Data shows 85% of humans live under a corrupt government | Hacker News Reader

Data shows 85% of humans live under a corrupt government

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81 pointsimartin2k24 comments

The study in question measured /perceived/ corruption there is, not how much /actual/ corruption there is.

Thus a more naive population seems less corrupt.

Corruption is not really about "perceptions" as the article tries to suggest. I live in Bulgaria which is often deemed the most corrupt EU country in most rankings. Everyday-life corruption is certainly more prevalent and perceptible here (bribing traffic officers, paying doctors under the table to do a better job, etc.), but the effects of these are negligible compared to the corruption on the high floors of the government. A single act of corruption like the government signing a rotten deal with a BigCorp may have much more complex implications and most people wouldn't perceive it as corruption.

Ditto Romania. http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/19/romanian-protests-target-...

The damage of small-scale bribery may be much greater than the actual money that changes hands. If I were to suddenly be appointed to high office, I wouldn't know how to be corrupt even if I wanted, and I wouldn't want to because I had not experienced it even once and therefore consider it a particularly immoral crime.

And – at the risk of erring on the side of naiveté – I could imagine that major corruption such as the one you mention is actually easier to control. Public procurement, for example, is required to happen in open EU-wide bids. That means you get British (German/Dutch/Polish/...) companies involved in the process with a financial interest to investigate corruption.

Small-scale bribery is caused by poverty. Someone throws 10 euros at a traffic officer to avoid a speeding ticket which would cost 10 times as much and distort the monthly family budget. The officer is willing to accept the bribe because his daily pay is about the same as the bribe. At the end of the day, the offender has still paid for his offence and the officer brings in more money home, completely avoiding any interference with the corrupt government.

Large-scale corruption happens almost everywhere in the Western world behind closed doors of corporate meeting rooms. But when some of it goes public it is considered a "scandal", not "corruption".

>The damage of small-scale bribery may be much greater than the actual money that changes hands. If I were to suddenly be appointed to high office, I wouldn't know how to be corrupt even if I wanted, and I wouldn't want to because I had not experienced it even once and therefore consider it a particularly immoral crime.

That hasn't been a problem for lots of people in high offices, in otherwise "no small corruption" countries.

It's not really about public perception because the data is not sourced from a poll of the general populace, but rather a more select group of experts:

"The methodology used in compiling comparable country data for the report involves capturing perceptions of those in a position to offer expert assessments of public sector corruption in a given country."

People in power will eventually use their power for their own purposes for (the combination of) two reasons:

- They can and

- They want to

In situations like these someone will eventually abuse power and from there on his/her all successors have the moral "the others did it as well" excuse (which is a pretty powerful excuse for humans and has a scientific name which I forgot).

Government corruption is a game-theoretic necessity.

That seems to be contradicted by the fact that some countries manage to be virtually free of corruption.

Additionally, the same logic would apply to any other crime, and crime rates have dropped across the board for a few decades now.

> That seems to be contradicted by the fact that some countries manage to be virtually free of corruption.

Which countries?

Freedonia.

>That seems to be contradicted by the fact that some countries manage to be virtually free of corruption.

Yeah, the ones doing the measuring and pointing the finger.

They are also the ones that get to define what counts as corruption.

> some countries manage to be virtually free of corruption.

I don't think there are countries free of corruption. You can have less or more but never zero. The important question here is how could they have less? Important parameters are IMO country size (smaller = better), degree of direct democracy, factual independence of institutions (as opposed to de iure independence)

> the same logic would apply to any other crime

No, because the ordinary criminals cannot escape the justice system as simply using their existing powers (in other words, gov't is at the top of the power food chain, ordinary criminals aren't).

> and crime rates have dropped across the board

Yes, I think this is because many candidate criminals have something to lose, unlike well-connected government officials.

the most common goverments free of (obvious) ccorruption are democracies. a senator CAN be corrupt, but often doesn't want to -- because if discovered to be corrupt, he would lose office. The people have control over voting him in or out. Not true in Liberia. Corruption or not, they're in power. It's in their best interest to be corrupt.

It's accountability to the populous that keeps politicians from being corrupt.

"The Dictator's Handbook" is a great book that spends a lot of time reflecting on why and how corruption happens.

Other 15% leave under a government that is so corrupt that it pays for this kind of researches.

The study is annually made by Transparency International, a non-governmental organization.

Most "governmental organizations" of the kind are sponsored by governments.

Their list of sponsors sounds like a list of western ministries and puppet organizations:

https://www.transparency.org/whoweare/accountability/who_sup...

Based on concepts from "The Dictator's Handbook," this is entirely logical.

This 20 minute video opened my eyes to how politics works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Iam not convinced of the figures..

Corruption is just more subtle in western countries, eg property developers get what they want through offical party policy and law changes, and politicians get rewarded through contributions via vehicles such as to self managed super funds via untraceable trusts.

This implies that previously it was not in this way?

You can read the history... government is moved by interests.

Dot.

The grandparent of the grandparent of the grandparent of the grandparent of the grandparent of the (perl -E 'say "the grandparent of the grandparent of the " x 1000;')... of your grandparent (and my grandparent) did live uner similar interests.

Maybe what changes is if the interest is more or less global or local... but at the end of the day... does this implies that previous governance was more "honest" or "clean"?

Maybe that _information_ was managed in other ways, but humans didn't change so much.

Humans ARE the corrupt government

Humans living in democratic countries have the government they deserve.

Based on those rankings, I think I must have a different definition of corrupt.

Feel free to define it.

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