In my head I rephrased that thesis as poor institutions and practices can impair efficiency totally, which I found as unsurprising as a charity add turns as not entirely accurate. So if you target readers who find this controversial I may just not be the right reader for the feedback you seek.
Right, that makes sense, and it was part of the angle I was taking. When I said controversial I was mainly referring to the more general claim that aid tends to be ineffective in reducing long term poverty, with few exceptions. (the implication being that aid fails to address institutional issues) The idea that monetary resources plays a small (or as I argue, largely negligible role) in addressing long term issues seems to me like it would be controversial to many EAs. But then, this mostly semantical and hardly the main point. Let’s get into the heart of the issue.
Still, I gave some time thinking at: What could you do to make me update? Instead of mere illustration of failures when your thesis was ignored, can you also present cases where following this very thesis did make a success?
A very insightful question. I was initially a bit dubious myself. Where has my thesis been followed by aid organizations? Certainly I don’t recall any charities focusing on reforming government institutions! But then, on second thought, that was almost the entire point. It wasn’t aid programs reforming governments, but rather, people.
Consider all the wealthiest nations in the world. With few exceptions, the richest nations are the ones with strong institutions, particularly representative, democratic ones. Although there are exceptions, they tend to be few and far between (see Singapore with an authoritarian technocracy that’s ruthlessly efficient, or Qatar with their absurd amounts of oil wealth. Meanwhile, nations with defunct or nonexistent institutions (see North Korea, The Congo, Mexico, South Africa) invariably face poverty and destitution on a mass scale. Even in China, one of the great economic success stories, we still see defunct instructional inheritances like the hukou system result in situations like 25% of the Chinese workforce being trapped in subsistence agriculture (compared to around 2% in the US, mostly industrial farmers).
In that sense, I believe I can answer your question about precision.
What’s the minimal institutions before charity get efficient? How much efficiency do we gain for what progress in institutions? Could you find if institutions explain more variance than, say, war and corruption?
I would liken institutions to a force multipliers in the military sense. One soldier with a gun >>> one hundred soldiers with spears. In the same way, powerful institutions enhance the ability of monetary and other resources to address poverty. Consider the following example, Mexico. Mexico has 44% of it’s population living in below subsistence conditions, with about 9% in extreme poverty. Part of the reason for this is stark inequality. In 2021, the wealthiest 10% of households held nearly 80% of household wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% have less than 5% of the wealth, and the figure has only decreased over the years. Even among the top 10%, inequality is appalling, with top ranking businessmen like Carlos Slim making billions through corrupt business practices that plundered the country’s wealth and gutted it’s government.
What difference does more money even make, in a situation like this? Even if household wealth were to double tomorrow the poorest households would still be teetering on the precipice of starvation as kleptocrats like Slim make billions. The problem is not inherently lack of food, of resources, of technology or productivity. But rather, deeply rotten, unfair institutions which favor businessmen like Slim at the expense of the bottom millions.
I could probably continue for hours on the one example of Mexico, but I don’t think I need to. Kraut has already done a long, several hour long series on the development of Mexican corruption and institutions.
The bottom line is that institutions matter, not just as a sidenote enabling aid but the chief driver of prosperity in nations. Strong market and regulatory institutions in the US created the incentives necessary to create world renowned innovators and technologies. Gates with Microsoft computers, Jobbs with Apple phones, and now openAI with GPT. Even beforehand the countless explosions of patent technologies and industrial growth was one of the chief drivers of American wealth. This is not merely the case now, but throughout all of history. When our strongest companies and businesspeople succeed we can hope to enjoy (at least partially) increased tax money, social benefits, and increased income and jobs. Though these institutions aren’t perfect, Americans can share or at least coexist with the benefits of growth. The same is not true in Mexico, where a zero sum game sees people like Slim win at the expense of everyone else.
In that sense, I find this question rather misguided.
Could you find if institutions explain more variance than, say, war and corruption?
As I illustrate with Mexico, institutions do not explain more variance than war and corruption. Rather, they are the very causes of war and corruption. Lack of institutional safeguards and transparency create situations where the elite can plunder the wealth of the commons. You will notice that Slim did not successfully get away with his business practices in the US. Institutional safeguards like a (mostly) functioning legal and justice system forced him out with countless fines. Meanwhile, many others like Slim may steal from the Mexican people with impunity. They are the reason why the Mexican government colludes with cartels. They are the reason why crime stays at appalling highs. They are, in short, the reason Mexico is poor. To date there are more rich Mexican Americans than there are rich Mexicans. How comically tragic is that?
