"State Capture" by the radical right

South Africa's child

The New York Times:

....Who exactly is running the federal government?

It’s troubling enough not to be able to answer emphatically with “democratically elected leaders.” 

Even more troubling is the possibility that the actual answer is Mr. Musk — the world’s richest man — and other unaccountable, unelected, unconfirmed allies cozy with the president.

Political economists have a name for that: state capture. State capture occurs when wealthy private interests influence a government to such a degree that they can freely direct policy decisions and public funds for their own benefit or for the benefit of their ideological fellow travelers (or both).

Revelations of this especially pernicious, widespread form of corruption have occurred in other countries — a striking example occurred in the country of Mr. Musk’s birth, South Africa — and they offer cautionary tales for democratic governments everywhere.

The details vary by context, but the political scientist Elizabeth David-Barrett lays out three general mechanisms of state capture. 

They now sound familiar: shaping the rules of the game through law and policy; influencing administrative decisions by capturing the budget, appointments, government contracts and regulatory decisions; and disabling checks on power by dismantling accountability structures like the judiciary, law enforcement and prosecution, and audit institutions like the inspectors general and the media.

Some of these strategies could come straight from the Project 2025 playbook or Trump administration executive orders. This should disturb all Americans. 

According to Ms. David-Barrett, state capture creates broad, long-lasting systemic inequality and diminished public services. 

Changing the rules of the game to allow such collusion to flourish, she writes, “leaves those few holders of economic power in a strong position to influence future political elites, consolidating their dominance in a self-perpetuating dynamic”....

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