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Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
61–70 of 414 posts
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#62I wonder more : in wich side is considered today USA ?
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lawyers in the west are a high status career, because we trust the rule of law. In China, its considered a joke career. What is the point of being a lawyer, when relative position, influence and power within the CCP is the lone factor in winning a case? Big companies all end up with shadow positions that are there just to pay money out to CCP honchos and their kids. Board positions and executive positions go to the C…
That's nonsense. No matter how corrupt the CCP is, it cannot have a stake in all court cases in China. Maybe politically sensitive trials are a farce (arguably that's the case in much of the West too, but that's a different story) but that doesn't make the profession as a whole a joke.
A lot of what I've seen is that boring small civil and criminal cases (shoplifting) aren't that different in China than they are here.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#64What corruption does to communism and democracy in Russia in years 1985 to 1999 is well documented in latest Adam Curtis documentary series Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_1985%E2%80%931999:_Trau...
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#65Perhaps because in autocracies there is no 'society' by definition? That's why they are called autocracies. Social trust is a way horizontal relationships between people are framed and organised - that is, relationship that does not go through the state. In autocracies, these just don't exist. Everything bigger than a a family (in some countries, extended family or a clan), goes through the State. There is no 'social…
See this notorious anti-fascist
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#66You 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…
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…
As the US transitions into a high corruption / low trust environment, business investment disappears.
Trump tried to solicit bribes from anthropic, retaliated by violating the DoW contracts when they didn’t pay, and then somehow forced Dario to publicly apologize for bringing the matter to light. Do you really think this is how the US will win at AI?
Look at the car industry, where the corruption and coercion started earlier. For some reason, Trump used ICE to illegally detain a bunch of Kia engineers. They announced they’re not going to add more trimlines to their EV lines in the US.
Honda announced they’re canceling planes to build three new model lines in Ohio.
The macro statistics are dire. Pre-Biden, US factory investment was $80B per year. Trump wiped $30B off that number in 2025. Biden got it up to $240B, so Trump “only” wiped out 10-15%, but, because he was starting from a high number, the damage is equivalent to 35% of all factory investment that existed when he last left office!
The rate at which industrial production is fleeing the US is increasing. This year, the loss will probably be greater than the entire 2018 US factory investment base.
There are similar trends happening in tech and academia. There’s not much left once that happens. (Insurance, banking and marketing, mostly.)
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it just means that in autocracy everyone assumes institutions are corrupt, so no trust is broken. If you don't have trust, it cant be broken.
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.
Black market participants do not trust each other and defraud each other. Then they settle the differences via violence. Likewise, bribe economy has an element of "they took the bribe and did nothing".
> Then there's the whole thing about criminal organizations that typically rely on social cohesion and upholding all kinds of rules.
Those rules are broken constantly and have to be reinforced via force constantly. The members of actual criminal organizations do not trust each other. They take the risk of betrayal very seriously. Including by pre-emptively killing own friends to protect themselves.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#68Earlier 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…
Your response just proves his point. All of that paperwork, all of those contracts- that assumes you can trust the government to fairly enforce the law. In a society where corruption rules, you have no reason to spend time and money on any of that because you know you’re one bribe away from it all being kindling for your next bonfire. So yes, in areas with high corruption they don’t bother. They either just set aside…
> contracts
Are you assuming that the foundation for those, Rule of Law, is alive & healthy in an autocracy?
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#69I have been thinking about this more and more the past few points, to the point where I feel like I have to run for office as a social duty. (USA) There are so few politicians who give more than lip service to stopping corruption. Our districts are embarrassing. People tolerating the blatant corruption by the Trump administration is something I don't understand. They will get upset about Epstein, but don't care about…
It's the idea that I heard somewhere or watched but the idea's basically "slowly at first, then all of a sudden" My understanding of US/America/even-other-parts-of-world is that they weren't always like this but slowly turned into something where instead of voting for the better candidate, you are voting for a slightly less worse candidate and that opens up a can of worms because you just have to be or you have to so…
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.
Re: Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
#70Everyone works for their community, and rewarding those who contribute the most by consensus is trust, regardless of gender, race, skill, or inheritance. The opposite is corruption.