This probably shouldn’t shock anyone. We expect politicians to serve the interests of their constituents. As the size of the polity decreases, the distinction between that and corruption becomes less clear. To take an extreme, if you’re the mayor of a 300-person village with two builders, you might be directly related to 20% of the teachers, 25% of the construction industry and 100% of the clergy; it’s unrealistic that you could avoid any bias in doing your job, and even if you could it wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. But at that scale, voters would also be able to factor these thoughts into their decision.
