Cynical Comic or Comical Cynic?

Scott Adams has what I hope is a tongue-in-cheek posting on his web site:

I hear a lot of complaints about big companies donating money to politicians and getting favorable legislation in return. Obviously these companies make donations because they believe it works. I decry this perversion of our democracy (okay, our republic). On the other hand, I wonder how I can invest in those companies.

Has anyone tracked the stocks of companies that donate to politicians to see if those companies beat the market averages? I'd like to see a stock fund comprised of companies that are donating the most money to politicians. If those companies do indeed outperform the market, I want in. Realistically, I don't see this practice ever subsiding, so complaining does no good. Even voting for politicians who say they will fight it does no good. But making money from the companies who corrupt the system seems to make good sense to me. I see no reason that you and I shouldn't get a taste of that action.

Hoping to get crumbs off the table from corrupt corporations strikes me as silly as lying face up under the hot sun in the desert waiting for a summer thunderstorm to fill you up with water. It ain't gonna happen.

I agree that there is no hope of legislating crime or evil away. Given human nature and the fact that some are just born with an itch to loot the pockets of others for their own benefit, you won't make it disappear. But laws and morality and other institutional/cultural mechanisms to rein in the worst offenders is necessary and is the best you can hope for. Put fear into those tempted and you will discourage many.

Paul Ormerod's Butterfly Economics talks about crime as a bi-stable phenomenon. It can be high or low. Once it is high, it takes a lot of effort to convince those making their living off crime -- and more importantly the aspiring young criminals -- to turn away from the life of crime. But once you've done the hard work of removing the rewards of crime and succeeding in "retiring" most of the criminal class, your crime rate can stay low even as the society drifts back toward a situation where crime is more rewarding. As a result you can have dramatic changes in the crime rate from seemingly tiny "causes". Why? Because this isn't a linear system. The dynamics of crime are complex, non-linear.

Scott Adams doesn't realize that his playful thoughts are fundamentally disturbing because they show a complete ignorance of the social forces that lead a society over the edge into corruption. It is the same kind of cavalier attitude attributed to Marie Antoinette when she puzzled over why the people didn't ask for cake if their cries for bread were not being met.

Buying politicians will never be stopped. But it is serious business and it needs to be reined in. One very effective lever is public opinion. If the society's opinion leaders wink at it and laugh off corruption, then it will become rampant. If, on the other hand, there is general consensus that it is bad and must be stomped out, then you have a much better chance of keeping it under control.

So I hope Scott Adams was trying to be clever and cute and didn't really mean what he said in his posting.