigns. This by definition doesn’t include (actually) corrupt quid pro quo’s between themselves and donors. And it’s much more in the territory of runaway rhetoric to call it ‘corrupt’ that voters are influenced by campaign ads, to the extent they are. Stupid people’s vote counts as much as smart people’s vote, that’s democracy. Having ‘neutral arbiters’ limit campaigning because people will fall for false ads is just less democratic. Not that ‘less democratic’ to any degree from any starting point always equates with ‘bad’, but that part of the equation, ads’ influence on voters, has nothing to do with corruption. The possible nexus with corruption is things promised to donors specifically for money politicians _believe_ will get them elected. There are gray areas obviously, but the other unsupported assertion is that those gray areas wrt campaign finance happen less often relatively in countries more and less corrupt than the US in standard rankings than the rankings would suggest. IOW arguable but not clearcut quid pro quo corruption in campaign finance might happen less in Finland than the US, but so does real corruption. It might happen more in Mexico, but so does real corruption. Comparing to China, or Thailand, is ridiculous. Those countries are ruled illegitimately by force, absolutely in China’s case and by a pattern of de facto army vetoes over election results in Thailand’s case. Scoring that as an improvement over flawed democracy (even in countries where it’s much more flawed than the US) is upside down, aside from whether flaws in democracy are necessarily ‘corruption’. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/46 "2018-04-22T03:30:36Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > According to law US enforcement officers who were undercover in the mafia in the 50s -80s the so called Mafia code of honor is a complete hollywood fabrication, and the mafia would eat their young. I think you’re misunderstanding (and the officers most certainly were). The “honor” in the Mafia was never what you and I think of as honor - that’s why I put it in scare quotes. Mafia “honor” is exactly the same “honor” that drives a man in rural Pakistan to murder his sister because she has given the family a bad name by having the gall to get raped. It is also exactly the same “honor” that creates the culture of lies and coercion and cover-ups in police forces and the military - therefore the undercover officers quoted were either deliberately misunderstanding the question or were just not very bright. I’m saying that maybe without the threats and terror of that kind of culture, bribes are given and taken with impunity, and with no thought for any consequences beyond the day of receiving the “donation”. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/47 "2018-04-22T23:43:07Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > So first, I will stipulate: > > I have lived in multiple developing countries. I have done business in multiple developing countries. I know corruption there is real and exists, and have had it personally affect both personal and business finances multiple times. > > My contention however, is that the corruption in the US is worse than corruption in the developing world, for a number of reasons. It impacts more people domestically and abroad, it is deeply entrenched and becoming stronger, and it happens in big, population-wide ways versus the petty, local ways corruption happens in most of the developing world. > > And sure, at this point you may say “But **TI** , I’ve lived my whole life here and have never once had to bribe a crooked cop, politician, or bureaucrat! How could the US possibly be more corrupt than countries where that’s a frequent fact of life?” > > Because the US is corrupt in giant systemic ways that screw you and everyone else all the time, in less visible ways, and this trend has been accelerating. > > Just focusing on a single symptom covers a lot of it: > > 1. Citizens United means money = speech in politics. As in, the more dollars you have, the louder you can yell and the more people can hear you, while anyone with notably less money just plain doesn’t get heard. > > The consequences: > We are an oligopoly run by millionaires and billionaires, FOR millionaires and billionaires. > > a. The presidential election costs $2 - $2.5 billion dollars overall, with individual candidates spending between $400M - $900M on the race. In other words, assuming the average presidential candidate has a year to raise funds, they need to raise $86k continuously every hour on the hour for a year straight to even run. That doesn’t include sleeping, eating, doing their current job, or anything else. > > b. To become a senator costs an individual senator $10M+ on average, and a congress critter needs to spend ~$2M. So again assuming a year, they a senator needs to raise $27k a day literally every day, snow or shine, and a congress critter needs to raise $5k every day. > > How much thought, listening to constituents, legislation, and good jurisprudence do you think you could put in if you had to raise $27k a day or $86k an hour? And because money = speech, when some nice lobbyists come in with suitcases of the cash that you need, suitcases that are saying they want X law or Y change or care about Z issue, how likely are you to say no? > > There is a major tragedy of the commons here, because frequently XYZ are not in the best interests of the public, and bear some cost to us. But because politicians live or die based on their funding, as long as it’s not something that will immediately garner overwhelming negative opprobrium from the public at large, they are extremely likely to take the money and pass XYZ changes. > > Rinse and repeat for decades, and you have where we are now, with more expensive healthcare than anyone else and worse health outcomes, global warming an irrefutably major problem that is “controversial” thanks to corporate interests, the most comically overfunded military in the world bleeding literally trillions to “stabilize” the middle east (spoiler alert: it hasn’t worked), oligopolies in cable, internet, and phone providers, the FDA making net neutrality illegal, tax cuts that benefit 97% of people making $500k and higher to the tune of ~$50k, and much more that is frequently discussed on this message board. > > c. More than 2/3 of the senate and more than 50% of Congress are personal millionaires. 