Seems like this is the real problem we should use technology to solve. How can we make it more expensive to buy politicians?
If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).
That would still reduce the influence by >95% because you have to pay 105x and the politician only gets 5x.
The actual problem is that if a politician is known for reporting bribes then they won't be offered any, so taking 1x every time is still more profitable than taking 5x once.
You're thinking about it the wrong way. You make it more expensive and fewer people can afford to do it.
How do we make it cheaper to buy politicians, so that we can do it too?
1) How can we build more resilient technologies so that copyright law becomes irrelevant? (And note that we already have some candidates - like IPFS)
2) What technologies do we need so that we do not need politicians? For example, is it possible to create nation-states that are small (think hundreds of thousands of people) and allow people to create their own easily?
Oh, wait...
1 - If you make them more expensive then only the truly wealthy will be able to buy them. Yes, they exist
2 - Corruption is a matter mainly of personal ethics and perception of things around you. Of course it's hard to turn down heavily compensated engagements or other types of 'incentives' given by big players. Especially when everybody does it. It's really an issue of Game Theory
But seriously. Starting idea: Build a website that does some well analytics and makes it clear when politicians chose profit and special interests over the good of the people. I know some sites do this, but I haven't seen any executed well enough to reach the right people.
Lenin was obstesibly starting a revolution for the 'good of the people.' Cuba did as well.. The good of the people there has resulted in an average monthly income of $20.
Don't knock the special interests.. EFF and Wiki are both examples of special interests just as much as the special interests of the publishing industry.
The book Economics in One Lesson is certainly worth reading..
Disney owns more television stations and has more money than the EFF.