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Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

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

#101

Post by axegon_ »

I't s bit more subtle than that. You need to look at it from a different perspective: corruption is fuel for dictators that are openly your enemy way more than you think. It's almost like a cheat code. Dictators are not concerned about corruption in their own countries because they hold the entire supply chain. No one in an authoritarian regime would dare to call out the authorities/dictators on their corruption. If anything, they will outright deny it or reject it even if you shove it in their face: some for fear of their own well being, probably more because they are a product of not just single oppressed generation and propaganda, but multiple centuries and dozens of generations. To them, this is the only reality that exists.

Ronald Reagan's joke[1] might sound like a joke but this is in fact very much the mentality we are dealing with. And the current US administration's actions are playing beautifully for russia, china, etc. Same for dictator wannabes here in Europe. And even if they get caught lying(which they do on daily basis), all they have to tell their citizens is: "look at {insert_anything} that {democratic_country_where_criticism_is_not_prohibited} is doing". They are basically hijacking legitimate opposition: they criticize the US government for instance, portraying them as bad, regardless of who is behind the wheel and are benefiting the most from the least competent ones in charge: the least competent ones do a terrible job, but because they get criticized in the same way by local opposition and foreign enemies, the local opposition gets automatically associated with the foreign enemy and invalidating anything they say,. And thus, ensuring that blind and delusional supporters will stick with the current status quo no matter what.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qh-1_tXeuQ

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

#102

Post by lo_zamoyski »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #11
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #6

This does sort of feel like the kind of thing I might think and wonder about and then do a lot of work doing a study and some research and writing up an article and in the end everyone says "yeah, no duh!"

I can’t speak to this area of research, but studies for obvious things are still quite important. Maximal surprise is not a goal of science, nor is it an effective way to advance knowledge in a field.

The expectation that science must necessarily "surprise" us is a terrible habit. It creates an unhealthy lust for novelty, a trivialization of what it means to "know" or to "understand" by conflating it with familiarity, and it can impede understanding, because the person in question will deny the straightforward and hunt for the "surprise" which becomes a criterion for truth. It can also feed into an incoherent categorical skepticism of human rational powers and tantalize superstitious, gnostic appetites.

Science (broadly understood) looks for explanation and for verification. The point is to understand. Many interesting things may be found by analysis of what is known.

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

#103

Post by terminalshort »

dzink wrote: post #19

You have to understand how gears shift from there. Trust is essential for business transactions and specifically for long term investments. You can’t make massive leaps in technology or medicine or many other areas without trust (a lot of money on a leap means if you don’t trust the other side or the government to keep conditions stable, you won’t see a return). Now if you are in a high trust society, you may have a…

Your example isn't corruption. That's just crime. But it does do massive damage.

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

#104

Post by PaulHoule »

bluGill wrote: post #87
PaulHoule wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually here in the US the "politically sophisticated" voter chooses a party first, votes for their party every single time and chooses policy positions to fit their party rather than other way around. A few percent of people just kinda blow in the wind and might on a lark join in with a presidential candidate to "have a little fun" and those people are who make the difference in competitive elections.

Having been involved those choosing the party positions often are secretly voting third party. They are trying to change the party potition and when it works the vote for the party, but when it fails they vote for who they like. people who only vote in the general election, and maybe the primaries have choosen their party and then potitions based on the party.

In New York many elections are so lopsided that I'm inclined to vote third party because voting either D or R if I don't like the candidate is "wasting my vote".

I was active in the Green Party (twisting people's arms to run for local office) in the early 2000s and think about voting Green in each presidential election but it's been a while because I don't particularly like Jill Stein and think if you're hard on CO2 you should be easy on Uranium.

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

#105

Post by mothballed »

speeder wrote: post #95
andai wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an unusual perspective here. In my country the politicians are openly very corrupt. (Well, possibly yours too ;) Recently there has been a lot of improvement to the infrastructure. I realized that what has happened is, a lot of EU funds have been made available for development, and people are lining up to skim a little bit off the top. How you say, the incentives are aligned, yeah? I find myself in the odd sit…

I am from Brazil, and there is a famous politician there that has the non-official slogan of "Steals but Does". He is Paulo Maluf. "Everyone" knows he is corrupt. But people vote for him anyway, because he get things done, and he doesn't engage in certain kinds of corruption. That is the problem, how you get corruption to go the way you want? Lots of politicians see Paulo Maluf, and think they can imitate him, that t…

I would vote for an infrastructure kleptocrat any day over someone that will actually enforce the insane zoning and code law we have here. A big problem in USA is you can only get many building or infrastructure things done maybe if you have millions to "influence" politicians. The opportunity to have a politician rob me of 10,20% of the construction costs and meanwhile actually be able to build a condo or something on my own property would be amazing.

