Why systems serve to benefit themselves

Systems tend to be self-serving, unethical, and conservative because people in power are mostly selfish and seek only to benefit themselves and those surrounding them.
Sometimes the system governs their affairs to get a profit (not necessarily monetary). For example, the U.S.’s involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is supposed to be making peace. Instead, our leaders favor the oppressors because they can better satisfy our needs, regardless of the injustices it causes. Again with the government, many argue that we are still in the Middle East to get oil and profit in other ways (e.g. Haliburton). While this helps the rich get richer, it is at the cost of not only American hard earned money and lives, but also trust and patriotism. In both of the above situations, those in charge, as heads of the system, have the power to do what is morally just and beneficial for our people, our country, and our global community. But if termination of these operations hurts me in any way, why should I stop them? In the case of the Revolutionary War, the pre-war consensus was that there needed to exist a republican government in which all (white) men had a voice in affairs. Represented at the Constitutional Convention were all wealthy men, and their fear of power in hands other than the elite resulted in a system that only gave voting rights to the propertied, and then only allowed them to vote for one-half of one-third of the government. Their fear of loss of power ended up completely changing the original ideals that progressed the founding of the government itself.
Because those who often run systems have insatiable appetites for both material and political power, they ignore their duties to those they are supposed to serve. That is not to say that all systems are this way. There are many leaders out there who truly believe in bettering whatever system they belong to. The question is, when they are given the power to redirect it for the betterment of other or themselves, which way will they swing?


It is not that there are systems that don't work or serve to benefit the lowly. For example, Kennedy started the Peace Corps because he believed that America, in all her wealth and prosperity, should give back to the less fortunate. But these good systems are short lived. When a good regime is in power, there is always another group that looks upon the leading group as doing it wrong, because all people have different opinions, goals, and morals. If this second party tries hard enough, they can oust the moral group and insert their own influence over the system, turning it bad and to benefit themselves. Examples of this overthrowing are in the assasinations of Abe Lincoln, JFK, and Martin Luther King.