"No longer"? When were they accountable to the public? To public opinion, sure, but we still have opinion polls and politicians in most Western countries spend

"No longer"? When were they accountable to the public? To public opinion, sure, but we still have opinion polls and politicians in most Western countries spend a lot of money on trying to shape that. But accountability is incompatible with centralization and multiple layers of delegation. There's also the rather obvious conflict of interest between politicians needing/wanting money and politicians being supposed to represent the will of the people (rather than the will of those who can give them a lot of money). That police officers aren't being bribed doesn't mean we don't have corruption. We just have corruption with Western characteristics.