The top is always corrupt. When the bottom realizes this, then the poison has spread.
Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
171–180 of 414 posts
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] the population of London can hardly be called Western European anymore. According to [1] in 2021 only 36,8% of the London population was White British, trend decreasing. If you want to make that argument, you'd at least need to look at the proportion of the population that's Western European, not just British.
> If you want to make that argument, you'd at least need to look at the proportion of the population that's Western European, not just British. The page I linked shows 53,8% white in 2021. Even if you count the majority of whites as West Europeans (and not East Europeans), they were under 50% in 2021, probably even less today. If you have more accurate and up to date data, please share. But that misses the point. I d…
London is a western city, because of its location and culture.
London has been a city of traders and other foreigners since at least the days of the Romans.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does this square with regimes like Singapore, which is one of the least corrupt nations in the world yet also an authoritarian, one-party system?
It doesn't because their premise falls apart in democracies too. Civil servants in democracies are not elected and they have the same 'stopping power'. A planning officer in the UK could just as easily decide to arbritrarily block plans they disagree with as in an authoratian country.
I am not a historian but the difference is between a society with a "rule of law" and "law of the jungle". Probably high democracy correlates with rule of law, but they are not the same thing.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#174It's well known that in authoritarian regimes (which autocracies generally are) corruption is, rather than a problem, a necessary element of society to keep things going. Anyone with the slightest amount of official power, like a government officer, has the ability to prevent things going forward on his part. In this kind of society, most people are poor and it would be considered stupid to not demand a small (or lar…
> Corruption gets things going and in a society that has no trust it is a positive trait.
That's a red herring:
> We first demonstrate that perceiving corruption predicts lower generalized trust almost universally across individuals.
That couldn't be the case if autocracy meant a "society that has no trust." You're just speculating (or perhaps "anecdozing") while the article is attempting to measure these things.
Edit: clarification
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The corruption numbers break down into: (1) They didn't ask the question in China, (2) They asked somebody if they paid a bribe or if taking a bribe is every justifiable, and (3) "Expert estimates of the extent to which the executive, legislative, judiciary, and bureaucracy engage in bribery and theft, and the making and implementation of laws are susceptible to corruption" For (2) China doesn't look too different fr…
> though unlike India I think very few Americans have paid a bribe to a cop. No one, left or right, thinks there is street level corruption. Not the kind accessible to someone in a traffic stop. I have experienced it in Mexico and think that kind of corruption would still be worse because I cannot imagine how to recover from it. I have hope that a few high profile arrests of c level fall his may turn the tide. If not…
> though unlike India I think very few Americans have paid a bribe to a cop.
Totally unthinkable in the UK ( at least outside organised crime ).
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#176It's well known that in authoritarian regimes (which autocracies generally are) corruption is, rather than a problem, a necessary element of society to keep things going. Anyone with the slightest amount of official power, like a government officer, has the ability to prevent things going forward on his part. In this kind of society, most people are poor and it would be considered stupid to not demand a small (or lar…
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Why would one of the most popular languages in the world not have a word for "bribe"? Seems a bit condescending, implying Russians can't tell the difference between a "bribe" and customary behavior.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the benefit of social trust when a society can commit such atrocities? The entire point of a society is to care for its members.
It's not like atrocities started with Nazis. Child prostitution, high unemployment, corruption, poverty, moral devastation, drug addiction, injustice, inequality ... all that existed before Nazis so many people ignored the warnings that came with the Nazi party since they were the only ones promising to act.
Nazi apologia.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#178I think modern democracies and autocracies are really just proxies for societies where wealth begets power and where power begets wealth, respectively.
A rich person buying their way into power (either through gaining a formal position or influence) robs the people of that society of their power, which is a limited resource. There is no upside to it, if it were good for the people at large there would be no need for the corruption.
Conversely, a powerful person enriching themself can be a good thing. A crony being put in charge of a state owned corporation, for example, doesn't really take anything away from the common person. It's not like you were in line to be the CEO of a random oil company. So long as your material condition is improving, the rising tide is lifting your boat, who cares if the tide is also lifting someone else's bigger boat. This sort of corruption aligns the interests of the powerful with the economic well being of the nation - the better things are run, the more comfortable the leaders will be - and it's certainly preferable to other ways they could potentially abuse their power. Who wants to be lead by someone so incompetent that they can't find a way to skim a little off the top?
We in democratic society also don't really mind too much if a person achieves tremendous wealth so long as they don't dilute our power. Whether they be startup founders, business moguls, movie stars, rock stars, reality tv stars, socialites spending daddy's money, so long as they stay out of politics and avoid accusations of heinous crimes we not only put up with them, we idolize them. That's not to say that the Kardashians are morally equivalent to the current CEO of Gazprom in terms of how they gained their fortune, but none of us are under the illusion that their wealth is the consequence of hard work providing a much needed good or service to society at large, and if they leverage their status to make even more money that's not going to erode our social trust in any meaningful way.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#179[dead]
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#180I think modern democracies and autocracies are really just proxies for societies where wealth begets power and where power begets wealth, respectively. A rich person buying their way into power (either through gaining a formal position or influence) robs the people of that society of their power, which is a limited resource. There is no upside to it, if it were good for the people at large there would be no need for…
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