It is a topic about which we hear much talk and see little action, the buzz word du jour, "transparency". It seems politicians, unlike past times, have finally been forced to admit corruption is rife in Washington, but, rather than try to prosecute offenders, or sniff out all the malefactors, the favored promise today is to "make the [fill in the blank] process transparent", by which they mean allowing the public to see all the steps so that corruption is not possible.

It is easy to see why this promise is so popular. First, unlike prosecution, it has little political risk. Promising to prosecute corrupt office holders runs the risk of upsetting peers or possibly risks sending some political allies to jail (or even one's self). A promise of "transparency" on the other hand is promise simply to prevent future corruption, doing nothing about past or present corruption. And even as a promise about the future, it is a rather hollow one. Yes, like all promises of future action it has the possibility of never being fulfilled, should voter attention waver or interest flag, but even better, if fulfilled it still is a pretty weak promise. After all, who is to say what is "transparent"? As political processes are complex, and largely unfamiliar to the public, it is quite easy to give the appearance of openness while still leaving many opportunities for horse trading, back room deals, and often a simple continuation of past corrupt practices. In even the most "transparent" processes there remain many opportunities for the savvy politician to pay off supporters, or make other politically or financially beneficial deals.

So, if "transparency" is such a hollow promise, then how to achieve real transparency? Or, should that prove impossible, or undesirable, how to prevent corruption?

Let us first look at "transparency" itself, and ask whether or not it is ever a desirable goal.

Throughout the history of democratic government, the one which expressed the most paranoia about cabals seizing power, and took the greatest number of steps to prevent such coups, was the Republic of Venice. Not only did they establish an incredibly elaborate process for selecting the Doge, but several steps included the simple drawing of lots in order to prevent even the most widespread of conspiracies. However, despite all their schemes to ensure there would never be rule by a small minority, the truth is throughout its entire life, Venice was always an oligarchy. The difference being that the system was designed to allow a large number of elite families to control government, while preventing a subset of those families form taking power from the rest. In other words, all the steps were there to keep the current oligarchy from being supplanted by a more restricted oligarchy.

And that probably best points out my problem with "transparency". Even if the system is set up perfectly, to allow total transparency for any given process, it is still designed by the very people who we want to control, and, more importantly, is a transparent piece within a larger, obscure process of politics as a whole. So, let us say, bids for defense contracts are made completely transparent. What is to prevent corrupt politicians from so orchestrating bid requirements to favor a chosen contractor? Or limit those bidding so that favored contractors win? Even if a given process is transparent, at the point where that transparency ends the possibility for corruption resumes. And, given the need to keep some government information confidential, either for security reasons or out of privacy concerns of constituents or politicians, we will never have total transparency. And that means, no matter what transparency we introduce, there will always be some obscured portions of government, allowing for corruption of the whole.

And that is why I think event he most sincere promises of transparency are worthless. Not just because allowing politicians to legislate transparency is like letting fox legislate hen house security procedures, but because even well meaning transparency must end somewhere, and that leaves an opening for corruption. It may take a little while for politicians to figure out how to work the new system, but as they stand to profit so much from figuring it out, it won't be long before they do.

Which brings us to the second half of the question. If transparency is not possible, or not desirable, then how do we fight government corruption?

The answer is simple, though not one many are willing to embrace. The way to stop corruption is to stop giving government powers that they can sell. For example, if government cannot give competitive advantage to one company through regulatory means, then there is no reason for any company to pay off the government. Similarly, if the government cannot establish quotas for imports, there is no reason for competing interests to bid against one another to ensure quotas are set in a way pleasing to them. So long as we give the government powers that are capable of benefiting or destroying various industries, those industries will continue to pay off the government.

Of course, even if we strictly limit the government to only those powers I describe in my post "My Vision of Government Part II", there is still some room for corruption, but it is much more limited in scope. Granted, firms may try to offer bribes to win military contracts or construction bids, but compared to the amounts they can make through protective quotas or regulatory actions, the amount that can be earned through rigged bids is rather small. And, if we are limited to a very minimal government, the number of such opportunities for corruption will be much smaller as well. So, in that case, open bids paired with rather aggressive investigation should be enough to keep corruption to a minimum.

The other difference is that the opportunities for corruption under a small government are obvious, rigged bids, kick backs, and so on, while in a massive government there are more opportunities for much more subtle corruption. For instance, should the same firm win every military supply contract it is rather obvious that one may want to investigate. However, if the same politician continues to vote for clean air bills, is it because he really believes in environmentalism, or because he was paid off by mining companies in states with low sulfur coal? (Or maybe by electric car manufacturers?) The more power the government has, the more, and less obvious, become the opportunities for corruption, and the greater the benefit and harm that can be inflicted by government decisions.

So, by keeping government as small as possible we do not completely eliminate corruption, but we do minimize the opportunities for corruption, and, more importantly, make the opportunities much more obvious and more easily watched. Of course that is hardly the best argument for smaller government, but it does make me wonder why those who are so interested in fighting corruption seem to have no problem with granting the state ever greater powers.