Being from the sub-continent, low-level and bureaucratic corruption is a big pervasive problem. Corruption in general. From the lower office peons to the highest officers the rot runs deep. Bribing to even get basic paperwork done is common. How do countries like China and others in the “First World” handle it?
Is it a culture thing? or something else?
I’d strongly recommend reading State and Revolution. In it, though not exhaustive measures, Lenin talks about two pretty strong systems: Instant recall democracy, and the ability of everyone to be a ‘bureaucrat’.
The former is pretty straight forward, when elected officials are clearly acting fucky, people should have the ability to prompt an immediate recall election.
The second is a bit more revolutionary and fundamental, the idea was that a big reason officials are corrupt is because they end up in this weird “elite” bureaucrat class, where you can only replace them with people of a very limited education or background. His thrust was to ‘democratise’ qualifications, basically ensuring that huge swathes of the population have easy access to any necessary education, and to ensure that high-ranking state official positions are frequently rotated out.
The end result is that you have a lot more "average joe"s in more powerful positions, who are proficient but not part of existing corrupt networks or cultures, and are a constant breath of fresh air. Trust in the position is then built because state positions have a high participation from citizens across differing parts of society, rather than forming their own corrupt clique.
I wonder how this would work in a modern world of increasing hyperspecialization. I guess it’s probably still workable if you are able take the cuban doctors approach and just train a surplus of professionals, scientists, engineers, etc, but honestly I’m not sure you can do that for every profession all at once, at least not while having to exist in a hegemonically capitalist world.
On the other hand maybe specialization is a process which can be reversed somewhat. I do think its undesirable to have (for example) chud STEM bros who only know anything about their area of specialty, and actively denigrade other disciplines especially social sciences. Creating an education system to produce more generalists would help, and seems like a good ideological fit for a socialist society. A whole society of people where most have 4 or 6 years of post secondary education, with a focus on well-roundedness and political education is probably a lot more resilient than one where 70% of people have none, 20% have 4 years but 10% are career specialists with 10+ years in academia focused almost solely on their hyper-specialty and get exalted above the rest.
While hyperspecialisation definitely applies in STEM subjects, I’m not sure it applies in a big way to higher-level politicians and civil servant positions, which are largely just project management and high-level planning.
Interesting, seems different from China’s approach, but I may be wrong.
I don’t know loads about how either works in China. I think Lenin’s ideal form of ‘anyone can and should be a bureaucrat for some period of time’ is dependent on reaching at least some progressed stage in socialism.
I think China is moving in that direction, local democracy is already pretty participatory as I understand it. Their university enrolment rate is rocketing upwards in the past couple decades. And they only recently made a law forcing company boards to have a minimum amount of workers. So they are clearly in the process of enabling and involving more workers in high-end positions.
What do you mean by ‘corruption’? Because U.S. is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, they just call it ‘lobbying’.
Or how you can’t bribe US pigs with cash because pigs already get paid 6 figures on top of free healthcare and a pension. And corruption on the individual pig level is mostly them helping themselves to the loot from civil forfeiture and selling drugs that they confiscate from non-pig drug dealers they busted.
even basic stuff like getting a job in the public sector, you gotta bribe/know the right person to get it. Anything that involves bureaucratic oversight is ripe for bribery. Want to get a passport? Get ready to bribe the policeman who does the “police background check”. Want to get a promotion? Bribe this guy. Want to get alimony from your husband? Bribe this much to the judge. Want to get out of paying alimony? bribe this much to the judge to get the case thrown out or fully delayed.
My grandfather who was a public school teacher had to fight a court case for 10 years to get a promotion he rightly deserved, which he coulda gotten immediately if he had bribed his superiors.
corruption in the west is just masked with lobbying, fees and tax cuts
Shoot corrupt officials.
The problem with power is that too many people want it and once they have it they don’t face consequences for abusing it. The solution is to make it unappealing and risky enough to deter power seekers from acting out. No one would want to be mayor if you got potentially shot for fucking up and you made only above average pay. The only benefit would be if you actually had political convictions and goals beyond your personal enrichment.
You might get a few power seekers in the first level of leadership. You can’t keep all of them out of course. But for each level higher you’ll get less and less. People with political convictions are less likely to support the advancement of power-hungry assholes. The only way to significant power would be 15 years of risky, hard work with little material benefits. By that point, the ceo types would either be shot or quit to pursue more lucrative positions.
I appreciate the sentiment and its not like some of these types don’t deserve it, but in all seriousness execution isn’t a silver bullet and shouldn’t be the goal of any communist society. When it’s needed it’s needed, but it isn’t the primary solution to any problem.
I do think death sentences with reprieve (ie they aren’t actually executed unless they try to do more corruption) are a pretty solid approach for high level offenders caught doing major corruption, send them on an emperor puyi journey to live a normal life… but for lower level corruption offences different approaches are needed.
@jackmaoist@hexbear.net Would love to hear your thoughts as well.
A top down approach of rooting out corruption like China can minimise corruption. It’s an inherent issue in human society and it can’t be eradicated completely. I doubt any society will ever be corruption free.
The goal is to create a system where corruption doesn’t yield material reward. You give bribery as an example, which is a material reward. Remove the ability to be bribed and then the politician can’t be bribed.
