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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

#361

Post by hunterpayne »

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.

The politicians enacted the policies requested. The problem is that the policies don't work and even have the opposite of the intended effect at times. Democracy divides power to (try to) prevent autocracy. It doesn't make most people smart so doing dumb things is still on the table and still has bad consequences.

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

#362

Post by AngryData »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #268
markus_zhang wrote: post #200

IMO corruption is just a symptom. Everything goes back to one source point: lack of well-educated citizens who can push back without hesitation. Note that the two conditions: well-educated and can push back without hesitation. Missing any of them and the foundation cracks. Also I wouldn't bother comparing corruption between democracies and authoritarians. I have lived under both and the only thing I see is the common…

In Mexico, you either pay the bribe or go to jail on trumped up charges. I don’t see what education level has to do with it.

In the US you just go to jail on trumped up charges unless you appear wealthy enough to afford a full time lawyer.

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

#363

Post by btilly »

thatcat wrote: post #328
btilly wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are all corruption, or corruption adjacent. The plumber is working for a company. He's supposed to be working on an official job. But he's doing the work slowly because he's actually working on your plumbing problem. You are working for the grocery store. You are stealing cheese from the store system that is supposed to allocate it, and making it available it to the plumber as payment for your plumber being corr…

Would you say the scarcity is what starts the corruption? Like you can't get a plumber so you have to use your personal network or there aren't enough tickets so you have to obtain one through your personal network, etc?

This kind of corrruption goes as far back as we can find records.

I think that the real question is not how the corruption started. But, rather, how in some places rule of law came to be established instead.

That said, I don't have a good answer to that question either.

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

#364

Post by Barrin92 »

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…

>corruption is, rather than a problem, a necessary element of society to keep things going.

There's a prof at Johns Hopkins, Yuen Yuen Ang, who wrote a whole book on the topic in China. She dubbed this 'access money'. Corruption that 'greases the wheels' and removes red tape by bureaucracies, which authoritarian states are very prone to, is a net positive. It doesn't erode trust because it stimulates growth and doesn't interfere with the lives of ordinary citizens. It's basically a hack to get things done.

The East Asian countries in particular tend to have this at the corporate levels. Chaebols in South Korea and Zaibatsu in Japan tend to be corrupt in that sense but it has if anything an organizing function.

In most democratic countries corruption tends to happen at the individual level, think Indian police in some states who are famous for extorting travelers like road bandits. That's significantly more trust eroding and economically harmful. If you don't differentiate what kind of corruption you're talking about you can't really make sense of it.

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

#365

Post by totetsu »

gmd63 wrote: post #227
ACS_Solver wrote: post #204

Earlier 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…

Access to corruption is never widely understood and accessible to every person, otherwise it would be written into law and stated plainly for everyone to see. Corruption is a form of economic eugenics that breeds fraudsters and cheaters who can buy into the in-group via know-how, money or aesthetics while slowing the growth of a law abiding populace that competes honestly on merit but doesn't fit the unwritten rules…

Trump also made a great contribution to corruption around the world, by pausing enforcement of anti-corruption laws with the EO "Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement" https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/paus...

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

#366

Post by ses1984 »

miroljub wrote: post #334
ses1984 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original context of this thread is the validity of china’s data in this trust survey. Interjecting with positive example of nazi germany is not even correct. There’s no way anyone can argue in good faith that nazi germany was high trust. The nazis don’t need you to come to their defense. Nazism is basically ignoring the will of their own people and actively working against them.

Can you please point out where I said Nazi regime was high trust? Its trust level was even lower than of its predecessor.

You didn’t but in the context of the comments immediately above yours,

>Eg Nazi Germany still benefited from a high-ish level of social trust, despite numerous atrocities.

>What's the benefit of social trust when a society can commit such atrocities?

Then you come in with

> It's not like atrocities started with Nazis

Your comment pretty much directly says the nazis weren’t that bad and in context looks like you’re agreeing with previous poster they are high trust.

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

#367

Post by curio_Pol_curio »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #114
PaulHoule wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corruption numbers break down into: (1) They didn't ask the question in China, (2) They asked somebody if they paid a bribe or if taking a bribe is every justifiable, and (3) "Expert estimates of the extent to which the executive, legislative, judiciary, and bureaucracy engage in bribery and theft, and the making and implementation of laws are susceptible to corruption" For (2) China doesn't look too different fr…

How do you see Xi's anticorruption campaign? Is it just a club to beat political opponents with, or is there a real problem and he's trying to fix it?

There's an interesting paradox hiding in plain sight here: Xi imported the anticorruption strat from Singapore, so superficially, PH below is correct.

Since SG has the opposite problem from China: ((low) gov corruption XOR (low) social trust).

The paradox is that the strat will have wildly different failure modes in SG vs CN or JP (all are aware of this!)

Note also that SG is consistently ranked in the top 10 together with the Nordics+NZ+IE+CH in spite of this failure mode..

My informed opinion is that LDP+loyalist-bureaucrats have been shipping and failing the same strat for years-- LDP dominance is the tell. Any critique of Xi's policy can be backed with JP data. Prediction: Xi will succeed if and only if CPC fall (or do the ship-of-theseus thing)

https://archive.ph/hsTzy

https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/japans-new-ldp-scand...

Keywords (actual jargon)

天下り (fox->human) 忖度 族議員 行政指導

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

#368

Post by gmd63 »

tines wrote: post #325
gmd63 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to corruption is never widely understood and accessible to every person, otherwise it would be written into law and stated plainly for everyone to see. Corruption is a form of economic eugenics that breeds fraudsters and cheaters who can buy into the in-group via know-how, money or aesthetics while slowing the growth of a law abiding populace that competes honestly on merit but doesn't fit the unwritten rules…

> Access to corruption is never widely understood and accessible to every person, otherwise it would be written into law and stated plainly for everyone to see. This is an uninformed non-sequitur. In China or Mexico for example, it's well known that to get certain things done you have to bribe local officials. The central government is against corruption by policy, but nevertheless corruption is endemic. It's only "i…

I'm interested to hear your informed thoughts on why corruption charges still exist in China if everyone there knows how corruption is happening.

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

#369

Post by mycall »

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 much does what you describe have to do with the continuous compounding of laws? Since 1976, on average 220 new laws are enacted by Congress per year, but this is additive as most laws do not sunset or get repealed. Also, the complexity and length of newer laws have exploded. All of this suggests more control over people and follows the tension between the rule of law and rule by law.

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

#370

Post by sneak »

gmd63 wrote: post #368
tines wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Access to corruption is never widely understood and accessible to every person, otherwise it would be written into law and stated plainly for everyone to see. This is an uninformed non-sequitur. In China or Mexico for example, it's well known that to get certain things done you have to bribe local officials. The central government is against corruption by policy, but nevertheless corruption is endemic. It's only "i…

I'm interested to hear your informed thoughts on why corruption charges still exist in China if everyone there knows how corruption is happening.

Selective enforcement of widely broken laws is one of the primary sources of control in an autocracy.
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