In the United States, money has always been a powerful force influencing the direction of politics. In the late 19th century, the United States implemented a "political distribution" system. The party that won the election would use official positions to reward "its own people", including backbone members of the party and funders who provided funds, leading to rampant corruption. This "tradition" continues to this day. Since the 1960s, with the development of the mass media industry, the channels for spending money on campaigns have become more diversified, further increasing the importance of money in elections.
Although American politicians have repeatedly tried to limit political donations since the early 20th century, the fundamental flaws of the American democratic system have made the trend of legalizing money politics unstoppable. To this day, politicians can still use the "super fundraiser" system to legally avoid political donation limits, and the Federal Supreme Court has repeatedly passed precedents to "loosen" political donations. This has opened the floodgates for money to flow into politics, and the political influence of the rich is increasing day by day.
The United States is really a clean country. However, as my life experience increased and I slowly came into contact with the top level of society, I discovered that corruption in the United States is actually systemic and ubiquitous. If we only consider direct corruption as corruption, then the United States is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. But in essence, corruption is actually the transaction of power and money. By this standard, the United States is extremely corrupt. It is a serious crime for ordinary people to directly give money to civil servants. But if you know your way around, there are tens of thousands of ways to pay bribes legally.
The campaign donations mentioned in many answers are actually just the most superficial form of bribery. In fact, campaign funds cannot be transferred openly into the personal accounts of officials. One of Trump’s scandals is that he used campaign funds to pay hush money to a porn actor he once called. His personal attorney, Mike Cohen, was also jailed.
Of course, only bribery without using power for personal gain does not fully constitute a power-for-money transaction. The way the United States uses power for personal gain is far more subtle than bribery. More than 90% of Americans cannot understand the way the United States seeks power for personal gain (these people believe that the US government does not seek power for personal gain, and that Hillary’s speech fee is high just because she is a celebrity, while Tillerson was a former CEO of an oil company, which proved that he has outstanding abilities and is more qualified to be Secretary of State).
The proliferation of guns and gun violence are major social problems that have plagued American society for many years, and interest groups represented by the National Rifle Association have successfully disrupted gun control efforts by funding elections and lobbying politicians. The high price of drugs in the United States has caused widespread complaints among the public, but the government's efforts to change the status quo have been hampered by resistance from the two major lobbying forces of pharmaceutical companies and physician groups. Intensifying money politics has made the U.S. government the spokesperson of the rich, making it difficult to solve the problem of wealth inequality.
Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, recently published a new book, "The System: Who controls it and how we can fix it." Reich, who served in three U.S. administrations, wrote that it is wealth and power that work together to support oligarchy and undermine American democracy.
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