Politics & Power Quote by James L. Buckley

Buckley’s line reads like a grim diagnosis delivered by someone who has watched the machinery up close: the rot isn’t an accidental leak in the system, it’s in the pipes. By calling corruption “inherent” to democracy, he’s not merely lamenting bribery or scandal; he’s pointing to the structural temptation of elected office, where survival depends on pleasing blocs, donors, party leaders, and the week’s headlines. Ambition isn’t presented as a personal flaw so much as a rational response to incentives. The “alas” matters: it softens the charge while implying resignation, as if any adult who’s been paying attention already knows the score.

The subtext is a conservative (and distinctly Buckley-ish) skepticism about mass politics. Democracy, in this view, doesn’t automatically refine virtue; it monetizes attention and rewards short-term calculation. “Legislators” is a pointed choice, narrowing the target to the branch most exposed to transactional politics and perpetual campaigning. Executive power can be dramatic; legislative power is day-to-day bargaining, where principle often becomes a prop in negotiations.

Then comes the escape hatch: corruption can “only be controlled, if at all” by pushing lawmakers to “subordinate ambition to principle.” That phrase smuggles in a whole worldview: politics needs moral hierarchy, not just procedural guardrails. He’s less interested in technocratic fixes than in cultivating a class of officials willing to lose power rather than trade it for compromise. The irony, of course, is that democracy is built on ambition as a sorting mechanism; Buckley wants the system to keep selecting climbers while somehow rewarding the rare ones who refuse to climb.