Local Corruption

A lack of checks and oversight over city management resulted in the recent city council embezzlement scandal in the city of Bell. According to the National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times in June of 2010 uncovered the story when one of its reporters learned of an investigation into the city councils' salaries. For years the mayor, the city manager, and the city councilmen misappropriated public funds for their private gain. Facing a lack of accountability, the public officials of Bell managed to defraud the city and its citizens millions of dollars.

Bell is a small cashed-strapped city located in Los Angeles County. It lies approximately twenty minutes southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Its population is composed of forty-thousand working-class citizens, most of them immigrants. More than a quarter of Bell's citizens live below the poverty line.

The absence of oversight allowed Bell's city officials to defraud the city by instituting illegal taxes and giving themselves substantial pay raises. They managed to double the taxes for city services such as trash and sewage without voter approval. As the state controller John Chiang explained, "The city's purse strings were tied to only one individual, resulting in a perfect breeding ground for fraudulent, wasteful spending." The one individual Chiang referred to was the city manager Robert Rizzo. With this power, Rizzo was able to divert the revenue generated by the tax increases to pay for the increase in salaries for the mayor, the city councilmen, as well as for himself and his assistant. Consequently Rizzo was able to make $1.5 million in salary and benefits annually. In all more than $50 million in tax revenue were mismanaged.

The city is currently facing foreclosure on a piece of property as it defaulted on a $35 million debt. Its credit rating also dropped to junk status as a result. Without public scrutiny over its officials, corruption will continue to happen.

Francis Fukuyama: Public Intellectual

What makes one a “public intellectual” is often an argument and debate. Some scholars such as Peter Beinart in Stephen Mack's “The Wicked Paradox Redux” argue that those of religious backgrounds cannot qualify as public intellectuals. They believe the reason and evidence for arguments provided by those of religious backgrounds are inaccessible to those of different faiths. Others such as John Donatich believe those in the arts and humanities cannot be labeled as public intellectuals because apparently they are not influential enough. However, Mack's definition of public intellectuals is one who “sometimes uncover implicit orientations and worldviews that, in turn, affect public decisions and actions” is more objective as it bases the label of public intellectual on the accomplishment of one rather than just the background of an individual. One public intellectual who would otherwise not be classified as one is Francis Fukuyama.

Francis Fukuyama is a philosopher, political economist, and the author of several books. He majored in classics at Cornell University for his undergraduate studies and political science at Harvard University for his Ph. D. He worked at the RAND Corporation throughout most of the 1980s in the Political Science Department as well as an adviser at the State Department in the Reagan and Bush Administrations where he helped formulate the Reagan Doctrine. In 1997, he joined the Washington D.C. based think tank Project for the New American Century. Fukuyama also earned honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University, and Kansai University. Currently, Fukuyama is a a professor at the Paul H. Ntize School of Advanced International Studies of John Hopkins University. He is also the Director of the International Development Program there.

Francis Fukuyama's most famous work is his essay “End of History?” published in The National Interest in 1989. In this essay, he predicted that liberal democracy will be the final form of government the world will adopt. While understanding that many countries will not immediately adopt liberal democracy, Fukuyama explained clashes over government will still occur though liberal democracy will eventually prevail. He cited governing changes in the two largest communist countries at the time, Russia and China as well as their reform movements. Fukyuama exemplified Mr. Gorbachev's promises of democratization as evidence of the Soviet Union's slow embrace of liberal democracy. With the case of China, Fukuyama cited successful market reforms adopted by the government to liberalize the agricultural sector. Fukuyama saw these government policy changes as signs the communist countries were starting to shift towards a more liberal democratic form of government. Shortly after the publication of this essay, the world witnessed the Soviet Union collapse.

A philosopher trained in humanities as a college student, Francis Fukuyama eventually predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and worked a government policy adviser in the State Department under two presidential administrations. Along with an academic career working as a researcher at think tanks and professor at major universities, Francis Fukuyama certainly fulfills the criteria to be considered a public intellectual.