The visible 1% and the silent 99%: the “rationalization” of corruption in the United States

Abstract

For a country with a population of 334 million and a government workforce of over 22 million, the annual corruption rate in the United States has been relatively controllable for nearly a quarter of a century. According to authoritative anti-corruption assessments by Transparency International and other organizations, the overall level of integrity in the United States is still among the best in the world, and its integrity index is also at a median level. However, compared with the historical stage of power rent-seeking in the early 20 th century, new forms of corruption such as hidden interest transfers and lobbying groups manipulating policies still permeate multiple political and economic fields. It is worth noting that the problem of corruption in the United States is not a unique phenomenon in contemporary times, but an institutional disease that has always been associated with the federal system, electoral politics and capital expansion in the United States since its founding in 1776