Then there is war. We have to remember that lack of checks on autocratic power is often what causes this problem in the first place. See Putin in Ukraine, the countless warlords in Africa, or, most famously, Hitler in Europe. Fundamentally we see how lack of constraints on warmongering dictators allows wars of conquest, genocide for national or ethnic grandeur. Actions that would be unthinkable in democracies are a fact of life in dictatorships, simply because the dictator has power and their personal interests do not align with the interests of the state.
The issue of institutions are not unique to Mexico. Rather, we see them all throughout the world. The best comparison I can think of is the difference between Poland and Hungary, both former Soviet bloc states from similar beginnings which eventually saw a massive shift in institutional development. From similar beginnings, they took dramatically different paths. Poland, following the devastation of Soviet rule, was able to reconstruct following lines of western institutional development, with free markets, fair elections, and checks on elite power. Hungary, meanwhile, followed a very different path, echoing the plunder of formerly state owned companies by Russian Oligarchs. To date, Hungary is the most corrupt country in the EU, a country ran by a select business elite with connections to dictator Victor Orban. And make no mistake, he is a dictator. Now, years later, the economy of Poland is projected to overtake the UK. Meanwhile, despite generous EU subsidies, 20% of Hungarians face risk of poverty or social exclusion.
As someone who has studied history and modern politics as a hobby, I can point you to any number of examples. Success in Botswana. Failure in Haiti. Famine in Russia, in China, in India. Economic miracles in South Korea, in Japan, and in Taiwan. I could craft 3 separate posts worth of content and it would still not be enough. But I think this is sufficient to underscore my point.
I will concede that there are still exceptions. The Gulf Arab monarchies survive off natural resources soon to fade into irrelevancy. Singapore and China off efficient (or at least supposedly efficient) models of governance that we already see failing in China. But they are tiny, with unique circumstances, whereas the modern liberal democracies are almost without fail rich and well developed.
In that sense, I’m led to believe Fukuyama was right in some aspects. Though it may not be the end of history, Western liberal democracy certainly is a contender for one of the greatest innovations humanity has ever made, with it’s strong institutions, rule of law, free markets and respect for human dignity. It has, more widely and more consistently than any other method, driven out poverty and raised nations to prosperity.
Does this make you update? Regardless of whether you do or don’t, I’d appreciate your thoughts. Thank you for the question! It forced me to think deeper about my beliefs and justify them more coherently. I’m unsure if this is helpful in the realm of aid specifically, but I believe it does provide ample evidence for my thesis and raise it’s coherency.
I’m unsure if this is helpful in the realm of aid specifically, but I believe it does provide ample evidence for my thesis and raise it’s coherency.
I update for stronger internal coherency and ability to articulate clear and well written stories. That was fun to read!
Now I don’t have the same internal frame of reference when it comes to evaluate what counts as evidence. I can accept a good story as evidence, but only if I can evaluate its internal coherency against other good stories one might believe in. Let’s cook one to see what I mean:
« In a distant planet far away from here, there was a rich country and a poor country. Then rich country elected religious cranks who decide to start a « war on drugs », whatever that means. What that means turned out to be: a large flow of money in criminal hands, then collapse of the poor country under corruption and political violence. Then rich country look at poor country and says: don’t you think you’ll be richer with better institutions? ».
Back to what count as evidence: I can update on one’s perception that this or that good story looks like the real world, especially given you seem to know a lot on this topic. But as with your multiplicative model (insightful!), the amount of update will be proportional to demonstration of knowledge time how hard I feel you explored good contrarian-to-your-own-preferred-view candidate thesis.
As I illustrate with Mexico, institutions do not explain more variance than war and corruption. Rather, they are the very causes of war and corruption.
Here again, we don’t have the same frame for causality. To me, your illustration is a concomitance, and a concomitance can be explained either by:
a causal link from institutions to war and corruption, which means if you could randomize acting on institutions, you could statistically impact war and corruption.
a causal link from a weighted average of war and corruption, which means *if you could randomize acting on war and corruption, you could statistically impact institutions *
an unknown unknown is acting on them all
the random generator is funny
So, if I wanted to conclude on option A specifically, I would need to explain why I can ignore the alternatives. Then I could say I have evidence for this or that causal link, not before.
