Financial Transparency Coalition

The powerless have few tools to use against the powerful. Sometimes the powerless are a minority. Sometimes they are a majority. Suffrage, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are tools civilizations have developed to give powerless people more power. But the other side has its own tools, which the powerful use to perpetuate their power. Corruption and nepotism are the most obvious examples. These tools are not only used by theocrats and autocrats. They are used in democracies too, and they erode democratic systems by concentrating power in the hands of a few, depriving the powerless of...