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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

#251

Post by newyankee »

zipy124 wrote: post #147
Telemakhos wrote: post #143

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.

Civil Servants in India (with traces to British era) are considered the invisible rulers of the country. Getting selected is like becoming a local lord.

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #78
rob74 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China's pretty corrupt politically but the social trust is quite high, the highest outside of northern europe as far as I can tell There are a few reasons for that that I can imagine: - China is one of very few autocracies that has managed to significantly improve the standard of living of most of its population. - The public trials and (sometimes) executions of allegedly corrupt individuals might help improve the…

China was getting better for a long time. XI is changing that. Change is slow though and he is not rushing corruption though it seems to be increasing. He has purged some corrupt people as well making things slightly better in the short term - but he values loyalty over competence and so his short term changes are for less corruption but long term increase it. That is China is a complex country and books (which are n…

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by drysine »

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…

[flagged]

>Reminds me of a report that Russians have no word for "bribe"

You could've checked that faster than it took you to write your russophobic comment

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

#254

Post by drysine »

mentalgear wrote: post #216
mystraline wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with meritocracy: who decides what "merit" is? The answer is: those who are already in power.

Stop the relativism. In a democracy it's mostly all of us that have a say, in a dictatorship it's one guy and his fascist rank's whim.

>it's mostly all of us that have a say

Do you?

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

#256

Post by wtmt »

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…

I’ve known the difference in corruption at different levels between a country like India and a country like the US.

India hasn’t had a very long authoritarian regime since its independence. Yet, corruption has existed at every touch point with the government and shows no signs of reduction. In India, getting a driver’s license or getting a passport (for which there’s a “police verification” step) or buying/selling real estate or filing a police complaint or getting some work done in a court of law or even getting the final rites of a deceased person (burial or cremation) done require bribes in most places.

Also, paying a bribe means standing in line with the rest of the people who paid bribes. Things don’t move fast just because money exchanged hands.

All this is to say that I don’t know what to make of your statement on authoritarian vs. democratic regimes (though you mentioned “western”). The main factor seems to be the culture and what others here have described as low trust vs high trust.

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

#257

Post by gotwaz »

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…

Thats a very nice story. Tell us where Morality comes from and why it hasnt gone extinct?

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

#258

Post by groundzeros2015 »

Gravityloss wrote: post #173
zipy124 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t think this is true. 20th century authoritarians made great effort to leverage the law and use legal systems.

Rule of law doesn’t address the problem of bad laws (from bad governance).

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

#259

Post by fwipsy »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #242
btilly wrote: post #218

Earlier 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…

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, a…

None of those examples you gave sound like corruption to me, with the possible exception of tickets. It seems to me that the problem is when people who are in a position of power and responsibility abuse their power for personal ends. Plumbing or tutoring or cheese are privately held goods and surely the possessors of those goods can dispose of them how they want?

Or perhaps in all of these examples the plumber/grocer/engineer is entrusted with responsibility from the government to ration a scarce resource?

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

#260

Post by adiabatichottub »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #242
btilly wrote: post #218

Earlier 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…

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, a…

I don't know about difficult to translate, sounds a lot like being a "Good Old Boy"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/good_old_boy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_boy_network#United_States

Of course, it has several connotations depending on exact context.

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