What is political corruption?

[Zardnaar]

I am not sure I completely agree with dishonesty. I would say it is more about whether politicians are held accountable for their actions. Secrecy is obviously a big component of this, especially in functional democracies. But if someone has a firm enough grasp of power that they cannot be held accountable, they can be corrupt more openly.

The badness of corruption scales with the leverage of actions. If a politician pays themselves a million, they cost the country a million. If they take a million in bribes for making decisions that cost the country a billion, the impact is much worse.



I think you are reading the shades of green wrong. If my eyes don't betray me, Switzerland has a higher score than most of Europe. The metric is simply how corrupt people think a country is. The actual amount of corruption (whatever that would be) does not matter beyond how it influences these opinions.

Also what counts as corruption.

Alot if "influence" is legal and semi out in the open.

Outright bribery and theft is probably what people think of as corruption.

Also where is the corruption eg body politic, civil service or society at large. And what's the level of corruption.

USA everyone's favorite kicking hot fails a lot of the tests but scores well in other ways eg freedom of press.

And they have things like SEC. Corruption happens but one can't be to blatant about it and you can get prosecuted. There's a lot worse.

 

[Crezth]

But is it just that the more money you make in the corruption you can hide it better? With the amount of money sloshing about silicon valley/Hollywood do you really think there is less going to graft than in the wilds of Alabama? Or is it that Alabama has drunken cops taking backhanders and California has executives giving backhanders to the SEC and the drunken cops get caught?

I think you may be on to something.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you may be on to something.

That's more American corruption levels.

Corruption exists everywhere. America is far from the worst.

The even more corrupt countries have most of the problems the less corrupt countries and turn it up to 11.

 

[Arwon]

Do okay at what? What, exactly, is being measured here? And to get to the point, why are the richest countries the least corrupt? Are rich people more integrity having than poor people? This is what the data in this index seems to suggest. That rich people have more integrity and so on average are less corrupt.

Seems to suggest higher paid public servants and other officials, which can only be supported with a large economy and tax base, are less likely to rely on bribes, which seems reasonable to me.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Is it the failure of a system to uphold its intended processes? Intended by whom?

No, it's not a failure, it greases the wheels of progress by providing incentives for things to get done for interested parties. Everyone wins.

Is all corruption inherently bad?

Not at all. For an example, a lot of people complain about highways being built through torn down downtowns where people used to live, usually with the threat of force, and no compensation, often allegedly targeting on an ethnic/racial basis (this hasn't been proven properly). However, no one considers the thousands, no, millions of people who drive their cars daily through these highways; if that's "corruption", sign me up!

What does it mean to be “corrupt” in the modern political order?

It mostly means not hewing my line which is very unfortunate. Someone ought to do something about this. Preferably with heavy pockets, and not in a violent manner, as we are all civilized folks here.

Are politicians really corrupt if the system is designed for them to personally be able to profit a little? I mean how else do you incentivize good performance?

That's a leading question, my friend; in fact what people call "corruption" is nothing than mutually beneficial relationship between public/private actors (or private/private actors, even) that results, more often than not, result in enriching the local environment.

Is there any country that doesn’t incentivize its leaders prioritizing their own good over the public good?

Well, yes, for an example, I've heard in Sweden they have free healthcare, which means that the citizenry is simply not receiving any kind of stimulus towards entrepreneurship that benefits the public good, and instead preferring to live lousely as they exploit migrant labour en-masse. It is quite disgusting, actually.

Which countries have the biggest problems with this?

For some reason, post-colonial states do not appear to be doing too well at this metric. Some corruption, as you can by now sense, I believe is a necessity. Unfortunately, a lot of the corruption goes the wrong way, and we ought to really do something about it. After pleading the world for five or six decades or something to be granted self-determination by their overlords - which was, benevolently granted in most places, although there are some hysterical dead-enders who did not see a point in doing that (such as the U.K, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, et cetera) - it would appear that this is a burden they cannot carry. Perhaps someone else ought to. I have charts. I have maps. I'm sure you'd be interested.

 

[Arwon]

Actually if you look at internal corruption charts you see that where US corruption is highest are states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which are also some of the poorest states; and California and the West Coast, richer, rank very low for corruption. https://hubscore.co/report/most-corrupt-states

Numbers based on conviction rates could probably cut both ways - either more convictions could be suggesting greater levels of corruption, or more convictions could be suggesting more effective anti corruption legal regimes.

 

[Lexicus]

Do okay at what? What, exactly, is being measured here? And to get to the point, why are the richest countries the least corrupt? Are rich people more integrity having than poor people? This is what the data in this index seems to suggest. That rich people have more integrity and so on average are less corrupt.

