At the intersection of business and government, a conflict
of interest can be indicative of plutocracy, the rule of wealth, at the expense
both of balanced public policy and democracy. That is to say, where the
regulated have disproportionate influence over regulators and said influence places
the regulated in a conflict of interest, the unethical dimension is dwarfed by
the distortive impact on the political system. The disproportionate influence
of the content industry (i.e., Hollywood) in the U.S. position on the Pacific
Trade negotiations in 2014 is a case in point.
The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.
