CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-All educated people have heard Lord Acton’s quote from 1887, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” One interesting aspect of Lord Acton’s statement is that it took thousands of years for someone to concisely state what everyone knew. It’s the lesson behind Sodom and Gomorrah where the judges were named Liar, Deceiver, and Perverter of the law. Socrates’, Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussions on how to bring together wisdom and power yielded no solution. As the Arab political philosopher al-Farabi noted in his parable of the pious ascetic, the corruption power brings taints even the righteous. (The ascetic had to lie by acts of deception to save his life.)
The Declaration of Independence addressed the power issue by proclaiming that all persons have certain inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which was a great step forward from England’s James I who based his government on the Divine Right of Kings. After the U.S. Constitution made the “securing of the blessings of liberty” as a primary basis for the government, de Tocqueville warned us in 1832 in Democracy in America, that most people prefer to be slaves under Equality than to withstand the rigors of Freedom.
Why Is Corruption Bad?
Corruption ignores Quality of Life. When power is concentrated in the hands of a few councilmembers who operate according to a criminal vote trading system, devoted to making a handful of patrons vastly more wealthy, there is no room to worry about the Quality of Life of Angelenos.
Corruption always diverts society’s wealth to the powerful. All members of society contribute to the creation of wealth, but when a few billionaires control the government, 90% of the productivity is diverted to the top 1%. The proper name for this type of Progressivism is “thievery.”
But Once Again, What’s So Bad about Corruption?
LA’s media powerhouses tell us, “Prince Eric and his Lords and Ladies are surely wiser and better informed than the ignorant serfs and peons. Thus, the decisions they make must be in everyone’s best interests.” But what do the facts tells us?
USC Equity Mavens’ recent report fretted over the plight of LA’s Coloreds, los hombrecitos de color, the people of color. WOW! People of color! I guess if one lives long enough, everything come back into vogue. After all, Judge Roy Moore singled out slavery as an idealized time in American history to which he wishes we could revert. But I digress.
According to the USC Equity Mavens, starting in 1980, Los Angeles became a colored city where “people of color” became the majority. The reason to call out the USC Equity report for its racist approach is that its policies exemplify how unconstrained power has led to corruption which has made “los hombrecitos de color” increasingly poor while transferring more wealth to the unproductive leeches at the top of the corruption pyramid.
Quality of Life Plays No Role in Land Use Decisions
When one is familiar with the land use decisions made by the City of Los Angeles over the prior decades, one finds that Quality of Life is not a factor. Rather, Developer Profits set the agenda.
One problem with allowing a cadre of corrupt officials to set the policies is that they are extremely myopic. Filled with the hubris of power, they believe that anything they decide must be correct. If the goal of Angelenos were to be the most park-poor large city in the nation, then the City Council is doing well. If it’s increasing Los Angeles’ traffic congestion from serious to the worst in the entire world, then they win the gold medal. If making People of Color increasingly poor is their goal, then the councilmembers are champions.
The significant difference between feudal times and today is that present-day serfs and peons have geographic mobility. Although Los Angeles became People of Color in 1980, recently, Blacks have been leaving. Since 2000, LA has grown by 3.1 percent, or more than 360,000 people, while the Black population has declined by 11.4 percent, or nearly 106,000 people. (Oct 16, 2016 The New Feudalism by O’Toole) Mexicans are also leaving and being replaced by people from Central America. (No, Mexico is not part of Central America.) Two major policies have made life untenable for the poor: (1) Housing costs and (2) Increased mass transit.
Even though the destruction of single family homes devastates Los Angeles’ People of Color more than it does for Whites (USC Equity Report p. 67), the City is renewing its Gentrification in Boyle Heights and South LA with the promise that they will warehouse the displaced coloreds in high rise public housing.
And even though the cost of mass transit exerts an extreme hardship on the poor, the powerful have conned us into spending far more than $200 billion on mass transit. They falsely proclaim that it benefits the poor, but the facts show that only one type of transportation truly benefit the poor: owning a car. If city officials wanted to improve the employment opportunities for poor people, they would subsidize auto ownership. Cars allow people to reach schools and jobs within a reasonable amount of time. Even USC Equity Mavens admit that “18 percent of Black households and 11 percent of Latino households do not have access to a car.” (Equity Report p. 67.)
If that $200 billion were allotted at $15,000 per family, it would provide a car for 13.33 million families. At 2.3 people per family, 36.67 million Angelenos would benefit!
Nonetheless, the Equity Mavens, with their powerful backers in the housing and mass transit industries, propose more mass public housing and more mass public transit and less car ownership. These housing and transportation policies have already given us a GINI Coefficient of 0.50, making LA the worst large city. There is a reason that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Power Corrupts, but Corruption Destroys
The criminal enterprise at City Hall is making LA into a Third World country as evidenced by our increasingly atrocious GINI Coefficient. The USC Equity Mavens are still pushing the charade, “I’m here from the government to help you.” The sole bright light is that the “peoples of color” are likewise realizing that the time to leave LA has arrived.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
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