yeah, no shit.
Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
241–250 of 414 posts
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
As I commented elsewhere, the Russian name for this is blat. It isn't just corruption. It is a personal trust network for getting things done, that you can't get done if you follow the official rules. You get what you need through corruption, and your ability to do so strengthens your trust in your personal network. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn86C4ZwBSg for an excellent explanation of it. And also an explan…
Right. And oh my do I hate blat.
It's a difficult concept to translate to English because it's not synonymous with corruption or bribes. A one-time bribe transaction isn't blat. You want a school to accept your kid so you "gift" the school some supplies, that's not blat, it's a one-time thing and the school principal doesn't owe you any additional favors. Blat is more like a social network of people trading favors, and each individual transaction within your blat network may involve different things. It could be money, it could be access to a product (that you still have to pay for), it could be time or labor.
Maybe you know a plumber and he will come look at plumbing problems for you and your family, for free or for a low price. But you work at a grocery store and the plumber can always buy cheese because you set some aside for him. That's a blat relationship. And then the blat network grows - one day you mention you'd like to see a theater pay and it turns out the plumber's wife works in a theater and can help you get tickets, he'll set you up. Your husband is an engineer though so he can help tutor their child in mathematics.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#243It'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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Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I commented elsewhere, the Russian name for this is blat. It isn't just corruption. It is a personal trust network for getting things done, that you can't get done if you follow the official rules. You get what you need through corruption, and your ability to do so strengthens your trust in your personal network. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn86C4ZwBSg for an excellent explanation of it. And also an explan…
I was initially confused because blat (блат, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(favors) ) sounds, to my non-slavic-speaking-ear very close to bylad (блядь, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_profanity#Bly%C3%A1d '), and I thought "even the Russians wouldn't be that cynically direct about it, right?"
I can confirm those words do not in fact sound very close. They're not etymologically related either, and to a fluent Russian speaker they don't sound particularly similar.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I commented elsewhere, the Russian name for this is blat. It isn't just corruption. It is a personal trust network for getting things done, that you can't get done if you follow the official rules. You get what you need through corruption, and your ability to do so strengthens your trust in your personal network. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn86C4ZwBSg for an excellent explanation of it. And also an explan…
I was initially confused because blat (блат, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(favors) ) sounds, to my non-slavic-speaking-ear very close to bylad (блядь, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_profanity#Bly%C3%A1d '), and I thought "even the Russians wouldn't be that cynically direct about it, right?"
They may sound somewhat similar, but apparently have unrelated origins. блат is borrowed from Yiddish, while блядь has a Slavic root.
That said, they do sound less similar to someone who has learned a Slavic language. We learn to distinguish pairs of sounds that differ in our language. English doesn't have a lot of words with a "ya" sound, and so to us "я"and "а" are easy to confuse. It is easy to confuse "d" and "t". But the easier to hear distinction is a hard sign т versus the soft sign on дь. But hard versus soft isn't even a concept in English, so you're not listening for it.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#246Earlier 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.
The culture and trust of the people makes the system work or fail, not the system itself.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#247Earlier 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?
These are the 'benevolent authoritarian-ship' outliers - very rare and depends on chance that the current person in power truly acts in the interest of the public - but when they are gone there's no legal framework in place that keeps their successors to do whatever they please. EDIT: commenters are still all referring to Singapore which I remind you is the very rare outlier case.
Part of what makes Singapore interesting is that they have yet to have a leader truly invested in subsuming the power of the system. A big thing of Xi Jinping’s rise to power has been the systematic dismantling of post-Mao checks on power.
Singapore has yet to have a leader willing to take over the system, because two of its leaders were the dynasty that created the system. The real test is what happens when someone like that shows up; but even Western democracies face this problem, it’s just that the system has more built in speed bumps to overcome.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#248It'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…
>in a corrupt society, it's extremely difficult as an individual not to participate
Russia is considered a corrupt country by the West, but I have never bribed anyone and never felt that a bribe is expected.
>better high school by having them display academic excellence
Worked just fine for me.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#249Earlier 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?
These are the 'benevolent authoritarian-ship' outliers - very rare and depends on chance that the current person in power truly acts in the interest of the public - but when they are gone there's no legal framework in place that keeps their successors to do whatever they please. EDIT: commenters are still all referring to Singapore which I remind you is the very rare outlier case.
Rare outliers indicate the root problem is not the structure. All the interesting questions arise from the outliers
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 d…
My only claim was that things were far from perfect (profoundly broken) before Nazis came to power. They made many terrible things, but they also fixed some of the issues they promised to fix. That's why they were able to grab power.
You can read more about the Weimar Republic. If it weren't so fundamentally broken, Nazis would never come to power. Stating this is not Nazi apologia but a warning of what happens if governments and the ruling class ignore the will of their own people and actively work against it for a long time.