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

#106

Post by terminalshort »

andai wrote: post #82
dzink wrote: post #19

You have to understand how gears shift from there. Trust is essential for business transactions and specifically for long term investments. You can’t make massive leaps in technology or medicine or many other areas without trust (a lot of money on a leap means if you don’t trust the other side or the government to keep conditions stable, you won’t see a return). Now if you are in a high trust society, you may have a…

I have an unusual perspective here. In my country the politicians are openly very corrupt. (Well, possibly yours too ;) Recently there has been a lot of improvement to the infrastructure. I realized that what has happened is, a lot of EU funds have been made available for development, and people are lining up to skim a little bit off the top. How you say, the incentives are aligned, yeah? I find myself in the odd sit…

At some point the process to prevent corruption costs more than the actual corruption. The process to award the contract for the Obamacare website wasn't corrupt, but it cost $700 million and the app didn't even work. In a corrupt system that contract would have gone to a company owned by some official's cousin, and he would have bid $100 million knowing he could pocket 50, but it would have got done because he knows the last thing he needs is an investigation. That's kind of how it works in China.

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

#107

Post by Sharlin »

bojan wrote: post #75
Sharlin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps ironically, there are still institutions that to some extent rely on social trust in autocracies. For example, the black market is an institution. As is the "bribe economy" – the general understanding that getting X done generally costs you around Y, where Y is not arbitrary. Then there's the whole thing about criminal organizations that typically rely on social cohesion and upholding all kinds of rules.

The black market is not an institution, it's a messy anarchy where you have zero guarantee you'll get what you paid for. > As is the "bribe economy" – the general understanding that getting X done generally costs you around Y, where Y is not arbitrary That's really not how that works. Sometimes your bribe will be refused. Sometimes they'll ask for more money even when you think you paid. Sometimes they'll simply not…

I'm obviously not defending these things, but people do get things done in everyday life in deeply corrupt countries. It's not chaos. Society is self-organizing like that, and this stuff is all iterated prisoner's dilemma in the end.

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

#108

Post by miroljub »

eru wrote: post #38
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we living in the same reality? Look at how business works in the rich west works. Everything is formalized with contracts, risk is portioned out and offloaded to every party under the sun. You bring in people with licenses and accreditation, 3rd party consultants, etc, etc. All of this work and expense is incurred so that if things go wrong then the parties all have precisely defined ways in which they can (expen…

Western Europe is a low trust environment compared to the beacons in (cultural) East Asia, like Singapore. I can leave my kid with an iPad in her hand here without fear of it being nicked, like in London. But business wise, western Europe is still relatively high trust. I suggest you read more about this.

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

#109

Post by modo_mario »

lnsru wrote: post #55
varispeed wrote: post #44

Corruption is rife in the West. Wealth managers wine and dine with governments and essentially order policies that nobody voted for that continue to be developed regardless of which party won the elections. Same faces meet with new cohorts of politicians and continue to get their way whilst security services supposed to protect democracy hide their heads in the sand. See things like Digital ID, censorship, surveillan…

I am in Germany. Apparently very democratic place. However nothing happens what people voted for. There is always few groups advertising affordable living in Munich. Never happened. Every year the rent climbs to new never seen high. The system very obviously does not work as advertised. The conspiracist in me however thinks, that the system works as intended.

> There is always few groups advertising affordable living in Munich. Never happened. Every year the rent climbs to new never seen high.

Well your population grows trough migration, your land does not and your construction doesn't match either in a long term inflationary environment with every incentive pointing in the continuation of that path.

See also Canada, Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Australia, etc, etc

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

#110

Post by vlovich123 »

terminalshort wrote: post #103
dzink wrote: post #19

You have to understand how gears shift from there. Trust is essential for business transactions and specifically for long term investments. You can’t make massive leaps in technology or medicine or many other areas without trust (a lot of money on a leap means if you don’t trust the other side or the government to keep conditions stable, you won’t see a return). Now if you are in a high trust society, you may have a…

Your example isn't corruption. That's just crime. But it does do massive damage.

I’m confused. Corruption isn’t crime? I know white collar crime was controversial 100 years ago, but are we back to arguing whether corruption is crime or not?
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