Must reads rationales and citations

Must reads rationales

 Jonathan Rauch: Rauch's explanations best match my 
 actual experiences working Washington.  The problem 
 is not simply that money corrupts politics.  The 
 problem is that interests fight much harder for 
 policies that are beneficial to them than the general 
 public will fight for policies that are good for 
 everyone.  If an interest gains ten million dollars 
 from a regulation at the expense of ten cents from 
 every tax payer, that interest will fight harder than 
 all the tax payers combined.  After all, each tax 
 payer has no incentive to lead a fight, as they would 
 only gain 10 cents.  This applies whether it's a big 
 media company advocating restrictive copyright laws 
 or NASA arguing for money for projects that do not do 
 anything.

Jackall: From isen's review: Moral Mazes, "is written as if 
the observer had just parachuted into a Fijian out-island 
or the Stone-Age Lacandon jungle.  But the bizarre alien 
culture of this book happens to be that of the big, modern, 
unreconstructed American corporation . . . " It describes 
how a different -- an outside observer might well call it 
corrupt -- morality emerges from managers' roles within. 
Aaron Swartz, pulls this quote in his review
of  Moral Mazes, where a manager describes his own decision process:
 "People are always calculating how others will see
 the decisions they make. ... They know that they have to gauge
 not just the external . . . market consequences of a decision, 
 but the internal political consequences. And sometimes you 
 can make the right market decision, but it can be the wrong 
 political decision."
Here's another good review of Moral Mazes.

Moral Mazes draws this picture: corruption emerges from an system 
of local, internalized norms and values, where ordinary people 
driven by ordinary motives (desire for approval, acceptance, 
recognition, power, reward etc.) willingly define their roles
in terms of the internal context.

Here's another recent relevant blog post.

Chomsky: Key quotes, (or see Chomsky details): Professor Noam Chomsky is said to be the most quoted living author, and the 8th most quoted of all time. As a professional in linguistics, he uses words in very powerful and persuasive ways. He appears to have made a second vocation of challenging authority. His view of "Corruption" is:

I think that the United States has been in kind of a pre-fascist mood for years -- and we've been very lucky that every leader who's come along has been a crook. See, people should always be very much in favor of corruption -- I'm not kidding about that. Corruption's a very good thing, because it undermines power ... if somebody shows up who's kind of a Hitler-type -- just wants power, no corruption, straight, makes it all sound appealing, and says, "We want power" -- well, then we'll all be in very bad trouble.

 Thurrow: tbd

 Foucault:  What is the proper conduct of the prince?
 Well, what exactly does that question mean today and how
 did we arrive at today's understanding of that 
 question?

 Lasch:  How did we get here?

 Solzhenitsyn:  This is not just a history book, but rather a cautionary tale of corruption and
 regrettably of similarities in addition to differences.

 Hayek: The systematic study of the forms of legal institutions which will make the competitive
 system work efficiently has been sadly neglected; and strong arguments can be advanced that
 serious shortcomings here, particularly with regards to the law of corporations and of patents,
 not only have made competition work much less effectively than it might have done but have even
 led to the destruction of competition in many spheres.

 Friedman: Why Special Interests Prevail [...] Why are the results of policies so often the 
 opposite of their ostensible objectives? Why do special interests prevail over the general  
 interest? What devices can we use to stop and reverse the process?

 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy:  The theme of "corruption" as a destructive element 
 in the history of Ancient Rome pervades the Discourses.  What Machiavelli means by "corruption" 
 is debatable, and debated.  Of particular interest may be the connection between eras of 
 corruption and popular "tumults" which Machiavelli argued could serve as correctives to corruption.

 Diggins:  Traces influence of Machiavelli on American political thought, in particular with regard 
 to attempts of, inter alia, Madison, Thoreau, Lincoln, and Emerson to wed individual 
 self-interest with the common good as motivated by moral responsibility to country.

 Dewey:  A classic work about the challenges of uniting diffuse individuals and inchoate groups
 into a well-defined "public" capable of advancing their shared interests. This one is especially 
 interesting when read in conjunction with some of Hayek's writings, because, like Hayek, 
 Dewey has an epistemological bent, viewing social problems primarily as problems of knowledge, 
 communication, and coordination.
   

 North:  A short, non-technical read that uses a transaction costs approach to examine the 
 development of political, economic, and social institutions. Here are a few passages that seem 
 especially relevant: "The evolution of polities from single absolute rulers to democratic
 governments is typically conceived as a move toward greater political efficiency.... But
 it would be wrong to assert that the result is efficient political markets in the same sense as we
 mean efficient economic markets. The existence of efficient economic markets entails 
 competition so strong that, via arbitrage and information feedback, one approximates
 the Coase zero transaction cost conditions. Such markets are scarce enough in the economic world
 and ever scarcer in the political world. (p. 51)" "[T]here are immense scale economies in 
 policing and enforcing agreements by a polity that acts as a third party and uses coercion to 
 enforce agreements. But therein lies the fundamental dilemma.... How does one get the state to
 behave like an impartial third party? (p. 58) "Put simply, if the state has coercive force,
 then those who run the state will use that force in their own interest at the expense of the
 rest of the society. (p. 59)"

Olson: The seminal work on collective action problems.

Schattschneider: A classic of American political science, Semisovereign argues that the pressure system has an upper-class bias. I can't do this book justice from memory; Larry, it's less than 150 pages: you owe it to yourself to read (or re-read) this book.

Sutherland: The causes of corruption are frequently latent, hidden in human psychology. Sutherland's immensely readable Irrationality explains the most common modes of irrational behavious in humans, and how they can cause organisations to act in irrational ways. I believe that irrationality and bias are probably more insidious and widespread causes of corruption than greed or self-interest. I'd recommend reading this one first: many of the other books listed assume rational behaviour. This book explains why this is a dangerous assumption. It also suggests ways in which biases and irrationality can, in practice, be countered.

Must reads citations (for more obscure materials)

 Foucault: "Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984,
 Volume III" (James D. Faubion, ed.; Robert Hurley
 et al, tr.; Paul Rabinow, series ed.)

 Hayek: "The Road to Serfdom" Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, p. 43

 Friedman: "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement", First Harvest Edition, 1990, p. 290