For one, means of production should not be purchasable by individuals. Capital is money which is used to make more money. Capital can be used to purchase the means of production and labor, and then sell the commodities produced, to receive more money. Ownership is decided by the state’s use of violence; you can’t just walk in and take ownership of a factory because the state will use violence against you. The state can say that individuals or capitalists are not allowed to own means of production.
For two, fiat money can be replaced with non-transferable labor vouchers. Money can be used as capital, ie money which creates more money. Rather than being payed money at your job with money, you can be payed labor credits by the state for the amount of labor that you do. These labor credits could be used to buy things at a store that you need such as food, clothing, toiletries. Similar to how food stamps are accepted at grocery stores.
Without the bourgeois state creating mechanisms for labor to be exploited, corruption becomes impossible or at least much harder to do.
I guess bribes could still be made in precious metals but then there would need to be a black market. There would have to be a punitive system for participating in the black market.
It really depends, but we can think of three different forms of corruption:
- Crime
- Systemic
- Atypical
First, crime. Crime is conflict that forms when needs are not being met by the community. For this, simply attempt to meet the needs of the community, even if it means collective suffering. In Mutual Aid: A factor in evolution, Kropotikin describes the individualistic creatures which manage to survive unusually harsh conditions. While acting selfishly (corruption) allows them to survive while all else die, these individualistic creatures will produce weaker children which will eventually die off. Additionally, those who take care of each other even to their own detriment are more likely tp produce strong offspring.
Next, systemic. This is where most corruption arises. No matter the original cause, be it malice, incompetence, or simply going unnoticed, systemic corruption will be a problem long after the cause is gone. The reason these go unaddressed is cultural. If we fear shame or punishment how can we address the problem. This must be countered, not with pride, but acceptance. Accept that revolution is not an event but a culture, and growth is a sign of life. The first step to solving a problem is admitting that it exists.
Finally, atypical. Most people are good, but some people are assholes. So we shouldn’t create opportunities for assholes to gain enough power to be corrupt.
Strong democratic mechanisms, transparency in law and practice, regular internal audits from multiple agencies, hard codified governmental policies that are widely known and will be noticed if bypassed, regular financial audits of any individuals in positions to commit corruption. Devil’s in the details on anti-corruption policies. All of this is only possible if you have some forces in the state that are anti-corruption and can begin instituting these policies. If the top of political leadership is rotten then it will all rot from the head.
If the top of political leadership is rotten then it will all rot from the head.
That’s what I wanna understand. What causes leadership of some countries to have the will to be against corruption while leaders in some countries couldn’t care less or worse, actively enable it.
the third world corruption comes from fear of instability, and the lack of will and the lack of people who can replace the role, like if a guy who has witnessed more than 0 civil wars in his life has a job where he can’t be kicked out instantly and replaced, he will not believe that there is a future where he’ll get to retire, or whatever he’s doing means anything at all, it’s just money and power that he sees flowing that he can hold out his hand take what he can and be more important for anyone to care. Like personally I know a [Engineer] who had a corruption scandal a few years ago, his logic came from him witnessing first hand other Engineers being killed during a civil war and of their projects being abandoned and left, even after he was arrested he’s still allowed to roam free because the place doesn’t have many engineers as competent as him. He’s a guy afraid of losing everything, believes anything he’ll do is meaningless, has money go right past him, and he can’t be replaced.
It takes a lot of time to actually remove corruption you need multiple generations of economic growth and stability. Authority and surveillance are nigh useless, since you’ll just have corrupt anti-corruption officers.
But, I think corruption is way too overstated in the third world as an issue, all western governments are corrupt we already know that, but the thing worse than corruption is the legal privatization and selling of the country’s resources to the lowest bidder yk? like have a corrupt minister buy a few Ferraris and build a mansion and the most you’ll lose is a few million dollars, give away your oil to Shell and not only do you lose the money, but you lose sovernity and control over that oil well.
The sub-continent hasn’t had a civil war within the geographical boundaries of each of the countries since they were founded. Pakistan and Bangladesh which was East Pakistan before don’t really count since geographically they were apart. They’ve enjoyed almost a century of stability in terms of peaceful non-warring periods within the countries. So idk what instability you’re talking about. And there’s plenty of people who can replace the role.
like have a corrupt minister buy a few Ferraris and build a mansion and the most you’ll lose is a few million dollars, give away your oil to Shell and not only do you lose the money, but you lose sovernity and control over that oil well.
In the subcontinent we get both of these
Bribing to even get basic paperwork done is common.
If the state can provide a decent life for its employees, then I think that goes a loooong way towards eliminating the sort of corruption you usually don’t see in the US
Our corruption is way more expensive. You can’t have proles thinking they can really control the government.
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Lots of good answers, but to me it does boil down to force or “political power grows from the barrel of a gun”. That is to say, any reform or regulation you invent ultimately requires enforcement. Especially in the beginning, while you are really trying to reprogram an entrenched ‘culture’ of corruption, you will need a kind of anti-corruption vanguard to identify, investigate, prosecute and punish corruption. Certainly it should be accompanied by public education campaigns and economic initiatives.
Its just as much corruption its just hidden better. Low level corruption is easily gone from the view if people make a livable wage and the bribe is to little to risk the job. Now if you go up a bit, say you can give a contract to your pal for that new construction etc… its just cash in hand is not there. I bribed cops in some places, once a few cigars got me out of a trafic fine. It don’t happen in rich countries. Why would it they can buy their own cigars and keep their cushy jobs
