Question

What are some reasons that government corruption occurs? did any aspects of the harding administration contribute to the scandals?

Answer 1

In a general sense, corruption occurs due to human imperfection. Governments are as imperfect as the humans who create them. More specifically corruption occurs when the general, public interest is in a conflict with private or individual interests. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy for many types of government to become corrupt and democratic republicanism is not the exception. It usually happens when powerful individuals enter government in order to further their own agendas in detriment of the public good. Most of these men regroup in order to strengthen their position and bribe or silence those who oppose them. They manipulate public opinion with the help of other financially powerful groups and encourage policies and the creation of laws that advance their own profits while causing harm to the overall constituents. Sometimes the corruption is ideological and usually is both. Most times, ideological reasons are actually a façade for plain and simple greed and power hunger which is more pathological than intellectual.

With regards to the Harding Administration, domestic policy was very similar to the domestic policies of the current administration. Harding did not indulge in nepotism but in cronyism, which is sort of “nepotism for friends”.  As a business man in Ohio he had built an extensive network of friends within his own company and other companies. This allowed him to organize with them to further their own interests. The fact that he controlled a journal was also part of the issue as he used his journal to shape public opinion at the state and local level. When he became president of the USA, he brought with him many friends that he appointed in several positions of power in the federal government and his cabinet. Some of them turned out to be quite efficient and respected but many others were quite mediocre and belonged to Harding’s business circles back in Ohio. The best example of this is the Teapot Dome Scandal. Where members of his cabinet were Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall was convicted of taking bribery from oil companies yet no oil company executive was ever convicted for the bribery. This person was part of what was then called The Ohio Gang.