Western liberal democracy certainly is a contender for one of the greatest innovations humanity has ever made, with it’s strong institutions, rule of law, free markets and respect for human dignity.
Maybe that should be another post, but I prefer contender for one of the less shitty. Since Hitler we knew it was either fragile at birth or vulnerable to far right ideology. Since Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Netanyahu, etc I believe it’s fragile, period. Also, you might have noticed that the less shitty of all system is mostly incompetent in face of global warming, which means our present prosperity is paid by taking money from an usurer. Our society also just proved fragile to pandemics, with more and more who could learn how to start one. And many here believe our western society are also fragile to rogue AIs, again while we’re closer to be able to build some.
Maybe none of this matter and better democracies will emerge from our old world, maybe with the help of technology, but I don’t see how we can claim victory yet. At best we won a few rounds, that’s it.
Yes, you’re right, I realize I was rather thin on evidence for the link between institutional weakness and corruption. I believe this was like mind fallacy on my end, I assumed the link was obvious. But since clearly it was not allow me to go back and contextualize it.
Disclaimer: It’s late and I’m tired, prose quality will be lower than usual, and I’ll be prone to some rather dry political jokes.
To understand the link between institutions and corruption, I think it’s helpful just to use simple mental models. Consider this simple question: what causes corruption? The answer seems fairly straightforward. People are corrupt, they want money, etc etc. But clearly, this isn’t everything. Humans in different countries coming from similar racial, social, and class backgrounds tend to be varying levels of ‘corrupt’, but even countries with similar backgrounds often have wildly varying corruption levels. Take North and South Korea, for one example. Both were unified states emerging from occupation post WWII, but they took wildly different paths in their development as countries.
South Korea eventually transitioned from a military dictatorship to a free market democracy who know today. North Korea, however, remained a military dictatorship. This resulted in stark differences in corruption handling on both sides. In the global corruptions perceptions index, South Korea ranks 31st, while North Korea ranks an appalling 171st. Why was this?
The answer, I think, is institutions. South Korea, having developed a free market system and accountable mode of governance, is able to check the power of it’s political and economic elites. If the president of North Korea decides he wants to abuse his power, the people have no recourse. If the president of South Korea decides to abuse their power, they end up in prison. (See the 7 korean heads of state that ended up in jail, quite impressive for a 40 year period. We had 4 years with Trump and only managed a mugshot.)
Memes aside, strong institutions typically have a variety of methods to align their leaders with the needs of the people and stave off corruption. Understanding that those in power tend to abuse said power unless restricted in some way, most democracies have institutions in place to ensure no one person dominates the system. Typically, the most straightforward answer is elections. In democracies, a leader can be corrupt to the extent the public tolerates it. Be too corrupt and you end up losing elections, or serving prison time (cough cough South Korea). There is also much greater public oversight and freedom of information, which creates a drive towards transparency. If the CCP is corrupt there’s no real way to hold them accountable. The secret police will arrive to have a word with you. Xi Jinping can do as he likes and nobody has a say about it. If the American president tried to do the same we would see the news awash with headlines of scandal. The other political party would cackle, and voters would scramble to find a more reliable candidate.
These mechanisms of alignment, as I’d call them, are far from perfect. Even in liberal democracies like the US it’s common knowledge most congressmen are multi millionaires, and for individuals with modest state salaries they sure have an uncanny knack for obtaining huge sums of wealth. (Perhaps Pelosi should give day trading a try, she sure seems to have talent) However, the fact remains that corruption tends to be discouraged as a general rule, and instances of corruption tend to be far less overt and damaging. We don’t see, for instance, the head of state winning a state run lottery. Or Congress passing themselves a 10 billion dollar pay raise. Backroom deals, cushy corporate jobs, insider trader and the like are acceptable. Outright raising land rents like a feudal lord to fund direct salary increases is not. Our leaders are, in the end, constrained by law. This allows regular citizens to do the work of making money… mostly. Corruption will hurt, but it isn’t crippling as there’s at least some accountability.
Case in point, many of the worst offenders are simply convicted of federal corruption charges. Our last president was impeached twice and is currently on trial for, among other things, fraud and corruption. Imperfect as they are, these are still methods to keep the guy in charge accountable. This does not exist in countries with weak institutions. Many times, in fact, the institutions end up bolstering corruption.
