When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society,
they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it
and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frédéric Bastiat
...CEOs do not yet have “absolute” political power, but their power and corruption is rising steadily and has become so great that they are able to “plunder” with impunity.
...Tyler Cowen calls plutocracy and pervasive plunder a “hyper-meritocracy,” but it is a rule by the most unethical for the most venal of purposes and it is the greatest enemy of merit and justice.
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...[W]hen government uses its legal monopoly on coercion to confiscate one person’s property and give it to another, it is engaging in what would normally be called theft. Calling this immoral act “democracy,” “majority rule” or “progressive taxation” does not make it moral. Under democracy, rulers confiscate the income of productive members of society and redistribute it to various supporters in order to keep themselves in power.
In order to finance a campaign, a politician must promise to steal (i.e., tax) money from those who earned it and give it to others who have no legal or moral right to it. There are (very) few exceptions, but politicians must also make promises that they know they can never keep (i.e., lie).
This is why so few moral people are elected to political office.
The most successful politicians are those who are the least hindered by strong moral principles. They have the least qualms about confiscating other peoples’ property in order to maintain their own power, perks, and income. In his bestselling 1944 book, ‘The Road to Serfdom,’ Nobel laureate economist F.A. Hayek described this phenomenon in a chapter [10] entitled “Why the Worst Get on Top.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/bill-black-hayek-helped-worst-get-top-economics-ceos.html
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