More Regulations Equals More Politics

In an egroup message, several former schoolmates decried on the pervading corrupting influence of politics in the state of the Philippine educational system as seen through this plea or manifesto.

However, the expressed dissatisfaction had not been complete as this did not deal with the cause-and-effect, where regulations and politics basically go hand in hand.

To extrapolate: the greater the role of regulations in the economy, the deeper the involvement of politics as means to distribute resources.

Perhaps the state of Greece as described by Michael Lewis at the Vanity Fair could be emblematic of the corrupting influence of a collectivist and highly politicized society (hat tip Russ Roberts). [all bold emphasis mine]

The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, “What great people!” They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.

The structure of the Greek economy is collectivist, but the country, in spirit, is the opposite of a collective. Its real structure is every man for himself.