(9) Power Legislating Itself

- The Structural Impossibility of Self-Restraint -

Every system that concentrates power eventually confronts the same structural problem: those with authority are asked to regulate themselves. This is often framed as a moral question, a test of character, integrity, or civic virtue. In reality, it is a design failure. Systems that rely on self-restraint misunderstand how incentives operate over time. Human beings respond to reward, insulation, and opportunity predictably, regardless of stated values. Expecting those who benefit from power to voluntarily limit that power is not idealism. It is abdication of structural responsibility.

This problem intensifies as systems grow more complex. The more authority is centralized, the more decisions affect abstract populations rather than identifiable individuals, and the easier it becomes to rationalize personal gain as collective necessity. Conflict of interest does not need to be explicit or malicious to function. It only needs to exist. Once decision-makers are allowed to influence rules that affect their own wealth, status, or immunity, outcomes become structurally biased even if intentions remain sincere.

- Why Conflict of Interest Is the Root, Not a Symptom -

Conflict of interest is often treated as an ethical lapse that can be mitigated through disclosure, transparency, or professional norms. These measures address appearance, not structure. Disclosure does not eliminate incentive. Transparency does not neutralize advantage. Norms erode under pressure. When systems allow individuals to benefit personally from decisions they influence, the conflict is not incidental. It becomes the governing logic.

Over time, this logic reshapes institutions. Policies are written broadly enough to justify benefit while remaining defensible. Exceptions are carved out quietly. Enforcement is softened where exposure would be uncomfortable. Each adjustment is small, rational, and defensible in isolation. Collectively, they produce a system that reliably protects those inside it. Corruption is not required. Alignment is sufficient.

- Why Legislators Cannot Police Themselves -

Legislators occupy a uniquely dangerous position in this regard. They possess the authority to shape law while remaining largely insulated from its effects. They can adjust compensation, benefits, regulatory exposure, and post-office opportunities without facing immediate consequence. Even when direct self-enrichment is prohibited, indirect enrichment through access, influence, and future employment remains available.

This creates a fundamental asymmetry. Ordinary citizens live under rules they do not write and cannot escape. Legislators live under rules they help write and can navigate. Expecting restraint under these conditions ignores the reality of incentive gradients. The system selects for those most comfortable operating within conflict, not those most resistant to it. Over time, self-selection becomes more important than stated ethics.

- The Role of Indirect Benefit -

Modern systems often prohibit direct self-dealing while allowing indirect benefit to flourish. This creates the appearance of integrity while preserving advantage. Indirect benefits include favorable regulation for aligned industries, access to insider information, post-tenure employment opportunities, influence over funding streams, and protection from enforcement intensity. These benefits are difficult to quantify, harder to prosecute, and easy to justify as incidental.

Because indirect benefits are diffuse and delayed, they escape public scrutiny. By the time outcomes are visible, the decision-makers responsible have often moved on. Responsibility is fragmented across committees, agencies, and timeframes. The system appears clean while functioning predictably in favor of those embedded within it.

- Why Moral Appeals Fail -

Appeals to morality fail because they ask individuals to act against structural incentive without altering the structure itself. This is not how durable systems operate. Systems that depend on virtue eventually select against it. Those unwilling to exploit opportunity are outcompeted by those who are. Over time, the population of decision-makers shifts toward those most comfortable navigating conflict rather than those most committed to restraint.

This does not imply that all actors are cynical or corrupt. It implies that systems reward certain behaviors regardless of intent. Moral language becomes decorative, invoked selectively to discipline outsiders while excusing insiders. Ethics become performance rather than constraint.

- Self-Legislation as a Form of Immunity -

When those in power control the rules governing their own exposure, law becomes a shield rather than a boundary. Immunity does not require explicit exemption. It can be achieved through complexity, delay, discretion, and negotiated enforcement. The law still applies in theory. In practice, it becomes navigable terrain for those with access and resources.

This navigability is itself a form of privilege. It allows elites to experience law as flexible and contextual while others experience it as rigid and unforgiving. The same statute produces radically different outcomes depending on position. This divergence erodes the principle of equal accountability without formally abolishing it.

- Why This Is Not About Bad Actors -

It is tempting to attribute these outcomes to particularly immoral individuals. That framing is comforting because it preserves faith in the system. Remove the bad people, and the system will heal. History repeatedly disproves this assumption. Replace individuals without altering incentives, and behavior returns to form.

Structural problems produce predictable outcomes regardless of who occupies positions of authority. Systems that allow self-legislation will generate self-protection. Systems that allow conflict of interest will produce biased outcomes. This is not pessimism. It is pattern recognition.

- The Feedback Loop of Insulation -

Once self-legislation and conflict of interest become normalized, insulation deepens. Policies are written to protect incumbents. Enforcement becomes selective. Challenges are framed as destabilizing. Reformers are marginalized. Each cycle increases the cost of change while increasing the benefit of remaining inside the system.

This feedback loop explains why reform becomes increasingly difficult over time. The system does not merely resist change. It evolves to make change dangerous. Stability becomes synonymous with preservation of advantage. Accountability becomes synonymous with risk.

- How This Affects Ordinary Lives -

For ordinary people, self-legislation manifests as rules that feel disconnected from reality. Laws are passed that impose burden without relief. Regulations proliferate without improving outcomes. Compliance becomes expensive while trust collapses. People sense that decisions are being made by those who will never experience their consequences.

This perception is corrosive. It undermines cooperation and legitimacy. People do not reject governance itself. They reject governance that exempts itself. When authority appears immune, obedience becomes grudging rather than principled.

- Why Structural Prohibition Is the Only Solution -

Conflict of interest cannot be managed through ethics alone. It must be structurally prohibited. Power must be bound by rules it does not control. Exposure must increase with authority, not decrease. Decision-makers must bear tangible risk for failure, not abstract responsibility.

This does not require utopian virtue. It requires design discipline. Systems that survive align incentive with outcome and authority with consequence. Systems that fail rely on character and hope.

- Self-Restraint Is Not Governance -

If previous essays traced how power detaches from consequence, how law becomes unequal, how fear governs populations, and how redistribution bypasses elites, this essay explains why none of that is accidental. Self-legislation is the hinge on which the entire structure turns. When power is allowed to govern itself, it will do so in its own interest.

Governance is not about trusting the powerful to behave well. It is about ensuring they cannot behave otherwise. Until that principle is restored, every reform will remain cosmetic, and every promise of restraint will be temporary.