Let’s return to the example of Mexico. Recall how Carlos Slim was able to build a tele-networking monopoly to plunder the wealth of the people. You might wonder how in the world he managed this, surely the law wouldn’t stand for such overtly criminal business practices? The issue is, not too surprisingly, that the law is on Slim’s side. Recurso de Amparo, originally a law designed to protect the constitutional rights of citizens, has been exploited by Slim’s lawyers to shield his business practices. See how Slim was able to dodge a record fine. This was the very same law Slim attempted to fall back on when he attempted his monopolistic practices in the US, only it didn’t exist. American law, in it’s infinite magnanimity to the rich and powerful, still managed to slap Carlos Slim with a fines for his comparatively much more minor transgressions. The tactics which Slim used to succeed in Mexico failed utterly in the US. Mostly if not completely due to the nature of the US’ institutions. For all it’s faults, the modern US is no longer in the gilded age. Overt monopolies are no longer allowed.
It’s not just that weak institutions favor the businesses of oligarchs either. Weak institutions actively give businesses to oligarchs. Consider post Soviet Russia, which saw previously state owned companies auctioned off to political cronies at bargain prices. Or post Soviet Hungary, which likewise handed billions to unscrupulous businessmen willing to play political games of power. Slim himself was an example of such a politically created oligarch in Mexico, having acquired his telecommunications company with shady backroom deals. Lacking any oversight, corrupt government officials stole like there was no tomorrow, happily selling the public good for private benefit. These are the structures who create men like Carlos Slim, Sandor Csyani, and Sergei Shoigu. All of whom received their wealth, not through aptitude, service, or innovation, but rather, political machinations.
How is the normal businessman meant to succeed, in an environment like this? The question is rhetorical. Of course they don’t. You do not compete with Carlos Slim’s megacorporation in Mexico. You do not attempt to create rival banks against Sandor Csyani in Hungary. You don’t invest in quality as a Russian procurement company, you invest in another mansion for Sergei Shoigu. In all examples listed we see the same problem. People will be corrupt if there is no institutional safeguards, much like they would commit crimes if there was no police force. Being corrupt, they naturally move to stifle free market competition and forcibly seize the assets of anyone who is successful but lacks a powerful political patron. There is no point in trying. There is no point in innovating. There is no point in trying to create jobs or lift people out of poverty. Now, playing politics and kissing the Supreme leader’s arse? That’s where the money is.
Having said all this, we find ourselves full circle back where we started, once again at institutions. As I illustrate, much of the problem with corruption (and yes, this applies to war also) is essentially an alignment issue between the ruler and ruled. The ruler(s) doesn’t need to care about their subjects, because they’re the damn ruler, they can do whatever they like. Corruption can leave schools underfunded and famine relief nonexistent. Wars can devastate families and tear lives to pieces. But the almighty Shepard cares nothing for the suffering of his sheep. Why should he? There is, after all, nothing stopping him.
I hope this was a coherent narrative to your satisfaction. Feel free to ask for elaboration or provide critiques. I’ll apologize in advance for the poor quality, but it’s late on a school night so I’ll have to get going. Hope you enjoyed, and look forward to your response!
I waited Friday so that you won’t sleep at school because of me, but yes I enjoyed both style and freshness of ideas!
Look, I think you’re a young & promising opinion writer, but if you stay on LW I would expect you’ll get beaten by the cool kids (for lack of systematic engagement with both spirit and logical details of the answers you get). What about finding some place more about social visions and less about pure logic? Send me where and I’ll join for more about the strengths and some pitfalls maybe.
You’re probably right. I mainly started on lesswrong because this is a community I’m familiar with, and a place I can expect to understand basic norms. (I’ve read the sequences and have some understanding of rationalist discourse). I’m unsure how I’d fare in other communities, but then, I haven’t looked either. Are you familiar with any? I don’t know myself.
Likely a good suggestion. I’m in a few communities myself. But then, I’m unsure if you’re familiar with how discord works. Discord is primarily a messaging app with public server features tacked on. Not the sort of community for posts like this. Are you aware of any particular communities within discord I could join? The general platform has many communities, much like reddit, but I’m not aware of any similar to lesswrong.