I think the corruption perception index basically shows you that in poorer countries officials tend to engage in petty graft. I think it's a poor measure of "corruption" as such because it doesn't capture the big-picture stuff like the Iraq war that makes, like, a customs official taking bribes look like a rank amateur.

There’s another way to look at it: perhaps the least corrupt countries are the richest. I think it’s this way around.

Except that of course the US was extremely corrupt in the 19th century when it was industrializing and growing richer fast. I just don't think this checks out.

 

[Arwon]

Was the Iraq War really corruption as generally understood? I'm not sure deliberate political projects like that are corrupt as such, they had pretty clear political ends in the form of an ideological regime change project and the looting of a foreign country. For most of human history, a government that invaded another country and looted it of its valuables to enrich the imperial core was doing exactly what was expected of it. I guess that has at least become a bit more subtle and shame faced, but to me corruption is more directed within the territory governed and speaks to the mechanics of how citizens experience the state they live under... and not so much about its outward foreign policy?

 

[Lexicus]

Was the Iraq War really corruption as generally understood? I'm not sure deliberate political projects like that are corrupt as such, they had pretty deliberate political ends in the form of an ideological regime change project and the looting of a foreign country. For most of human history, a government that invaded another country and looted it of its valuable was doing exactly what was expected of it.

This is what I'm trying to suggest, that if the general understanding of corruption does not include this sort of thing then it is the general understanding of corruption that is in fact wrong. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the popular understanding of corruption happens more or less to correspond to "the US and its allies are Good and Not Corrupt while the formerly colonized world is Bad and Corrupt". This provides a rubric under which essentially colonial relations continue because those corrupt people clearly cannot be trusted to run their own affairs, and also provides a justification (which we are seeing people literally say in this thread) for the massive global inequality that essentially blames the victims of 3-400 years of European imperialism for their own immiseration.

You know, to take one other example in the US that is perhaps less arguable than the Iraq War, look at how deregulation led to the financial crisis in 2008. The state was essentially captured by the interests it was supposed to regulate and a bunch of bank executives got very, very rich looting "their" own banks, all of this just allowed by a government where the people who were supposed to be regulating the banking sector were all just completely simping for the very banks they were supposed to regulate, in large part because their careers outside of government depended on being paid lots of money by those same banks. This facilitated literally the largest wave of property crimes in human history, an economic loss of trillions of dollars, and yet the US is green on the corruption perception index. Why?

 

[Zardnaar]

This is what I'm trying to suggest, that if the general understanding of corruption does not include this sort of thing then it is the general understanding of corruption that is in fact wrong. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the popular understanding of corruption happens more or less to correspond to "the US and its allies are Good and Not Corrupt while the formerly colonized world is Bad and Corrupt". This provides a rubric under which essentially colonial relations continue because those corrupt people clearly cannot be trusted to run their own affairs, and also provides a justification (which we are seeing people literally say in this thread) for the massive global inequality that essentially blames the victims of 3-400 years of European imperialism for their own immiseration.

You know, to take one other example in the US that is perhaps less arguable than the Iraq War, look at how deregulation led to the financial crisis in 2008. The state was essentially captured by the interests it was supposed to regulate and a bunch of bank executives got very, very rich looting "their" own banks, all of this just allowed by a government where the people who were supposed to be regulating the banking sector were all just completely simping for the very banks they were supposed to regulate, in large part because their careers outside of government depended on being paid lots of money by those same banks. This facilitated literally the largest wave of property crimes in human history, an economic loss of trillions of dollars, and yet the US is green on the corruption perception index. Why?

Sone of that is more fraud, morally dubious or some other crime.

Selling weapons for example isn’t corruption. It is if bribery is involved.

Plenty of Grey areas as well eg political donations even with above board transparency

 

[Arwon]

and yet the US is green on the corruption perception index. Why?

I mean it's barely green despite being officially basically the richest country in the world (I have some issues with comparing GDP like that but anyway), I wouldn't exactly describe the US as a shining example of rich countries not being corrupt. It's about on par with Bhutan and the UAE there. Some of that big picture stuff would appear to be leaking into the perceptions of the folks being surveyed, since to my knowledge you can't generally bribe cops and county clerks in the US with any degree of confidence so it can't be showing that.

 

[Lexicus]

I mean it's barely green despite being officially basically the richest country in the world (I have some issues with comparing GDP like that but anyway), I wouldn't exactly describe the US as a shining example of rich countries not being corrupt. It's about on par with Bhutan and the UAE there. Some of that big picture stuff would appear to be leaking into the perceptions of the folks being surveyed, since to my knowledge you can't generally bribe cops and county clerks in the US with any degree of confidence so it can't be showing that.

I dunno about trying to bribe cops but a lot of US police departments do run what are basically protection rackets.

