What you wrote is so misguided that I got up from bed and turned on the computer just to reply it (I was reading HN on mobile).
Brazil (where I am from) has one of the biggest politician salaries of the world, also politicians here get many secondary ways to get money, for example our last president, Lula, when he became president he owned a single apartment and two more or less nice cars (Chevrolet Omega).
When he left the presidency he owned 53 apartments. And noone could prove that was from stolen money...
Our congress also can vote on its own salary, and they frequently do, a recent scandal was when they refused to increase the police salary and then increased their own by 70%, later smaller chambers from around the country went into more outrageous mode (one city for example, gave their lawmakers a 100% salary increase, while reducing the salary of teachers and medics to compensate the budget).
No, giving politicians money, won't make them less self-serving, if anything it gives a very clear incentive to self-serving people end there.
I am very sure if there was ways to ensure political power could not translate so directly to money, people would abuse it less.
Brazil (where I am from) has one of the biggest politician salaries of the world, also politicians here get many secondary ways to get money, for example our last president, Lula, when he became president he owned a single apartment and two more or less nice cars (Chevrolet Omega).
When he left the presidency he owned 53 apartments. And noone could prove that was from stolen money...
Our congress also can vote on its own salary, and they frequently do, a recent scandal was when they refused to increase the police salary and then increased their own by 70%, later smaller chambers from around the country went into more outrageous mode (one city for example, gave their lawmakers a 100% salary increase, while reducing the salary of teachers and medics to compensate the budget).
No, giving politicians money, won't make them less self-serving, if anything it gives a very clear incentive to self-serving people end there.
I am very sure if there was ways to ensure political power could not translate so directly to money, people would abuse it less.