Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

Post by joe_mamba » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

bdauvergne wrote: post #71

lm28469 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think culture and education play much bigger roles than anything else, all the sources I find show Germany and France having similar level of corruption (on top of being geographically and economically close) but completely different level of "social trust". China's pretty corrupt politically but the social trust is quite high, the highest outside of northern europe as far as I can tell https://ourworldindata.org/c…

It's the institutional part which is lacking in France. Look at the budget of the ministry of justice in France per capita and in Germany. Germany spend twice as much and has twice as much judges per capita than France (and everything which goes with it like clerks). My company took the biggest telecom company in France to court for a violation of our license on a soft, license was GPLv2, we won, but it took 12 years…

Post by hax0ron3 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

mentalgear wrote: post #142

yason wrote: post #130

It'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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Post by amarant » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #144

mothballed wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opinion that most legal judgements and arguments (especially at the highest levels like SCOTUS or circuit courts) are just post-facto rationalization of the outcome they want. Any superior logic and argument is just a reflection that such minds tend to be more cunning at access the inner workings of power if they weren't already born there.

Mid-century I think judges were more committed to "fair and honest application of the law." This actually led conservatives to rage against judges who would "become liberal" on the bench. The quintessential example of this was Chief Justice Earl Warren (appointed by Dwight Eisenhower) but there were may other cases like Justice Souter (appointed by George HW Bush). So conservative groups started developing lists of "…

Post by Aloha » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

Telemakhos wrote: post #143

yason wrote: post #130

It'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…

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?

Post by divan » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #163

DoughnutHole wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviet Union was able to innovate in the areas they chose to sink resources into but innovation was clearly not as widespread as evidenced by their decades of stagnation from the 60s onwards. They were still innovating in military technology in the 80s but analysis since their collapse analysis that they were at least 20% of GDP on defence, if not as high as 40%. The West managed to match and surpass Soviet milit…

Innovation is a term inherently tied to products sold at markets in product cycles that change over time. I think you're looking for the term invention.