Corruption in America : from Benjamin Franklin's snuff box to Citizens United / Zephyr Teachout.
Material type: TextPublisher: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2014Description: viii, 376 pages ; 22 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 0674050401 (alk. paper)
- 9780674050402 (alk. paper)
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | NonFiction | 364.1323 T253 | Available | 33111007910546 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
When Louis XVI gave Ben Franklin a diamond-encrusted snuffbox, the gift troubled Americans: it threatened to corrupt him by clouding his judgment. By contrast, in 2010 the Supreme Court gave corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. Zephyr Teachout shows that Citizens United was both bad law and bad history.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 313-358) and index.
Four snuff boxes and a horse -- Changing the frame -- Removing temptations -- Yazoo -- Is bribery without a remedy? -- Railroad ties -- The forgotten law of lobbying -- The gilded age -- Two kinds of sticks -- The jury decides -- Operation Gemstone -- A West Virginia state of mind -- Citizens United -- The new snuff boxes -- Facts in exile, complacency, and disdain -- The anticorruption principle conclusion -- Appendix 1: Anticorruption constitutional provisions -- Appendix 2: Major nineteenth- and twentieth-century anticorruption law.
In 1785, Louis XVI presented Benjamin Franklin with a snuff box encrusted with diamonds and inset with the King's portrait. Americans believed it threatened to "corrupt" Franklin by altering his attitude toward the French in subtle psychological ways. In 2010, one of the most consequential Court decisions in American political history gave wealthy corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. With unlimited spending transforming American politics for the worse, warns Teachout, if the American experiment in self-government is to have a future, then we must revive the traditional meaning of corruption and embrace an old ideal.