Nope, my social media presence is very very low. But I’m open to suggestion since I realized there’s a lot of toxic characters with high status here. Did you try EA forums? Is it better?
Hm… pretty similar here. I also don’t have much of a media presence. I haven’t tried EA forums yet, mainly because I consider myself intellectually more aligned with LW, but in any case I’m open to looking. This is looking to be a more personal conversation now. Would you like to continue in direct messages? Open to hearing your suggestions, I’m just as clueless right now.
Right, that makes sense, and it was part of the angle I was taking. When I said controversial I was mainly referring to the more general claim that aid tends to be ineffective in reducing long term poverty, with few exceptions. (the implication being that aid fails to address institutional issues) The idea that monetary resources plays a small (or as I argue, largely negligible role) in addressing long term issues seems to me like it would be controversial to many EAs. But then, this mostly semantical and hardly the main point. Let’s get into the heart of the issue.
A very insightful question. I was initially a bit dubious myself. Where has my thesis been followed by aid organizations? Certainly I don’t recall any charities focusing on reforming government institutions! But then, on second thought, that was almost the entire point. It wasn’t aid programs reforming governments, but rather, people.
Consider all the wealthiest nations in the world. With few exceptions, the richest nations are the ones with strong institutions, particularly representative, democratic ones. Although there are exceptions, they tend to be few and far between (see Singapore with an authoritarian technocracy that’s ruthlessly efficient, or Qatar with their absurd amounts of oil wealth. Meanwhile, nations with defunct or nonexistent institutions (see North Korea, The Congo, Mexico, South Africa) invariably face poverty and destitution on a mass scale. Even in China, one of the great economic success stories, we still see defunct instructional inheritances like the hukou system result in situations like 25% of the Chinese workforce being trapped in subsistence agriculture (compared to around 2% in the US, mostly industrial farmers).
In that sense, I believe I can answer your question about precision.
I would liken institutions to a force multipliers in the military sense. One soldier with a gun >>> one hundred soldiers with spears. In the same way, powerful institutions enhance the ability of monetary and other resources to address poverty. Consider the following example, Mexico. Mexico has 44% of it’s population living in below subsistence conditions, with about 9% in extreme poverty. Part of the reason for this is stark inequality. In 2021, the wealthiest 10% of households held nearly 80% of household wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% have less than 5% of the wealth, and the figure has only decreased over the years. Even among the top 10%, inequality is appalling, with top ranking businessmen like Carlos Slim making billions through corrupt business practices that plundered the country’s wealth and gutted it’s government.
What difference does more money even make, in a situation like this? Even if household wealth were to double tomorrow the poorest households would still be teetering on the precipice of starvation as kleptocrats like Slim make billions. The problem is not inherently lack of food, of resources, of technology or productivity. But rather, deeply rotten, unfair institutions which favor businessmen like Slim at the expense of the bottom millions.
I could probably continue for hours on the one example of Mexico, but I don’t think I need to. Kraut has already done a long, several hour long series on the development of Mexican corruption and institutions.
(1) The Mexican American Border | From War to Wall—YouTube
The bottom line is that institutions matter, not just as a sidenote enabling aid but the chief driver of prosperity in nations. Strong market and regulatory institutions in the US created the incentives necessary to create world renowned innovators and technologies. Gates with Microsoft computers, Jobbs with Apple phones, and now openAI with GPT. Even beforehand the countless explosions of patent technologies and industrial growth was one of the chief drivers of American wealth. This is not merely the case now, but throughout all of history. When our strongest companies and businesspeople succeed we can hope to enjoy (at least partially) increased tax money, social benefits, and increased income and jobs. Though these institutions aren’t perfect, Americans can share or at least coexist with the benefits of growth. The same is not true in Mexico, where a zero sum game sees people like Slim win at the expense of everyone else.
In that sense, I find this question rather misguided.
As I illustrate with Mexico, institutions do not explain more variance than war and corruption. Rather, they are the very causes of war and corruption. Lack of institutional safeguards and transparency create situations where the elite can plunder the wealth of the commons. You will notice that Slim did not successfully get away with his business practices in the US. Institutional safeguards like a (mostly) functioning legal and justice system forced him out with countless fines. Meanwhile, many others like Slim may steal from the Mexican people with impunity. They are the reason why the Mexican government colludes with cartels. They are the reason why crime stays at appalling highs. They are, in short, the reason Mexico is poor. To date there are more rich Mexican Americans than there are rich Mexicans. How comically tragic is that?