3% of US people (4% of US households) are millionaires. How aligned are our interests with our leaders? Leaders who have to raise at a minimum tens of thousands every week, and hundreds of thousands every month? They’re sure not getting that money from the 96% of us who aren’t millionaires! Why should they care what we want? > > Oh, votes. Yeah. Those things which are easily manipulable by having a 2 party system where the only viable candidates are wholly owned by corporate interests, and where you can choose between “middle right economic and social policies” corporate toady #1 and “far right economic and social policies” corporate toady #2. But we have a bunch of specious wedge issues like “gun control” and “gay marriage” and “abortions” and “environmentalism” that we can use our hundreds of millions of dollars of speech to convince you to vote with, all without having to compromise our corporate ownership and governance by and for millionaires! > > Sure, you haven’t had to deal with corruption in a personal and direct way in your life, but that’s only because you don’t personally have or control suitcases of cash to wave around under politician’s noses. The corruption here is taking nibbles out of everyone in small indirect ways that in the aggregate make our lives worse and more limited but which benefit corporation A or individual B with millions or billions to throw around. > > So to develop my thesis — is it better to live in a country where you have a 20% chance of having to pay a policeman a $20 bribe over some trumped up problem with your taillights in any given year, or one in which 250k - 500k people declare bankruptcy due to medical reasons per year and EVERYONE pays more than 2x more than everywhere else in the world for medical treatment? > > Is it better to live in a country where the 5% of people wanting to start a new business can’t start a business without greasing the right bureaucrats’ hands, or where the 90% of people with internet coverage just got screwed by ISP’s who are going to now own and sell all their browsing and demographic info because they specifically paid for laws and regulators to make that legal? > > Is it better to live in a country where the 10% of the people buying property that year have to go through a long paperwork process that involves multiple steps and bribes to “expedite” the purchase, or where the 99% not making $500k a year are paying (via debt and reduced services) for the 1% making more than $500k to get a $50k tax cut? > > Would you rather live in a country where your leaders blow some of your tax dollars on pork-barrel projects for their millionaire buddies but spend 3% of spending on healthcare and 1% on the military, or one where they blow some of your tax dollars on pork-barrel projects for their millionaire buddies but spend 6% of discretionary spending on healthcare and 54% on the military? > > And the best part is, it’s probably not going to change. Wedge issues, 2 party lock-in, and increasingly fine-tuned and ubiquitous information and targeting algorithms will allow them to spend their hundreds of millions of marketing dollars in ever more precise and impactful ways to get the vote out while not making any substantive changes that could address any of this, and we’re the ones left holding the bag. > > Corruption in the developing world is largely petty and local - corruption in the US is population-wide and inescapable, and is only becoming more entrenched as our millionaire leaders lead us into a future of more laws and regulations that benefit corporations and their wealthy cohort at the expense of the rest of us. Thus: the US is more corrupt than the developing world. Money equals the press has been true forever. How is that corrupt? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/48 "2018-04-22T23:43:26Z")
I think there is logical problem here… Yes, I would agree the US has a problem with political contributions, and the culture of political contributions in the US has crossed a line (i.e. fairly blatant quid pro quo) that in most western countries would be corruption. But it is also true that on the whole the US government and all its various subsidiary arms and bureaucracies is not that corrupt. For all the faults of the US government your average US civil servant might not be paragon of efficiency and civic virtue but they probably aren’t just using their position as a means to corruptly enrich themselves and people they know, via bribes and outright theft (not that it doesn’t happen but it is not the norm). In many developing countries it is completely the norm that civil servants consider their position a means to corruptly enrich themselves and people they know. In ADDITION to that it is also true that politicians in those countries are just as beholden to fundraisers as US politicians. Except the fundraising is just likely to be for their mansion or luxury car as for their political ads. So, no, the US is not more corrupt than most developing countries. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/49 "2018-04-23T04:11:02Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Not having lived in any developing countries I may have the wrong impression, but I thought that in countries with widespread small-scale corruption, corruption continues all the way to the top and everything is about knowing the right people. Could you give us an example of a country where politics is “purer” than in the US, but where there is corruption in everyday life? Making the OP’s argument about “purity” is completely missing the point. It is, rather, about cumulative effects. The USA’s particular type of normalized corruption has very dangerous large-scale effects, and _directly impedes_ the ability of democratic processes to correct it. South Africa has a notoriously corrupt government. They may get rid of it, though. When will the USA be rid of the two-party system and pay-to-play politics? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/50 "2018-04-23T13:13:42Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Making the OP’s argument about “purity” is completely missing the point. It is, rather, about cumulative effects. The USA’s particular type of normalized corruption has very dangerous large-scale effects, and _directly impedes_ the ability of democratic processes to correct it. > > South Africa has a notoriously corrupt government. They may get rid of it, though. When will the USA be rid of the two-party system and pay-to-play politics? I get that people _really_ want to discuss the issues with the US political system, but the OP didn’t say that third world corrupt politics would be easier to reform, he said US politics _is_ more corrupt. There are plenty of threads where one can discuss the issues of money in US politics without having to jump through hoops to defend a flawed OP. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/51 "2018-04-23T19:26:37Z")
