Thomas Jefferson warned us of this day.

• Author: Emord, Jonathan W.
• Position: American Though - Political corruption and political power

SINCE THE NEW DEAL, the growth of unrepresentative government through independent regulatory agencies has begat a phenomenon well recognized by public choice economists: industry capture. Washington has become a cesspool of government-industry deal-making. An army of industry lobbyists daily descend on Capitol Hill and the Federal agencies to press for adoption of laws that will secure anticompetitive advantages. Members of Congress and the politically appointed heads of the agencies relish in this game, carefully assessing the field of lobbyists, picking winners and losers from among those capable of granting them effective kickbacks in the form of lucrative post-government employment or other economic and political perks.

The effect is a massive perversion of the rule of law and the rise of a culture of morally depraved individuals. The constitutional ideal of a limited Federal republic has been perverted into a bureaucratic oligarchy precisely because doing so has served the financial interests of the unpatriotic, who hesitate not a moment to sacrifice principle to achieve personal gain. Of the roughly 10,000 people in decisionmaking positions in Washington, it is no exaggeration to say that all but a small fraction of them favor adherence to principle over personal financial gain.

The Founding Fathers knew that the role of law invariably would be perverted to serve private interests. Indeed, they understood government to be forever subject to that kind of corruption. In his Preamble to a "Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge" (1778), Thomas Jefferson articulated his prediction that the constitutional ideal would be corrupted by those in power: "... Certain forms of government ale better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shown that even under the best forms those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

The Founders' means for reducing the risk of corruption was to limit government severely and subject it to a system of checks and balances designed to countermand the evil inherent in the state. Jefferson, in particular, repeatedly wrote of his concern that liberty would be wrenched from the American people because the ideal of a limited Federal republic only could survive if governors were committed to constitutional principle, yet...