Don't hate the player, hate the game

Politicians generally take a lot of blame for society's problems, and some of this is well deserved. But they aren't the cause of the problems, only an emergent property of the system we live in. The structure of democratic government encourages political candidates to use the government to promote the interests of certain groups as long as the consequences of these market manipulations can be kept hidden from the masses. Take corn subsidies for example. The benefit to the well-connect corn farmers is obvious, so politicians can easily buy votes by giving tax dollars to the farmers. This meets little resistance from the general population because the nominal cost to each of us is minimal. But the cost to society is huge. It encourages the use of high fructose corn syrup where in a free market cane sugar would be cheaper and healthier. It also encourage the use of corn to produce ethanol for fuel, a process that results in net energy loss. The system is stealing a portion of everyone's income to make food less healthy and throw away energy. But no politicians deserves all the credit for this stupidity, this kind of problem was bound to happen as a result of the structure of our system of government. These problems appear everywhere, and while individually they don't cost us much, the drain on society adds up. We see higher costs of health care thanks to doctor unions lobbying the government to limit the number of medical licenses and politicians eager to please this special interest group for some easy votes. We see higher costs and abysmal results in education thanks to teacher unions and elected officials working together to raise teacher's salaries and pensions, while denying parents and students real alternatives to government *cough* indoctrination *cough*, I mean education. Everywhere you look some group is exploiting the taxpayer to avoid competition or flat out take his money, and politicians couldn't be more eager to jump on board for some votes since they know the masses will never notice the sleight of hand. But the blame for these problems lies neither with the politicians nor the interest groups, it lies in the system that encourages both to behave in this manner.