I feel like you’re ignoring a lot of background, but let’s run with your argument. Let’s assume that we have to have some elected politicians and some appointed or elected bureaucrats, and either we should try to have a capitalist system or a communist system of some kind.

Let’s try to keep things as equal as possible, knowing that we really can’t, but just for the sake of argument. Which system is more likely to be corrupted? Remember, the express goal of capitalism is to throw wealth at the capitalists. If the regular person gets screwed, that’s not corruption, that’s a feature of the system… Oh, wait a second, I guess we already have an answer to our hypothetical, don’t we.

But you did raise a good point. Any government, if it’s to function somewhat reasonably, needs to be one that has a lot of transparency, oversight, and accountability. If you don’t have those, it doesn’t matter how you start off because it’s going to end badly. So I agree with you, we shouldn’t be trusting politicians.