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Quote by Thomas Pogge

“The massive corruption common in so many developing countries would be quite impossible if Western countries did not provide convenient opportunities to ship ill-gotten funds out of the country. It wouldn't make much sense for a ruler to store in his basement large quantities of stolen cash in his own country's currency. A corrupt ruler wants to be able to keep this money safe and to be able to spend it. And for this, he needs to convert it into a Western currency and store it in a bank abroad, where it can also earn investment returns and be bequeathed to his heirs.”

Quote by Thomas Pogge

Author

Thomas Pogge is a German-born American philosopher known for his contributions to ethics and political philosophy. His research focuses on issues of global justice, poverty, and inequality, particularly concerning human rights in developing countries. more

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“The global financial crisis is a great opportunity to showcase and propagate both causal and moral institutional analysis. The crisis shows major flaws in the way the US financial system is regulated and, more importantly, in our political system, which is essentially a bazaar of legalized bribery where financial institutions can buy themselves the governmental regulations they want, along with the regulators who routinely receive lucrative jobs in the industry whose oversight had formerly been their responsibility, the so-called revolving-door practice.”

“Our Supreme Court has lifted the practice of buying legislation to the level of a constitutional principle by repeatedly protecting corporate spending for and against political candidates, as well as promises and threats of such spending to bribe and blackmail such candidates, by appeal to the free-speech clause of the First Amendment.”

“I think that many citizens understand how our system works, or rather, fails to work, for structural reasons. But who has the capacity and the incentives to bring change? The banks and other corporations love the system because it allows them to buy legislation that serves their own interests even at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. Incumbent politicians love the system because it allows them to raise millions of dollars toward defending their seats.”

Thinking Reason Interest Millions Failing Citizens Politician Capacity Raises Majority Dollars Corporations Seats Expenses Legislation Incentives Incumbents

Author:Thomas Pogge

“The extremely low respect Congress enjoys among the population indicates that the citizens understand broadly what's going on. But the lack of a realistic political reform path leads to apathy and the kind of mindless frustration that manifests itself in the Tea Party-style hatred of any and all government.”

Kind Government Political Enjoy Party Path Style Citizens Lows Hatred Congress Population Reform Tea Frustration Realistic Apathy Tea Party Mindless Political Reform

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Large multinational corporations, often acting through their industry lobbies, exert a powerful influence on the formulation of domestic rules and on their application - but their influence on supranational institutional design is even larger because it faces practically no opposition there.”

Faces Powerful Acting Influence Design Industry Corporations Opposition Application Multinationals Multinational Corporations

Author:Thomas Pogge

“There is at the global level a very small number of actors who can meaningfully weigh in on global institutional design, who are able - through powerful governments and most effectively through the government of the United States - to exert substantial influence on international negotiations, which are routinely conducted behind closed doors.”

“Drafts of domestic legislation must be published, debated and publicly voted on, which gives ample opportunities to civil society organizations and ordinary citizens to at least understand what's being proposed and to voice and to organize opposition before the decision is made.”

Giving Made Opportunity Voice Decision Citizens Ordinary Organization Opposition Organize Legislation Civil Society Ordinary Citizens

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Often vastly more important, international agreements are not routinely published in draft form or publicly debated, and civil society organizations and ordinary citizens often learn of important global institutional design decisions only after they have already been finalized and adopted. The only reliable way to be kept informed and to exert timely influence is by lobbying and paying the politicians and their negotiators.”

Way Important Form Decision Influence Design Citizens Politician Ordinary Organization International Agreement Adopted Civil Society Timely Lobbying Ordinary Citizens

Author:Thomas Pogge

“One is actually the democracy here, you know, people are, people assume that this election means that there is democracy in Pakistan. There is no democracy.”

People Knows Mean Sports Democracy Election Assuming Pakistan

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“Domestic and supranational regulatory capture leads to two things: on the one hand, to an inequality spiral where the rich get richer because they can influence rulemaking and rule application in their favor; on the other hand, it also leads to instability. This is so because the relatively few organizations capable of influencing supranational rulemaking through the lobbying of major governments have diverse interests. This will, in some cases, lead to compromises. But it will also lead to spheres of influence.”