Jeffrey Miller wrote: >Democracies are corruption-free. > >Democracies wherein elections occur with only 1 viable candidate are not >elections. > >Neither of these feel like sound statements (Corruption free? excuse >me: Enron, Monica, S&L, Iran-Contra, Watergate...) but I'm not quite >able to grasp why, or what the argument behind these statements are. >Normally I'd ignore it, but this person is A) extremely forceful in >their belief, B) unwilling to make the argument other than say ,"I'm >right you're wrong" or some varient thereof and C) is someone who is >generally well regarded on the list. Can anyone shed a little light on >the thinking behind this for me? tia > Just a stab in the dark, but I'd say you might have answered your own question - Enron, S&L, Iran-Contra etc (I don't know that Monica was a corruption per-se, more of a moral thing unless she was whispering political advice in his ear) have all been exposed, analysed and investigated at consdiderable length. In many cases these corruptions brought on real change to prevent re-occurrences, and in many cases just the fear of exposure has prevented re-occurrence. In a non democratic state, say PRC or former USSR, these things would never have been brought out and followed up. They're still wrong, nothing is corruption-free - but democracies certainly reduce corruption more than any other model we've seen. As for single candidate elections, it depends on why there is only one viable candidate - if others were given the chance and didn't step forward, then it counts in my mind. If others were prevented or dissuaded from running, it isn't... IMHO...
Cheers Russell C.
