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Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

frontiersin.org

201–210 of 414 posts

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#201
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> London is a western city, because of its location and culture.

The dominant culture of the local population is not "Western" anymore.

> London has been a city of traders and other foreigners since at least the days of the Romans.

Is it?

Let's look at the official data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_London

Percentage of white population in London over the years:

- 1961 - 97,7%

- 1966 - 95,5%

- 1971 - 92,6%

- 1981 - 86,6%

- 1991 - 79,8%

- 2001 - 71,15%

- 2011 - 59,79%

- 2021 - 53,8%

It's clear that, up until very recently, London was a city of traders and other foreigners living there among the highly homogenous local population.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#202

Earlier 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.

This is why so much planning gets decided in judicial review.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#203
This resonates strongly from an African perspective. In countries like Kenya, corruption is almost an open secret.people expect it, budget for it, and navigate around it. Paradoxically that "normalized" corruption causes less acute trust erosion because nobody trusted the system deeply to begin with. In democracies the social contract is explicit The real question isn't which system suffers more, but it's which system has better recovery mechanisms when trust breaks down.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#204
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…

Very well said. I live in Sweden, one of the world's highest-trust societies, but I have experience from a more corrupt environment and my whole family lived most of their lives in a corrupt autocracy.

This means that in a corrupt society, it's extremely difficult as an individual not to participate. The corruption isn't something that happens at some level, it's a core part of the economy. If you try to do things by the book, you will just not get any result. You won't get to buy a limited product by waiting your turn. You won't get your kids into a better high school by having them display academic excellence. If you take a principled stance and refuse to participate in the many small-scale acts of corruption the society runs on, you'll have a harder life. I don't want to say it's impossible but I would compare it to living off-grid in a modern Western country. It's possible but it requires a lot of dedication and that lifestyle then determines many aspects of your life.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#205
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…

I would not say that corruption is a positive trait, but rather that in societies with an authoritarian regime, corruption has a positive impact on getting you what you want. Which, of course, makes sense when there are no rules to follow, and it enables you to get things going. Where this fails is when the person who wants to get things going their way doesn’t have enough money. And that’s why it’s usually paired wi…

[deleted]

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the sector. They definitely supported a lot of their rocket science from found documentation in Peenemünde et. al. (The personnel OTOH did its best not to fall into Soviet hands, and most of them ended in America, even though some didn't make it and were captured by the Soviets.) They had genuine excellency in mathematics and theoretical physics. First, those specializations didn't require much expensive o…

> On the other hand, biology was under full tyranny of Lysenko et. al. and "bourgeoise geneticists" would get imprisoned in concentration camps and even executed or starved to death. As a result, Soviet biology never recovered to a respectable science again, not even after Lysenko lost his power. This holds for "pure" biology. On the other hand, for medicine, in the East Block phage therapy was intensively developed…

I don't know why you are getting downvoted. As a simple example of practical biology in USSR, the Eastern Bloc basically invented modern doping programs.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the sector. They definitely supported a lot of their rocket science from found documentation in Peenemünde et. al. (The personnel OTOH did its best not to fall into Soviet hands, and most of them ended in America, even though some didn't make it and were captured by the Soviets.) They had genuine excellency in mathematics and theoretical physics. First, those specializations didn't require much expensive o…

> On the other hand, biology was under full tyranny of Lysenko et. al. and "bourgeoise geneticists" would get imprisoned in concentration camps and even executed or starved to death. As a result, Soviet biology never recovered to a respectable science again, not even after Lysenko lost his power. This holds for "pure" biology. On the other hand, for medicine, in the East Block phage therapy was intensively developed…

I'd rather call this research medical science, and with some exceptions (the Doctor's Plot during the last year of Stalin's paranoid rule), medical science tended to be less policed than biology, because even the top dogs of the Party knew that they could fall ill and require top treatment.

Unlike with Lysenko, where shortages of food for the regular population never demonstrated themselves on the nomenklatura's own dinner tables, there was some feedback mechanism that could not be ignored.

But I agree that the exact border between biology and medical science is murky.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#208
This resonates strongly from an African perspective. In countries like Kenya, corruption is almost an open secret — people expect it, budget for it, and navigate around it. Paradoxically that "normalized" corruption causes less acute trust erosion because nobody trusted the system deeply to begin with. In democracies the social contract is explicit — you voted, you participated, you expected accountability. Betraying that feels personal. The delta between expectation and reality is where trust dies. The real question isn't which system suffers more — it's which system has better recovery mechanisms when trust breaks down.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#209

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…

I am very sure the west sacrificed a lot of wellbeing because of the vast amount of money spent on war. Peace time was great.

Not true. We spent more taxpayers' money on 2008 banks bailout than on every and any war (+ space race) combined.

Also, investing into military tech prevents war on your territory, which is, well, highly disruptive.

Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi apologia.

> Nazi apologia. Care to elaborate, Mr. Godwin?

“They were the ones promising to act”

Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not a historian but something tells me not everyone else was a-ok with atrocities that existed before nazis.

Also, again I’m not a historian, but I believe their promise to act was also tied up in blaming others and hate.

“At least they got things done” is very often the seed around which a belief in fascism crystallizes. They don’t deserve any recognition for what they promised or what they accomplished.

This is a thread about my definition of a high trust society.

So far the only argument in support of nazi germany being high trust is that they got shit done.

I don’t see how anyone could argue that imprisoning your own population in forced labor camps based on rumor is something that can happen in a high trust society.

There is no trust in such a society, only fear.

Arguing about this any more is making me feel sick.

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