There are few Americans left who aren't in agreement that the degree of government corruption has reached staggering proportions. Our voices are united in vilifying the evil lobbyists of corporate America and the politicians who take their bribes for personal power and profit after having sworn to serve and protect the public interest. And those Wall Street speculators with their greed, causing the whole system to collapse--off with their heads! Our collective moral outrage is powerful, indeed. We demand reform! And when do we want it? NOW!!
Yes, we insist that THEY reform, the big THEM, the ones to whom we give the power to control us, and who are clearly abusing it. I submit that the level of government corruption remains more or less constant at all times, much like the truism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The only difference between the corruption of today and the corruption of yesterday is that now that we are no longer receiving our cut of the action, we are no longer willing to turn a blind eye to it.
By way of illustration, I will use the example of 401K pension plans. These were everybody's favorite something-for-nothings. Employers, including the government, donated money into these "retirement plans" as part of benefits and also matched or even doubled the amount of money a worker put into it above that amount. This money was then invested in the stock market. **
Very few people questioned what sort of stocks were being invested in, what sort of practices were being engaged in to ensure a high return on their investment. If the money was being invested in Kellog, Brown, and Root, and profits were being made by the company charging taxpayers ten dollars for each can of soda a soldier drank, they didn't want to know. Similarly, if the money was being used to speculate on commodities futures, they didn't want to know. They didn't want to know anything, not the names or histories or business practices of the companies their money was being invested in, nothing, just as long as the profits kept coming. It's much like the anti-war movement gaining strength with the realization that savings at the gas pumps weren't being passed along to them, but instead being realized as pure profit by the oil companies. Suddenly, an anti-profiteering bill aimed at oil companies (HR 1252) was introduced in Congress, dying in the Senate, of course, much like the one introduced against war profiteering, (HR 1667) but still, there were outcries, posing as moral.
I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of people with investments still don't know exactly in what or with whom they are investing. They'll say they don't have the time to research these things, that they pay a professional to handle it. In my view, they are like people that don't vote complaining about who won an election. If you aren't willing to take responsibility for your own money and the power it represents to express your principles as well as make you a profit, then you have no right to complain about the corruption of Wall Street, because you are a prime cause of it.
Happily, there are more and more socially conscious investment firms springing up, who use screens such as how well workers are paid, safety records, environmental records, etc. You know, little things, like do they build nuclear weapons? Or provide financial backing to oust democratically elected governments in other countries where they have moved operations to avoid paying fair wages, governments who might regulate how they treat workers or limit how much they pollute? Where is your money and what is it doing?
**(In the people's defense, the PERS system, and most other 401k plans are set up so that individuals in whose name money is being invested have no say in where it is invested, indeed, or even in whether they wish to participate in the plan. I know this, because I tried to opt out of having any money donated to my 401K and was informed that this was not a choice I was permitted to make, and that it would continue to be added to my account as long as I was an employee, whether I wanted it or not.)