Taking advantage and having position of power are pretty well defined in current society, these relationships don't have an equal standing between parties.
The problem is it's much harder to moderate power structures, because that requires changing them from the inside, which they themselves are incentivized to prevent.
Not only are they easier to manipulate - they have a conflict of interest when they (for instance) demand that the government pay them money when they don't pay taxes.
It's not a manipulation, it's acknowledgement of the reality that one party has the power and the other doesn't. Why have a leader who cannot make decisions without taking a vote?
More likely, "difficult when there are important people complicit in all this, but whom you must retain as your allies to exercise political power".
It's part of why the whole thing is rotten and can't be fixed from within the system by the system's own rules. Too many skeletons in too many closets.
Yes I understand that, but the power dynamic completely shifts when the powerful party shows interest. You might get yourself out of handcuffs by giving your or even a fake number if the powerful party is interested.
Actually, there is a qualitative difference in play. It is reached at millions USD in (relatively) liquid assets or highly concentrated political power.
It is the potential to do almost anything w here only another big player or a whole society can blunt it and not necessarily effectively.
It is the difference between playing the rules and making the rules.
Indeed, the power goes to the person who can successfully manipulate the most people. Historically that tends to be people who blame minorities for all the ills of the group of people most likely to vote, and come up with what seem like easy solutions (tax the rich, ban the immigrants)
I for one don't have time in my life to be an expert on running an economy, creating an immigration policy, balancing the environmental and societal needs etc. I specialize in my area of expertise and use that money to employ others who specialize in their areas, and that includes government.
The intuition is that freer political systems are both more challenging and less rewarding to subvert, because no individual person or group has overwhelming power.
The fact that those in power think that 'infiltration' and 'manipulation' only happens downstream shows how well it's working on the upstream... They're not even aware of it.
reply