Every institution gets corrupted to some degree over time. As with the Fed, managers and executives of even the best institutions have a dual mandate: ensure that the ostensible purpose of the organization is pursued, AND ensure that the institution thrives. On top of that, everybody in the institution wants to further their own interests, which often diverge from the two explicit mandates.
Corruption is inevitable because these three imperatives clash, and the latter two always win out in the long run, even in businesses where the profit motive, which supposedly aligns all three of them, falls prey to this same problem. That’s why big businesses so often need to be restructured–bureaucratic inertia and competing divisions pursuing their own interests undermine efficiency. That’s how you get DEI, ESG, and plain old inefficiency.
Government and NGOs…
