Perhaps I'm misreading, but are you implying that politicians and bureaucrats in the US aren't currently stealing bits and pieces of the common good? I'd agree

Perhaps I'm misreading, but are you implying that politicians and bureaucrats in the US aren't currently stealing bits and pieces of the common good? I'd agree that it's not currently as bad as Russia or some African nations, but obviously American politicians are already doing this. How many senators, congressmen, and presidents have made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from their "government service"? Why, I can think of a president off the top of my head who used his earlier position heading US anti-corruption in a country to get his son paid millions of dollars by corrupt people in that country.