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Comment by IntelMiner | Hacker News Reader

Australia is run by a bunch of corrupt neoliberal oligarchs burning the place to the ground on the way out the door

They have "better" things to do than worry about some "peasant". Like their six figure pensions and lobbying deals

Do you really need to put "neoliberal" in front of oligarch? It imparts on them a commitment to principles that they don't uphold. This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.

But we have to know which team they're on!!

As I understand the term 'neo-liberal' it's kind of a hybrid ideology that strides the two US political parties. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are both neo-liberals, though ostensibly, opposed to each other. It's basically the worst of the political philosophies espoused by the two parties. Basically it means more authoritarian control and the prosecution of wars all over the planet for the sake of establishing a new world order.

>This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.

That's the "neo" part of "neo-liberal".

But "neoliberalism" is frequently derided as a free-market fundamentalist ideology that was the driving force behind a period of alleged deregulation and government cut-backs extending from the early 1980s to the present. It's really an inaccurate characterization of both the last 40 years and the beliefs of the parties in charge.

Is there a country who's citizens don't think their government is corrupt?

The Nordic countries, New Zealand, Switzerland and Singapore are perceived as least corrupt by experts and in opinion polls. Do the citizens agree?

Norway is doing pretty well for a country with such a large sovereign wealth fund; most places would have had it stolen by now. It seems they just have the ordinary run of scandals: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45173500

I love Norwegian political scandals. Compared to American scandals, they are just nothing but people are held accountable anyways. I would love to see some American politicians career ended because they took their phone to a country they should not have.

If a married US Democrat took their secret Iranian girlfriend to Iran with their government phone the scandal would last about a decade.

Only if he was Black.

Or democrat

It's worth noting that while the wealth fund is enormous, it is also being spent [1] to cover budget deficits. (More specifically, the returns are being spent.)

The government has historically tried to avoid doing so, but had to dip into the funds in 2016–2018. The rules around spending was formalized in 2001 [2], but the extent to which Norway was dipping into the funds has been controversial the last few years, with economists warning that it puts the country at risk in a future economic downturn.

Norway's wealth fund is actually codified as law, which makes it difficult for a future government to "steal" it.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/norway-st...

[2] https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

I'm Danish. Prime minister is a drunken buffoon with no apparent shred of personal integrity, and generally I hold all politicians to be only in it for the perks and the power and the sex, but no, I wouldn't call our government corrupt, just institutionally inept, because politicians are not in the business of reasoning, and the administrative apparatus is Pournelle's iron law run amok.

We simply don't do corrupt to any significant degree. Probably the niftiest social trick the Scandinavian societies ever evolved.

Come to think of it, I was offered a bribe today, just a few hours ago. Turned it down without even thinking.

The fact that you were offered a bribe today, and it does not seem like a big deal to you, makes your argument somewhat weaker.

I'm Swiss and agree.

I'm Finnish. Almost everyone I know has lost all confidence in the political system years ago.

Same, it's pretty jarring. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

What has caused that? What isn’t working?

This is anecdotal, but I think the common perception is that voting just doesn't matter - politicians make promises to get votes and don't follow through after the elections. And it's the same politicians cycling in and out, year after year. Clearly people are voting for them, but just as clearly there is a large portion of the population that feels like their concerns aren't being addressed. What's interesting is that the people I know personally who've more or less given up on politics can't be clearly identified as belonging to a specific demographic. Some of them are students, some are male knowledge workers in their 20's and 30's, some are female medical professionals and administrators in their 50's and 60's. My father, who is an academic, has the most faith in the political process among the people I know.

One of my Singaporean friends mentioned that the population is quite content with their government, they are enjoying the countries prosperity and the country is peaceful. He said, "Why change a working system?"

As a Canadian I think the government is corrupt, but not dysfunctionally so

As a former resident of BC, I think the former government was dysfunctionally corrupt, in the sense that the corruption was actively leading to dysfunction in the province.

It's one thing when politicians steal for themselves. It's another thing entirely when they steal for their friends.

Many North Koreans hold their leadership in high regard

If true this could be because all governments tend toward corruption.

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