It occurred to me today that the old practice of governments selling sinecures isn't very different from the modern system of public finance through government securities (besides the obvious difference in ostentation and the security's lifespan). To modern eyes one seems obviously corrupt, while the other is viewed as being essentially a beneficial public service. This isn't a serious comment on policy, I just think it's funny.
*HmH gestures!*
Rise, ye old post, I have questions to ask.
Well, more like one question. I just don't get the analogy you made.
Sinecures are corrupt not because they sell political power and the gains that come thereof, but because after a few decades or centuries of sinecure inflation, they end up implicitly encouraging the buyer to engage in corruption: if they do their job by the book, they will simply never make the investment back.
Whereas government securities... well, they give you the same amount of returns regardless of your actions(unless you manipulate the markets using your power as an official, which, unlike corruption, is the sort of crime that would make
Mr. Chrysoprase powerful people very upset with you), so they don't really increase the amount of government corruption all that much.
Granted, I only know about govenrment securities from what little I've read, so maybe there's some kind of a catch in this practice that I have no idea about. Am I missing something?