
Corporate profitability and the global persistence of corruption - bryanrasmussen
https://voxeu.org/article/corporate-profitability-and-global-persistence-corruption
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vezycash
I don't like the words Corruption and Politics.

An individual lies to a judge, the police, the senate, or congress, it's a
punishable crime. With a big CEO or a politician, it's just Politics.

An individual steals money either physically or by massaging figures, it's
called THEFT - prison time. With Managers, CEOs and Politicians, it's just
politics and corruption.

To me, the worst part of these words is this:

Politics and corruption are umbrella terms for many minor to serious
activities - bribery, assassination, character assassination [1], theft of
funds, fraud, dereliction of duty, incompetence, lies, tribalism, kleptocracy,
racism, breaking of laws...

And this makes it hard for people to react to allegations of corruption or
politicking. Because you won't know if the accused has committed a misdemeanor
or treason.

Summary: If someone steals, call them a thief - not corrupt.

1\. Libel - fine or jail term for normal people.

~~~
IAmEveryone
To equate "politics" with lying, stealing, and corruption is the sort of
cynicism that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This article is fundamentally based on the fact that there is a lot of
variance in the amount of illegal activity in business and politics (and life
generally) between countries: the Scandinavian countries are universally
considered to be pretty close to corruption-free. Eastern and Southern Europe
are a bit worse, parts of Africa and South America are really bad, and Asia in
the middle. The US, contrary to popular opinion, has also long been ahead of
most other countries, and even been the driving international force against
corruption through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

That law made it illegal for US companies to engage in corruption abroad. It
was passed in 1977. As a contrast, consider that German companies were still
taking tax deductions for foreign bribes until 2002[0].

There are, in other words, very obvious regional differences. Additionally,
there have been rather drastic changes along the temporal dimension, as well:
Eastern Europe and Asia, for example, have come a long way over the last
thirty years. Italy, original inventor of the Mafia, is solidly average these
days, probably more similar to Germany or the UK than to its own past.

So, logically, if levels of corruption are different, that shows that equating
all politics with corruption is wrong, and it demands at least some nuance or
your criticism becomes entirely decoupled from reality and therefore no longer
a useful tool to improve anything.

If, as a politician or bureaucrat, all you ever hear are superficial
"everything-is-terrible" accusations completely devoid of any connection to
anything you are actually doing, you will pretty soon just start engaging in
that sort of activity: your public image cannot get any worse, anyway.

And people growing up in a society with these believes will start their
careers in politics or business with such assumptions, and act accordingly.[1]

[0]: yes, it's true that some corrupt practices have simply been legalized in
the US. But that's a failure of the voting public, and it's still better
because it's known. And yes, the illegal stuff is making a comeback,
considering the current President is both on record as supporting a repeal of
FCPA, as well as having good reasons to do so

[1]: Of note, AOC observed not too long ago that before being elected to
congress, she expected the corruption to be transactional, i. e. money for
something in explicit quid-pro-quo. As she noticed, lobbying in the US is
really more of a social process, where politicians aren't directly bought, but
spent a lot of time with lobbyists. And familiarity, as always, breeds
sympathy.

~~~
Ididntdothis
“AOC observed not too long ago that before being elected to congress, she
expected the corruption to be transactional, i. e. money for something in
explicit quid-pro-quo. As she noticed, lobbying in the US is really more of a
social process, where politicians aren't directly bought, but spent a lot of
time with lobbyists. And familiarity, as always, breeds sympathy.“

I think this is much worse in the long run. The people who are lobbied and the
people who lobby become the same.

~~~
mc32
So the solution is don’t have human relationships?

Some this can’t be avoided, some of it can, despite relationships, if people
stick to principles and also balance the requirements of all their
constituencies.

~~~
Ididntdothis
You can have relationships but as a lawmaker you have to be careful who you
associate with. During the 2008 crisis it seemed pretty obvious that a lot of
people in Congress and at the Fed felt more affinity towards bankers vs other
citizens. Or the current administration seems to talk only to business people
and not other groups like unions about the economy. The lack of balance is a
problem.

