The agency problem is a familiar one, even to many who do not know it by name. There is a cliche that many people live by, “If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself,” which is a reflection of the agency problem that it is hard to hire people to do things on your behalf and trust them to do an acceptable job at it. Although agents are paid to serve the interests of those that hire them, they frequently have their own interests, and one of the challenges in dealing with the agency problem is trying to align rewards and pay and other motivations in such a way that the agent, in serving his or her own interests, also serves the interests of those they purport to serve. Whether one is dealing with insurance agents, financial advisers, lawyers, accountants, building contractors, or any other number of people, the agency problem is a serious one, and it is difficult to completely resolve this problem, as the interests of people and those they hire frequently are at cross purposes.

One of the areas where the agency problem rears its head the ugliest is with regards to politicians and other civil servants. There is a great deal of rhetoric that seems to remind those in government that they are servants of the people, but when one examines the behavior of bureaucrats and politicians, such rhetoric seldom seems acted on by those who easily see themselves as properly being the lords rather than the servants of the people and whose financial statements indicate that they are serving themselves and their own interests far more profitably than they serve the interests of ordinary people. Even when people involved in public service are not personally corrupt–and they often are–the interests that people have in profiting from their political power and access to other powerful people simply do not align with the more modest interests of millions of people who have little money to bribe them but who have to live under the laws that they create or enforce, and will more frequently align with those who are willing and able to give them what they want in exchange for favorable regulation. Sadly, a lobbyist is a far more effective agent for corporate or institutional interests than lawmakers and self-professed civil servants are for the population at large.

This reality leads to a typical situation in late-stage republics where the widespread knowledge of public corruption leads a group of people to base their platform on the promise to serve as better agents of the people. Such people are often members of the elite themselves, but see a more secure road to power in seeking to represent the disenfranchised many than compete on a level playing field with other elites who are a part of the corrupt system and seek to reduce the competition for valuable and profitable business by supporting various forms of crony and rentier business operations. The conflict between populist and corrupt entrenched interests tends to increase the level of internal hostility within a republic, often leading to violence that threatens the survival of the republic as politics becomes a life or death struggle between those who feel the need to at least address the legitimate concerns of the people and those who see in government service their own livelihood and source of power and privilege, which they are unwilling to give up even on behalf of the republic they claim to serve.

Populists, though, are not immune from the agency problem that endangers the legitimacy of governmental authorities as a whole. For someone to be able to secure enough popularity or power in order to rule, they are subject to the same sort of corrupting influences that all other public servants in an endangered republic face. Either they come from elite families that have been used to serving in power for generations, and thus might expect as a birthright, or they have served in some kind of course of offices on the state or local level that subject them to the same sorts of temptations to seek their own personal interests while cloaking them in concern for the commonweal, or they have earned a great deal of money in businesses that are often closely connected to political interests, as much business is in a corrupt society where power is highly concentrated in the hand of elites. Moreover, the act of becoming a genuine populist who seeks to counter the corrupt influence of elites is dangerous business, and people engaging in this political course put themselves in the crosshairs of a vengeful elite willing to use all form of lawfare and regulatory problems to threaten the life, freedom, and property of people who seek to serve the people instead of the decadent powers that be. In a world where proving one’s bona fides that one wishes to serve ordinary people is declare war on those in power, who can be trusted to bring meaningful and genuine improvement to the lives of the suffering mass of people under evil rulers?