8 ms·

Anti-corruption shortfalls fuelling ‘global democracy crisis’

60 points by matt4077 8y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
Democratic crisis is inevitable under capitalism creating such stark wealth inequalities. When one person can have wealth orders of magnitude more than years of the salaries of all the country's elected politicians, it's inevitable corruption will happen.
- mulmen 8y ago
  It's unclear to me that this problem is unique to capitalism. All economic systems need regulation. Democracy appears to me to be the best way to create and manage that regulation.
  - bsanr2 8y ago
    I don't think he was saying it was unique to capitalism, only that it's inevitable under a capitalist system. Which is true. As you said, regulation is necessary to keep capitalism from becoming a socially-corruptive influence.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      Sure but I don't see how that makes a democratic crisis inevitable. The implication seems to be that democracy and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible which I don't think is true. They are in fact complimentary in my opinion. What better way to regulate a capitalist economic system than with a democratically elected government?
      - andrepd 8y ago
        The argument goes as follows, if you're interested. In a capitalist society there exists wealth inequality, and with it a power inequality. Democracy is the belief that every citizen has an equal say in the decisions and affairs that concern him. Manifestly, however, in a system with such stark differences in power, this cannot be the case (just think of how a "commoner" and a billionaire cannot even be compared in terms of resources and power at their disposal). "True" democracy is impossible in capitalism, as it is in feudalism, or in a monarchy, or in any system with classes.
        TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
        That's my thinking basically, yes. In particular, the gradually escalating power differential as money flows to the top will slowly and then rapidly destabilise a democracy.
  - makotech222 8y ago
    Thats literally what socialism is. Its democracy of the workplace that prevents wealth from accumulating in the hands of the few. This is why Marx is famous.
yasp 8y ago
>“With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe — often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies — we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” said Patricia Moreira, managing director of Transparency International in a press statement. So a politician responding to what the "populace" (i.e. the demos) wants ("populism") is a threat to democracy. Hmm.
- danharaj 8y ago
  That's not what populism is. Populism is when an elite claims to speak and act on behalf of the people without real input from them.
  - yasp 8y ago
    Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected. In which case assuming the politician attempts to follow through on his or her campaign promises, that politician would not be a populist. (Of course, this assumes that there is such a thing as "the people".)
    - classicsnoot 8y ago
      It is a strange axiom but I have yet to see it otherwise: when the will of the people is Leftward, it is Democracy; when the will of the people is Rightward, it is Populism. The person that responded to you employed a classic "anti-rightward" trope equating populism to vicarious elite control. I fail to see the difference between Populism and Democracy on the "people" side of the equation, rather the difference is in which elites are pulling the strings.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        No, it's still called populism when it comes from the left. Bernie Sanders was described as a populist.
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
raincom 8y ago
Western countries have lots of anti-corruption laws, but these laws won't help. Nor creating more laws would help either. What we have is: ethically corrupt but legally clean.
- munk-a 8y ago
  I disagree, I believe corruption in western democracies can be addressed within their legal frameworks. A lot of the issues with money and politics have existed in some form or another for quite some time, but recently the excesses of corruption has become more extreme - still the American government is able to occasionally police itself, even if it's had trouble doing so recently.
  - raincom 8y ago
    Even one removes the direct connection between money and politics, the current problems will take a different form: indirection. One kind of indirection we already see today: revolving doors So, where is the root problem of all these? It is collusion of power(politics), media(intellectuals, think tanks), money(capitalists, wealthy bankers). These powerful classes constitute 0.5% of any society, but these classes are colluding in order to advance their own interests. Yes, we have elections. What happens then? It is another fight between one group of colluders and another group of colluders. In many cases, the powerful classes bet on the both sides. How can one ban collusion? Look at office politics in any large organization. Think of banning collusions at work place.
    - vkou 8y ago
      You don't ban collusion. I mean, you can, but it's not going to be particularly effective. What you do, to solve this problem, is empower the lower classes. We've just observed how two unions - air traffic controllers, and flight attendants - have accomplished, with the threat of a work stoppage, something that both the Republican, and the Democratic party failed to achieve - a re-opening of the government. The 99.5% have all the power. What they need to do, is to use it in solidarity.
- 8y ago
elihu 8y ago
The way I've been looking at it recently is that any defects in the mechanisms of democracy don't just result in more-random results and slightly less satisfied constituents, they're actually exploitable weaknesses that allow powerful people or institutions to exert more power than they would be otherwise entitled to. We (speaking as a U.S. person) need to do away with the electoral college and first-past-the-post voting not because popular vote and a better election system are nice-to-have features, but because our current system paints a giant target on the political process we all rely on to ensure accountability. When the outcome of presidential elections depends on a few hundred or thousand voters in one or a few of Florida/Ohio/Michigan/Pennsylvania/Wisconsin, that's a systemic vulnerability. There are active exploits in the wild; this is less a matter of instituting reforms to make things a little bit better and more a matter of adapting to new threats in order to reduce the risk of a systemic collapse. Other exploitable vulnerabilities in our democratic process that have been weaponized to varying degrees include: Winner-take-all primary states (on the R side), superdelegates (on the D side), gerrymandering, Congressional procedural abuse (like the filibuster in the Senate, or refusing to vote on popular measures if it's opposed by a majority of the majority in the House), congressional gridlock, and sloppy campaign finance regulations.
- alexanderdmitri 8y ago
  Isn't there a catch-22 here? The system is a republic which writes its own requirements; if it's been compromised and exploited by outside systems to the point its kernel level processes are funadmentally corrupt/compromised, how can you trust it to autocorrect in a way that actually fixes the fundamental issues? The tools designed for "the people" to use and interact and influence the system have been neuteralized with mathematical precision (assuming a point where they worked as specified, there is an argument to be made that the system has always given lip service to the end user while really only catering to management). I think you only have a chance at implementing change if you're able to locate and leverage an exploit that the viruses within have either overlooked or can't completely secure against.
  - elihu 8y ago
    I think democracy works pretty well in general, but it's prone to instabilities. Most problems that arise can be corrected. (I don't want to say that democracy is self-correcting; rather that correction is possible with appropriate intervention.) If things get too far off the rails, then the fate of the political process rests in the choices of a few powerful people whether or not to do the right thing, the level of engagement and organization of the resisting populace, the strength and independence of our various institutions, and plain dumb luck. There are many modern examples of failed democracies. We shouldn't think that "the pendulum will swing the other way"; sometimes it does, but if it doesn't then it's to late for a do-over. My thoughts on this are greatly influenced by a recent book called "On Tyranny; Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder.
maceurt 8y ago
Maybe it is just me, but I do not trust this "cpi" score at all. > This decline comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. So the ethics of a leader determines how corrupt a government is? How also are the ethics of leaders in power worse than they were before? We are seeing a rise in companies and corporations taking tough actions against things like sexual harassment, racism, etc. I disagree that people in power are getting less ethical.