 

[Arwon]

And if that became universally understood in the popular imagination, I would suggest the perceptions survey results would drop quite a bit!

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean it's barely green despite being officially basically the richest country in the world (I have some issues with comparing GDP like that but anyway), I wouldn't exactly describe the US as a shining example of rich countries not being corrupt. It's about on par with Bhutan and the UAE there. Some of that big picture stuff would appear to be leaking into the perceptions of the folks being surveyed, since to my knowledge you can't generally bribe cops and county clerks in the US with any degree of confidence.

Also it scores very high on freedom of the press. Which means they can hold you accountable for said corruption.

Functionally impossible here to bribe a cop or civil servant the exception might be if you personally know them. I wouldn't even bother trying there's a very high chance you get arrested for trying.

Front page news when it does happen.

It's also really hard to defraud a government department if you work there.

 

[Arwon]

Also it scores very high on freedom of the press. Which means they can hold you accountable for said corruption.

Functionally impossible here to bribe a cop or civil servant the exception might be if you personally know them. I wouldn't even bother trying there's a very high chance you get arrested for trying.

Front page news when it does happen.

It's also really hard to defraud a government department if you work there.

I don't believe press freedom forms any part of the corruption perceptions methodology

 

[gay_Aleks]

Luckily for Americans, this isn't corruption, but merely things functioning as they ought to be.

 

[Arwon]

There's another argument to be made that a lot of the practices and ideologies now embedded and framed as normal business practice in the developed world and not perceived as corrupt by the survey-responding population at large... may be instead seen as crooked and amoral, and not a legitimate use of political power or business influence, in less developed parts of the world, where that type of consensus hasn't emerged, and where such behaviour is also clearly and visibly able to be linked to the petty graft and embezzling and whatnot that also occurs a lot and which everyone has directly experienced.

To me the most common sense interpretation is the index shows how likely ordinary people are to run into corruption in their personal interactions with the state, but you can make other inferences about what the perceptions mean.

 

[madviking]

"Corruption" definitely exists as a cudgel for anything that the beholder finds objectionable in the rule of law/bureaucracy. I personally define it as anything that deviates from a rules-based order, towards a quid-pro-quo-based or favor-based orders. While I think most people would say that "corruption," as a whole, is bad, but they won't complain if they're the beneficiary of corruption.

Slipping a guy $20 for them to look the other way is corruption or pleading with a someone to accept some minor error in your paperwork is corruption. But only the most Robespierre-like among us wouldn't consider it. I'm always reminded of the quote "for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

So really we have to look at corruption as just an inherent inefficiency in rules-based systems. Much like there is no thermodynamically perfect system, there is no system which is entirely free from corruption. So then we just have to look at who are the beneficiaries of corruption. Obviously, if it's the rich and powerful, it sucks. But it's just some guy, then it's less bad.

 

[H4run]

"Corruption" definitely exists as a cudgel for anything that the beholder finds objectionable in the rule of law/bureaucracy. I personally define it as anything that deviates from a rules-based order, towards a quid-pro-quo-based or favor-based orders. While I think most people would say that "corruption," as a whole, is bad, but they won't complain if they're the beneficiary of corruption.

Slipping a guy $20 for them to look the other way is corruption or pleading with a someone to accept some minor error in your paperwork is corruption. But only the most Robespierre-like among us wouldn't consider it. I'm always reminded of the quote "for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

So really we have to look at corruption as just an inherent inefficiency in rules-based systems. Much like there is no thermodynamically perfect system, there is no system which is entirely free from corruption. So then we just have to look at who are the beneficiaries of corruption. Obviously, if it's the rich and powerful, it sucks. But it's just some guy, then it's less bad.

Good explanation but idk if I like the conclusion, but it's basically like the Guanxi system in China.

 

[Crezth]

That's more American corruption levels.

Corruption exists everywhere. America is far from the worst.

The even more corrupt countries have most of the problems the less corrupt countries and turn it up to 11.

But you’re not from America right? So you don’t actually know. Anyway thanks for your commentary.

Seems to suggest higher paid public servants and other officials, which can only be supported with a large economy and tax base, are less likely to rely on bribes, which seems reasonable to me.

Ah, so corruption is bribing middle officials, but not prioritizing your donors over your constituency.

Numbers based on conviction rates could probably cut both ways - either more convictions could be suggesting greater levels of corruption, or more convictions could be suggesting more effective anti corruption legal regimes.

True enough. Indeed conventional wisdom suggests Alabama is more evil and corrupt than California even though the rate of black convictions as a proportion of the population in California is 1:62 whereas in Alabama it’s 1:88. https://www.sentencingproject.org/a...ial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf