"An examination of how networks of systemic corruption have developed in America in the past and present, and how they are undermining democracy"-- Provided by publisher.

Chayes sees corruption as an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. From the titans of America's Gilded Age to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal; from the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment to Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, systematically undoing the Constitution and our laws-- Chayes shows how corrupt systems are organized, how they enforce the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they are overlooked and downplayed, and how they become an overt principle determining the shape of our government affecting all levels of society. -- adapted from jacket