Patrimonialism Shows the Fallacy of "Too Rich to Bribe"

One of Donald Trump's great selling points was his claim to be too rich to bribe. He offered his wealth as a qualification for office for two reasons.  To economic royalists, his wealth proved his great competence.  To populists, it proved that he had all the money he needed and could not be bribed.

His patrimonial behavior has proved the exact opposite.  A very rich candidate -- particularly one with a far-flung business empire, and especially if the business  empire is international in scope -- has more conflicts of interest than a less-wealthy candidate, and more opportunities to funnel customers to his interests.  I don't mean by this that being rich should be disqualifying.  Many people manage to be rich and also to have sufficient public spirit to avoid this sort of abuse of power.  

But it is also a lot easier to be a patrimonial ruler if you have great wealth to begin with.  I continue to believe that there is basically no support for patrimonialism in this country anywhere across the political spectrum.  On the other hand, I do believe that there are significant numbers of economic royalists who believe that being rich is a qualification for office, either because it shows great skill and competence, or because of the too-rich-to-buy fallacy.  And there are mindless cynics who are unconcerned by Trump's patrimonialism because they assume that our whole system works that way.  In fact, our system has extensive disclosure and conflict of interest laws that make this type of bribery quite rare and difficult.  

The real corruption in our system is not politicians taking bribes our using their office to steer business their way, but politicians making connections that they use after leaving office to become lobbyists or influence peddlers.  Or to write books for absurdly large fees, or get absurdly high pay for making speeches.  And it is also true that laws requiring all other federal officials to recuse when their own interests are in play do not apply to the President or Vice President because they deal with such far-flung matters, and because there is no one to step in and take their place. 

All of this is troubling, but it has prevented the sort of gross patrimonialism that Trump represents. And it effectively prevents any elected official who is not already extremely rich from behaving in a patrimonial manner.

That includes any potential Republican candidates for office in 2024 not named Trump.  While there are plenty of potential Republican candidates every bit as authoritarian and demagogic as Trump, and some a lot more competent at it, I do not believe we have any non-Trump patrimonialists on the horizon.