Then there is war. We have to remember that lack of checks on autocratic power is often what causes this problem in the first place. See Putin in Ukraine, the countless warlords in Africa, or, most famously, Hitler in Europe. Fundamentally we see how lack of constraints on warmongering dictators allows wars of conquest, genocide for national or ethnic grandeur. Actions that would be unthinkable in democracies are a fact of life in dictatorships, simply because the dictator has power and their personal interests do not align with the interests of the state.
The issue of institutions are not unique to Mexico. Rather, we see them all throughout the world. The best comparison I can think of is the difference between Poland and Hungary, both former Soviet bloc states from similar beginnings which eventually saw a massive shift in institutional development. From similar beginnings, they took dramatically different paths. Poland, following the devastation of Soviet rule, was able to reconstruct following lines of western institutional development, with free markets, fair elections, and checks on elite power. Hungary, meanwhile, followed a very different path, echoing the plunder of formerly state owned companies by Russian Oligarchs. To date, Hungary is the most corrupt country in the EU, a country ran by a select business elite with connections to dictator Victor Orban. And make no mistake, he is a dictator. Now, years later, the economy of Poland is projected to overtake the UK. Meanwhile, despite generous EU subsidies, 20% of Hungarians face risk of poverty or social exclusion.
As someone who has studied history and modern politics as a hobby, I can point you to any number of examples. Success in Botswana. Failure in Haiti. Famine in Russia, in China, in India. Economic miracles in South Korea, in Japan, and in Taiwan. I could craft 3 separate posts worth of content and it would still not be enough. But I think this is sufficient to underscore my point.
I will concede that there are still exceptions. The Gulf Arab monarchies survive off natural resources soon to fade into irrelevancy. Singapore and China off efficient (or at least supposedly efficient) models of governance that we already see failing in China. But they are tiny, with unique circumstances, whereas the modern liberal democracies are almost without fail rich and well developed.
In that sense, I’m led to believe Fukuyama was right in some aspects. Though it may not be the end of history, Western liberal democracy certainly is a contender for one of the greatest innovations humanity has ever made, with it’s strong institutions, rule of law, free markets and respect for human dignity. It has, more widely and more consistently than any other method, driven out poverty and raised nations to prosperity.
Does this make you update? Regardless of whether you do or don’t, I’d appreciate your thoughts. Thank you for the question! It forced me to think deeper about my beliefs and justify them more coherently. I’m unsure if this is helpful in the realm of aid specifically, but I believe it does provide ample evidence for my thesis and raise it’s coherency.
I update for stronger internal coherency and ability to articulate clear and well written stories. That was fun to read!
Now I don’t have the same internal frame of reference when it comes to evaluate what counts as evidence. I can accept a good story as evidence, but only if I can evaluate its internal coherency against other good stories one might believe in. Let’s cook one to see what I mean: « In a distant planet far away from here, there was a rich country and a poor country. Then rich country elected religious cranks who decide to start a « war on drugs », whatever that means. What that means turned out to be: a large flow of money in criminal hands, then collapse of the poor country under corruption and political violence. Then rich country look at poor country and says: don’t you think you’ll be richer with better institutions? ». Back to what count as evidence: I can update on one’s perception that this or that good story looks like the real world, especially given you seem to know a lot on this topic. But as with your multiplicative model (insightful!), the amount of update will be proportional to demonstration of knowledge time how hard I feel you explored good contrarian-to-your-own-preferred-view candidate thesis.
Here again, we don’t have the same frame for causality. To me, your illustration is a concomitance, and a concomitance can be explained either by:
a causal link from institutions to war and corruption, which means if you could randomize acting on institutions, you could statistically impact war and corruption.
a causal link from a weighted average of war and corruption, which means *if you could randomize acting on war and corruption, you could statistically impact institutions *
an unknown unknown is acting on them all
the random generator is funny
So, if I wanted to conclude on option A specifically, I would need to explain why I can ignore the alternatives. Then I could say I have evidence for this or that causal link, not before.
