Consider this: the government grants a private corporation a monopoly to provide an essential service—electricity—that everybody needs, and no one can do without. Unchecked by competition, this corporation is able to generate profits with a guaranteed rate of return from ratepayers who have historically had no meaningful choice. The corporation then takes a small portion of those profits—say, a million dollars or so—and donates it to some elected officials. Those same elected officials then act to head off genuine competition and perpetuate the monopoly. And the cycle repeats.