> [@naita](#): > > I get that people _really_ want to discuss the issues with the US political system, _That’s literally what this thread is about._ > [@](#): > > but the OP didn’t say that third world corrupt politics would be easier to reform, he said US politics _is_ more corrupt. In that the corruption is vaster in consequence, more deeply rooted, and even defended by its people. Which seems true of its electoral politics if less so of its police and courts. But the USA’s police are still practicing asset forfeiture without due process, and everybody lets them. When the politics is corrupted, the country follows. > [@](#): > > There are plenty of threads where one can discuss the issues of money in US politics without having to jump through hoops to defend a flawed OP. The issue is that in much of the USA, corruption is completely normalized. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/52 "2018-04-23T19:48:16Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > The issue is that in much of the USA, corruption is completely normalized. I keep asking this question, but it seems to be ignored. What do you think would change, policy-wise, in this country if the campaign finance system were better? Like, what bills do you think would be passed that today cannot, or vice versa? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/53 "2018-04-23T19:58:27Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > _That’s literally what this thread is about._ _In relation to “most developing countries”._ That’s _specifically_ what the thread is about. The OP has given zero examples of countries he finds better, and you yourself only came up with “South Africa _could_ clean up.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/54 "2018-04-25T02:11:01Z")
I just don’t think it is true that US is more corrupt than most other countries. Many countries have politicians that act in their own interest or on behalf of influential groups. But this is scrutinized in countries with an independent media, debated on public forums, occasionally criticized in books or satirized on late night television. Not every country has a mostly independent media, books on the Trumps and Kochs, allows entertainers like Colbert or public criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/55 "2018-04-25T14:08:08Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I keep asking this question, but it seems to be ignored. What do you think would change, policy-wise, in this country if the campaign finance system were better? Like, what bills do you think would be passed that today cannot, or vice versa? Single-payer health care for one. Money, especially that which comes from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, is what’s keeping the US in the dark ages healthcarewise. Gun control is prevented by money from the NRA and gun manufacturers. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/56 "2018-04-25T20:03:25Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Not every country has a mostly independent media, books on the Trumps and Kochs, allows entertainers like Colbert or public criticism. Absolute monarchs had court jesters too. Is the USA more corrupt than Malawi or South Africa? I don’t know. But the USA is very successfully and determinedly corrupt. And its corruption extends to using its state power to serve private businesses’s interest against other states. The USA’s corruption has many, many victims, both within and without its borders. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/57 "2018-04-25T20:18:32Z")
> [@Mr.Duality](#): > > Single-payer health care for one. Money, especially that which comes from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, is what’s keeping the US in the dark ages healthcarewise. I disagree. Opposition from the public ran deep for a long time, which is thankfully starting to change, but I don’t believe that campaign contributions from those industries managed to influence the opinion of a majority of Americans until quite recently. And note, that opinions on single payer healthcare are changing in the last few years, the same period during which independent expenditures are exploding. If campaign spending by those industries made a difference in public opinion, when it looks like spending by that industry increased by ~40% from 2008 to 2016. [https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=H](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=H) ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/58 "2018-04-25T20:33:13Z")
I missed a few words there, and needed more clarity. “If campaign spending by those industries made a difference in public opinion, it should be in the opposite direction to the recent trend, because it looks like spending by the healthcare industry increased by ~40% from 2008 to 2016.” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/59 "2018-04-26T02:48:28Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I disagree. Opposition from the public ran deep for a long time, which is thankfully starting to change, but I don’t believe that campaign contributions from those industries managed to influence the opinion of a majority of Americans until quite recently. > > And note, that opinions on single payer healthcare are changing in the last few years, the same period during which independent expenditures are exploding. If campaign spending by those industries made a difference in public opinion, when it looks like spending by that industry increased by ~40% from 2008 to 2016. > [https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=H](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=H) American public opinion is irrelevant. Paying Congresscritters for their ears and votes [is relevant.](http://fortune.com/2018/04/25/cfpb-mick-mulvaney-pay-to-play/) [The US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746) ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791/60 "2018-04-26T10:46:27Z")
> [@Mr.Duality](#): > > American public opinion is irrelevant. Paying Congresscritters for their ears and votes [is relevant.](http://fortune.com/2018/04/25/cfpb-mick-mulvaney-pay-to-play/) [The US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746) It is relevant, because if you’re asserting that our broken campaign finance system prevents good policies from being enacted, I think you need to find examples of proposals that have public support but elite opposition. Single payer health care had poor support among the public until recently, as well as poor support among elites. Interestingly, even as healthcare industry campaign spending goes up, more Dems are starting to support a single payer system - a proposal that wasn’t on the table eight years ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-is-more-corrupt-than-most-developing-countries/812791.md?page=4)