Maybe that should be another post, but I prefer contender for one of the less shitty. Since Hitler we knew it was either fragile at birth or vulnerable to far right ideology. Since Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Netanyahu, etc I believe it’s fragile, period. Also, you might have noticed that the less shitty of all system is mostly incompetent in face of global warming, which means our present prosperity is paid by taking money from an usurer. Our society also just proved fragile to pandemics, with more and more who could learn how to start one. And many here believe our western society are also fragile to rogue AIs, again while we’re closer to be able to build some. Maybe none of this matter and better democracies will emerge from our old world, maybe with the help of technology, but I don’t see how we can claim victory yet. At best we won a few rounds, that’s it.
Thanks for your reply!
Yes, you’re right, I realize I was rather thin on evidence for the link between institutional weakness and corruption. I believe this was like mind fallacy on my end, I assumed the link was obvious. But since clearly it was not allow me to go back and contextualize it.
Disclaimer: It’s late and I’m tired, prose quality will be lower than usual, and I’ll be prone to some rather dry political jokes.
To understand the link between institutions and corruption, I think it’s helpful just to use simple mental models. Consider this simple question: what causes corruption? The answer seems fairly straightforward. People are corrupt, they want money, etc etc. But clearly, this isn’t everything. Humans in different countries coming from similar racial, social, and class backgrounds tend to be varying levels of ‘corrupt’, but even countries with similar backgrounds often have wildly varying corruption levels. Take North and South Korea, for one example. Both were unified states emerging from occupation post WWII, but they took wildly different paths in their development as countries.
South Korea eventually transitioned from a military dictatorship to a free market democracy who know today. North Korea, however, remained a military dictatorship. This resulted in stark differences in corruption handling on both sides. In the global corruptions perceptions index, South Korea ranks 31st, while North Korea ranks an appalling 171st. Why was this?
The answer, I think, is institutions. South Korea, having developed a free market system and accountable mode of governance, is able to check the power of it’s political and economic elites. If the president of North Korea decides he wants to abuse his power, the people have no recourse. If the president of South Korea decides to abuse their power, they end up in prison. (See the 7 korean heads of state that ended up in jail, quite impressive for a 40 year period. We had 4 years with Trump and only managed a mugshot.)
Memes aside, strong institutions typically have a variety of methods to align their leaders with the needs of the people and stave off corruption. Understanding that those in power tend to abuse said power unless restricted in some way, most democracies have institutions in place to ensure no one person dominates the system. Typically, the most straightforward answer is elections. In democracies, a leader can be corrupt to the extent the public tolerates it. Be too corrupt and you end up losing elections, or serving prison time (cough cough South Korea). There is also much greater public oversight and freedom of information, which creates a drive towards transparency. If the CCP is corrupt there’s no real way to hold them accountable. The secret police will arrive to have a word with you. Xi Jinping can do as he likes and nobody has a say about it. If the American president tried to do the same we would see the news awash with headlines of scandal. The other political party would cackle, and voters would scramble to find a more reliable candidate.
These mechanisms of alignment, as I’d call them, are far from perfect. Even in liberal democracies like the US it’s common knowledge most congressmen are multi millionaires, and for individuals with modest state salaries they sure have an uncanny knack for obtaining huge sums of wealth. (Perhaps Pelosi should give day trading a try, she sure seems to have talent) However, the fact remains that corruption tends to be discouraged as a general rule, and instances of corruption tend to be far less overt and damaging. We don’t see, for instance, the head of state winning a state run lottery. Or Congress passing themselves a 10 billion dollar pay raise. Backroom deals, cushy corporate jobs, insider trader and the like are acceptable. Outright raising land rents like a feudal lord to fund direct salary increases is not. Our leaders are, in the end, constrained by law. This allows regular citizens to do the work of making money… mostly. Corruption will hurt, but it isn’t crippling as there’s at least some accountability.
Case in point, many of the worst offenders are simply convicted of federal corruption charges. Our last president was impeached twice and is currently on trial for, among other things, fraud and corruption. Imperfect as they are, these are still methods to keep the guy in charge accountable. This does not exist in countries with weak institutions. Many times, in fact, the institutions end up bolstering corruption.
