So around the world, basically, the good honest career politicians from Argentina to Zambia are going around to profitable businesses saying "hey, nice business you have there! We'd like to take, say, 50% of your profits, if you don't mind, and spend it on our friends - government contractors, public-sector unions and the like. All the donations to our campaign afterward are purely incidental, I assure you, and none of the subsidies or handouts we'll use your money for are vote-buying schemes, none at all. Thanks for your cooperation."
... and the UK provides places where they don't do that, not on the top-line profit anyway. Sure. I can see how having that would be attractive to both legitimate and illegitimate operators. Its net impact on corruption, though, would be a little tricky to sort out.
(Postscript. As I'm being moderated down without comment, I assume that those doing so are those privileged enough to be in a nice low-corruption Western economy where we have a slightly better grade of politician than, say, Dilma Rousseff and her legislature. So I wish to note that despite cynicism about world governments I retain due respect for anti-corporate sentiment as well...)
I don't know about Zambia, but in Argentina most people don't care too much about campaign contributions. The perception is that most of the corruption there is through cronyism, and kickbacks from outrageously overpriced goods and services bought by the State. It is not politicians robbing businesses, but politicians and some businesses robbing the tax money of, mainly, the middle class.
The thing about campaign contributions is that it's all about the exchange: in return, the contributors get a say in government policy, enforcement, decisions. It undermines democracy. Is it better, or worse, than naked cronyism and kickbacks in the form of contracts, overpriced goods and services, etc.?
So around the world, basically, the good honest career politicians from Argentina to Zambia are going around to profitable businesses saying "hey, nice business you have there! We'd like to take, say, 50% of your profits, if you don't mind, and spend it on our friends - government contractors, public-sector unions and the like. All the donations to our campaign afterward are purely incidental, I assure you, and none of the subsidies or handouts we'll use your money for are vote-buying schemes, none at all. Thanks for your cooperation."
... and the UK provides places where they don't do that, not on the top-line profit anyway. Sure. I can see how having that would be attractive to both legitimate and illegitimate operators. Its net impact on corruption, though, would be a little tricky to sort out.
(Postscript. As I'm being moderated down without comment, I assume that those doing so are those privileged enough to be in a nice low-corruption Western economy where we have a slightly better grade of politician than, say, Dilma Rousseff and her legislature. So I wish to note that despite cynicism about world governments I retain due respect for anti-corporate sentiment as well...)