The older I get the more that I think that our particular form of government or policies (left/right, socialist/capitalist, authoritarian/libertarian) are less important for overall wellbeing and happiness than stamping out corruption.
Literally 20 seconds of reflection is enough to see how wrong that is...
I don't think this is true at all. For example, if a policeman A catches county clerk B speeding, B could bribe A to forget about that ticket. That would be corruption, but A and B are not in any hierarchy relation to each other. True, they're in a temporary power relation, but a day later this power relation could well be reversed when B decides whether or not to approve A's building permit for his new house.
That's not what I meant, there's no quid pro quo in my example. My point was that neither A nor B are above or below each other in a hierarchy, and there's no permanent power imbalance between them, and yet they could both be corrupt. Corruption doesn't require a hierarchy, and a flat hierarchy doesn't prevent corruption.
Flatter hierarchy does not prevent corruption totally, probably nothing will. But it will make corruption harder and more expensive. Some hierarchies, at least context dependent, are probably inevitable. It's a matter of scale.
Yes, that would be more correct. Authority != hierarchy, but you can't have a society without authority. You could start out with anarchy, but then authoritative structures would naturally emerge anyway.
This example only works if there is a hierarchy:
- Policeman A wouldn't take the bribe, unless it's big enough relative to his wealth
- Clerk B wouldn't offer the bribe, unless it's small enough relative to his wealth
There is an economic hierarchy implicit in the example. The consequences of the ticket are also important, since there's no point spending more on a bribe than would have to be paid in fines.
this is total nonsense. hierarchys are in no way tied to corruption, except that EVERYTHING requires a hierarchy, unless youre a nihilist.
to value is to rank order and create a hierarchy. valuation doesnt generate corruption.
So what I would vote as the method would be rule of law and actual no-nonsense follow-through with applying it, no matter the consequence. There have been so many blatant high-profile legal issues all the way up to the president and yet there have been practically no big convictions. The ruling party can't even kick-out a prominent member from their own party after he's been arrested for corruption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Magashule#Arrest_and_crimi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Zuma#Corruption_charges
How free is the press in South Africa? In the US and to a lesser extent in the UK it is owned by billionaires who broadcast an agenda that funnily enough benefits billionaires.
Freedom of the press has been built into our constitution since the end of Apartheid in 1994.
This freedom has proven to be pretty robust since then, but there have been some issues along the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media_in_South_Africa#Pre...
I've noticed in the UK there's been a number of corruption stories, starting around Brexit but hugely accelerated by pandemic procurement, that have been raised in the press and then just forgotten about.
In the US you can see how much energy has been put into fake scandals while distracting from real ones, e.g. Pizzagate vs Matt Gaetz.
- to remove the corrupt
- to not have to deal with the corrupt ones
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination
[3] https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/ue...
There's this sliding scale ranging from "lower taxes, fewer public services" to "higher taxes, more public services". Really, anything on that spectrum is going to be workable.
Corruption is where sliding that scale towards "higher taxes" results in most of the additional money finding its way to the pockets of various bureaucrats and their friends, as opposed to being used to deliver services-as-promised.
https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-global-highlig...
None of the top six there are countries you would describe as having "lower taxes, fewer public services".
I.e. implying that lowering taxes and public services simply shifts the corruption to the "private sector" as if it's just shifting the problem around and is inescapable. Or that it leaves a gap to which "private sector corruption" can slide into.
To which I responded by saying that at least the [increase] in corruption can be avoided more easily if said corruption is in the private sector as opposed to in the government. So even if we're just shifting the corruption to the private sector, it's still better overall because we can more easily address/avoid it than we would be able to with a government. The point stands whether I am aware of the private-sector corruption or not, and also stands whether there are alternatives within the private sector to switch to because one can just choose to not participate (barring certain necessary industries, I guess)
This is probably why Jack Ma got in trouble over ANT. Banking, or at least a large swathe of the official finance sector, is largely a state monopoly. Private companies largely rely on informal or private financing.
Gandhi had to get kicked of a train to wake up. Otherwise he was perfectly satisfied wandering about being a mediocre lawyer.