Let’s return to the example of Mexico. Recall how Carlos Slim was able to build a tele-networking monopoly to plunder the wealth of the people. You might wonder how in the world he managed this, surely the law wouldn’t stand for such overtly criminal business practices? The issue is, not too surprisingly, that the law is on Slim’s side. Recurso de Amparo, originally a law designed to protect the constitutional rights of citizens, has been exploited by Slim’s lawyers to shield his business practices. See how Slim was able to dodge a record fine. This was the very same law Slim attempted to fall back on when he attempted his monopolistic practices in the US, only it didn’t exist. American law, in it’s infinite magnanimity to the rich and powerful, still managed to slap Carlos Slim with a fines for his comparatively much more minor transgressions. The tactics which Slim used to succeed in Mexico failed utterly in the US. Mostly if not completely due to the nature of the US’ institutions. For all it’s faults, the modern US is no longer in the gilded age. Overt monopolies are no longer allowed.
It’s not just that weak institutions favor the businesses of oligarchs either. Weak institutions actively give businesses to oligarchs. Consider post Soviet Russia, which saw previously state owned companies auctioned off to political cronies at bargain prices. Or post Soviet Hungary, which likewise handed billions to unscrupulous businessmen willing to play political games of power. Slim himself was an example of such a politically created oligarch in Mexico, having acquired his telecommunications company with shady backroom deals. Lacking any oversight, corrupt government officials stole like there was no tomorrow, happily selling the public good for private benefit. These are the structures who create men like Carlos Slim, Sandor Csyani, and Sergei Shoigu. All of whom received their wealth, not through aptitude, service, or innovation, but rather, political machinations.
How is the normal businessman meant to succeed, in an environment like this? The question is rhetorical. Of course they don’t. You do not compete with Carlos Slim’s megacorporation in Mexico. You do not attempt to create rival banks against Sandor Csyani in Hungary. You don’t invest in quality as a Russian procurement company, you invest in another mansion for Sergei Shoigu. In all examples listed we see the same problem. People will be corrupt if there is no institutional safeguards, much like they would commit crimes if there was no police force. Being corrupt, they naturally move to stifle free market competition and forcibly seize the assets of anyone who is successful but lacks a powerful political patron. There is no point in trying. There is no point in innovating. There is no point in trying to create jobs or lift people out of poverty. Now, playing politics and kissing the Supreme leader’s arse? That’s where the money is.
Having said all this, we find ourselves full circle back where we started, once again at institutions. As I illustrate, much of the problem with corruption (and yes, this applies to war also) is essentially an alignment issue between the ruler and ruled. The ruler(s) doesn’t need to care about their subjects, because they’re the damn ruler, they can do whatever they like. Corruption can leave schools underfunded and famine relief nonexistent. Wars can devastate families and tear lives to pieces. But the almighty Shepard cares nothing for the suffering of his sheep. Why should he? There is, after all, nothing stopping him.
I hope this was a coherent narrative to your satisfaction. Feel free to ask for elaboration or provide critiques. I’ll apologize in advance for the poor quality, but it’s late on a school night so I’ll have to get going. Hope you enjoyed, and look forward to your response!
I waited Friday so that you won’t sleep at school because of me, but yes I enjoyed both style and freshness of ideas!
Look, I think you’re a young & promising opinion writer, but if you stay on LW I would expect you’ll get beaten by the cool kids (for lack of systematic engagement with both spirit and logical details of the answers you get). What about finding some place more about social visions and less about pure logic? Send me where and I’ll join for more about the strengths and some pitfalls maybe.
Many thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it.
You’re probably right. I mainly started on lesswrong because this is a community I’m familiar with, and a place I can expect to understand basic norms. (I’ve read the sequences and have some understanding of rationalist discourse). I’m unsure how I’d fare in other communities, but then, I haven’t looked either. Are you familiar with any? I don’t know myself.
Nope, but one of my son suggests discord.
Likely a good suggestion. I’m in a few communities myself. But then, I’m unsure if you’re familiar with how discord works. Discord is primarily a messaging app with public server features tacked on. Not the sort of community for posts like this. Are you aware of any particular communities within discord I could join? The general platform has many communities, much like reddit, but I’m not aware of any similar to lesswrong.
Nope, my social media presence is very very low. But I’m open to suggestion since I realized there’s a lot of toxic characters with high status here. Did you try EA forums? Is it better?
Hm… pretty similar here. I also don’t have much of a media presence. I haven’t tried EA forums yet, mainly because I consider myself intellectually more aligned with LW, but in any case I’m open to looking. This is looking to be a more personal conversation now. Would you like to continue in direct messages? Open to hearing your suggestions, I’m just as clueless right now.