I go back and forth on this myself.

I'm the first to admit my ignorance of such topics to be completely honest.

However, what I've noticed about myself as I've become more wealthy is that I'm less corruptible.

I've always had a strong moral backbone, sure, but I've noticed that I am less likely to do things that compromise what I want to do, as I've become more rich.

So, maybe you need your politicians to be somewhat rich and numerous, in order to prevent external pressure from people who have an incentive to bribe *ahem*... sorry.. "lobby".

Getting rich already means you have a higher drive from greed, allowing greedy people in positions of power doesn't mean it makes them less corruptible just that the corruption is on a higher level and degree. Instead of an official taking a bribe on a briefcase full of cash there are layers of indirection, contracts between companies, some kind of trust somewhere that benefits from it, someone gets employed in a position of power like the board of some company, etc.

It's funny because I grew up in a very corrupt country (Brazil), nowadays when I compare the corruption I saw there with developed countries I've lived at the main difference is how brazen and shameless it is in Brazil while in developed places it has more layers to be stuffed into, and veneers attached to it to hide it away.

> Getting rich already means you have a higher drive from greed

I know tons of people who work at NVidia for whom this isn’t true. They love working on hardware and suddenly we’re worth 8 figures because of the rise of the stock.

Getting rich as an employee from a lucky draw at employment is very different than how the vast majority of politicians got rich.

I don't believe this kind of nitpicking helped to further any discussion around the main point I made.

>So, maybe you need your politicians to be somewhat rich and numerous, in order to prevent external pressure from people who have an incentive to bribe ahem... sorry.. "lobby".

And how's that been working out?

Everything is comparative.

What are we comparing to?

> However, what I've noticed about myself as I've become more wealthy is that I'm less corruptible.

I think the difference is, what was your goal? If your goal was something other than getting rich, then it can go the way it did for you. But if your goal was to get rich, if you went into politics because you thought that you could make a lot of money around the edges there, then the more you rise in power, the more opportunities there will be for corruption.

Character matters. It matters for everyone, and it matters in particular for politicians.

"serve society"? More like help themselves to the loot, while driving society to the ground...

Yet when some claim the public sector is corrupt, filled with looters and should therefore be cut, the opposition demands that the public sector should be expanded instead.

Bloomberg was the best mayor NYC has had in a long time. The less wealthy ones have generally been far more corrupt.

That this is how you think says a lot about you and nothing about them. The very wealthy people I know are largely focused on charity work and family.

But they are already rich, so the only thing they've been concentrating on is wealth preservation of their own class. To what consequences is quite nicely laid out by the blog post by Jeff.

This perhaps says more about you than them. Most rich people I know donate money to science and build hospitals.

That would still require what GP is suggesting, no?

1%'ers don't have to worry about the price of groceries nor affordable housing; they can just brute-force whatever they desire through excessive wealth.

At least, that's the impression I get from the millionaires I know. Perhaps not all are like this (they gathered their wealth primarily via private equity) but I have no reason to think politicians would be any different.

The rich care as much as much about how the price of groceries leads to social unrest as you do, maybe more.

There are jerks everywhere. Most very wealthy people I know fund science and hospitals.

That's the third time you've posted this exact line. You're starting to sound like a shill, and an uncreative one at that.