`Democracy` by Henry Adams

Theme of Corruption in Society and Government in Democracy ' by Henry Adams

Democracy : An American Novel is a novel written by Henry Adams in 1880 which has been originally published anonymously . The book 's basic s include political power , how it is acquired , used and misused , as well as human attitudes towards political power . Although there are many themes in the book , this shall concentrate only on one of them - corruption of society and resulting corruption of government

Adams is interested whether corruption can be overcome in a democratic society

and is democracy possible without corruption . He puts the question straight by the words of Mrs . Lee : Are we for ever to be at the mercy of thieves and ruffians ? Is a respectable government impossible in a democracy " [34] So , from the very beginning he appears to be pretty pessimistic about opportunities of democracy to struggle against corruption . So along the rest of the book Adams continues to investigate the reasons why officials become corrupted and why do people so easily accept the work of corrupted officials . And the first question Adams asks is : what if it is not so bad that corruption exists "What is to become of us if corruption is allowed to go unchecked " [34]

The answer can be found in the conversation between , Carrington Madeleine and Gore . Gore holds , that in case a politician works good , he is able not to care about vices of others : We have no other equally good practical politician it is unfair to require him to be a crusader besides " [35] Thusly he takes a position of nonintervention and refuses to recognize the evil nature of corruption . In contrast Madeleine points how destructive corruption can be at least because it leads to moral insanity "Who , then , is right ? How can we all be right ? Half of our wise men declare that the world is going straight to perdition the other half that it is fast becoming perfect . Both cannot be right . There is only one thing in life " she went on , laughing "that I must and will have before I die . I must know whether America is right or wrong ' [35] When it is not possible to distinguish who is right and who is wrong in the government the society starts moving in the wrong direction

But where does corruption come from ? How does it come to the government There is a much clearer answer in the book by Adams , which is proposed by Ratcliffe . He explains that "is that no representative government can long be much better or much worse than the society it represents . Purify society and you purify the government . But try to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate failure " [34] The society thusly has the government that it deserves and it is stupid to claim that government is corrupted in case all the people inside the society are corrupted . Depraved society can hardly produce honest officials Although it may seem obvious , baron Jacobi immediately...