OK. That's how I interpreted your sentence: "It doesn't matter if they can't work in the industry afterward; let them retire and live off their retirement."
Which raises all kinds of practical concerns. What if you study and love a particular field, start working for the government, but can't stand working for the government once you get there? What if the government downsizes and eliminates your position? What if you want to move someplace for family or other personal reasons and can't take your gov't job with you? What if you get fired?
That would all depend on the nature of the agreement, obviously. If the goal is to prevent corruption, you only have to prevent future employment by those who are serviced by your governmental position. Nothing about that necessitates blanket removal from working in a field.
This really sounds like you're trying to engage in an ungenerous argument. Don't try to nitpick everything I didn't say as though you don't have enough brains to think it through yourself. Instead of trying to win an argument, you should focus on addressing the problem.
Because, again, saying that we should just accept corruption as unavoidable is about the most abhorrent political position one could take.
Not trying to win an argument, as I fully concede that I don't have a solution to this fundamentally difficult problem.
I specifically want experts working in government, not lifetime bureaucrats. IMO, that demands a rotation of experts into and out of government service, because in many fields your expertise and relevance will atrophy meaningfully in just a handful of years. I want the White House CTO to have genuine, relevant (read: recent) industry expertise. I want the head of the FDA to have genuine scientific background and credentials. I want the head of the SEC to have Wall St/other finance/trading expertise.
I think we end up with more problems having career politicians and all the associated perturbed incentives that that brings than we have from the frequent appearance (and occasional reality) of corruption as players cycle from industry/business to government posts and back.
I further believe that most of us get the highest performance from on-going focus in a relatively narrow field and applying oneself in the same field (especially if you have interest and passion) is good for the person and good for society.
I genuinely read your original comment to be suggesting a lifetime of work in government with no possibility to return to the private sector in an industry position related to your government post. My apologies if you meant something else than what I inferred, but my reading and reaction was genuine. I'm sorry you felt nitpicked over it.
(I also believe that, given the need for relevant expertise in government that some amount of corruption is an inevitable byproduct, more than offset by the benefits we get from not having career book-learners (or worse, politically favored know-nothings) in positions of such power. We need to deal with that corruption as we find it, and create large disincentives for proven corruption, but some amount is unavoidable in a system that employs tens of millions of flawed humans in positions of power.)
Maybe "can't work in the industry" could mean only to avoid work where there was a direct relationship previous to the retirement?
For example, let's say a Nestle competitor that doesn't have any stakes in that particular area of influence of said gov. official, then there's no issue.
I know this would be hard to put in practice, but then again, the benefits should be enough right?
If not, why not?