You bring up valid issues. The inescapable problem is that in any system, no matter how set up, rational actors will attempt to achieve maximum advantage for their own self-interest. Optimal solutions surely exist, but finding and implementing them is not easy. Here's an example of the difficulty.
You bring up valid issues. The inescapable problem is that in any system, no matter how set up, rational actors will attempt to achieve maximum advantage for their own self-interest. Optimal solutions surely exist, but finding and implementing them is not easy. Here's an example of the difficulty.
Ponder the conflicts of interest government officials, those who have the power to allocate research funding, to approve new drugs, and so forth are prone to. To minimize these problems, you'd would have to appoint such people for life, or at least for a term, during which they would be under dire legal obligations to remain independent and unbiased, under penalty (say) of spending the rest of their life in prison and forfeiting all their worldly wealth. Similar penalties would apply to any individual attempting to influence these "Philospher-Kings" (to borrow Plato's phrase) in any way. And sorry, no, you aren't allowed to have any investments on the side during your tenure either...all those assets are in a blind trust, out of your hands. Perhaps they would be sequestered from society, except under careful supervision, much as deliberating jurors are. In return for these draconian limits on their freedoms, they would be paid a decent salary. I realize the foregoing is very unrealistic; probably there are numerous impediments (e.g. basic legal rights) that'd make it unworkable. But I cite it to illustrate the liklely or actual compromises that infest the real world.
A friend who is a financial adviser has to have her family's investments in some kind of a trust or managed fund so that her investment recommendations can't be influenced by her personal investment wishes or plans. It's not unheard of.
You bring up valid issues. The inescapable problem is that in any system, no matter how set up, rational actors will attempt to achieve maximum advantage for their own self-interest. Optimal solutions surely exist, but finding and implementing them is not easy. Here's an example of the difficulty.
Ponder the conflicts of interest government officials, those who have the power to allocate research funding, to approve new drugs, and so forth are prone to. To minimize these problems, you'd would have to appoint such people for life, or at least for a term, during which they would be under dire legal obligations to remain independent and unbiased, under penalty (say) of spending the rest of their life in prison and forfeiting all their worldly wealth. Similar penalties would apply to any individual attempting to influence these "Philospher-Kings" (to borrow Plato's phrase) in any way. And sorry, no, you aren't allowed to have any investments on the side during your tenure either...all those assets are in a blind trust, out of your hands. Perhaps they would be sequestered from society, except under careful supervision, much as deliberating jurors are. In return for these draconian limits on their freedoms, they would be paid a decent salary. I realize the foregoing is very unrealistic; probably there are numerous impediments (e.g. basic legal rights) that'd make it unworkable. But I cite it to illustrate the liklely or actual compromises that infest the real world.
A friend who is a financial adviser has to have her family's investments in some kind of a trust or managed fund so that her investment recommendations can't be influenced by her personal investment wishes or plans. It's not unheard of.