60 points by matt4077 8y ago

Democratic crisis is inevitable under capitalism creating such stark wealth inequalities. When one person can have wealth orders of magnitude more than years of the salaries of all the country's elected politicians, it's inevitable corruption will happen.

mulmen 8y ago
It's unclear to me that this problem is unique to capitalism. All economic systems need regulation. Democracy appears to me to be the best way to create and manage that regulation.
- bsanr2 8y ago
  I don't think he was saying it was unique to capitalism, only that it's inevitable under a capitalist system. Which is true. As you said, regulation is necessary to keep capitalism from becoming a socially-corruptive influence.
  - mulmen 8y ago
    Sure but I don't see how that makes a democratic crisis inevitable. The implication seems to be that democracy and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible which I don't think is true. They are in fact complimentary in my opinion. What better way to regulate a capitalist economic system than with a democratically elected government?
    - andrepd 8y ago
      The argument goes as follows, if you're interested. In a capitalist society there exists wealth inequality, and with it a power inequality. Democracy is the belief that every citizen has an equal say in the decisions and affairs that concern him. Manifestly, however, in a system with such stark differences in power, this cannot be the case (just think of how a "commoner" and a billionaire cannot even be compared in terms of resources and power at their disposal). "True" democracy is impossible in capitalism, as it is in feudalism, or in a monarchy, or in any system with classes.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
        That's my thinking basically, yes. In particular, the gradually escalating power differential as money flows to the top will slowly and then rapidly destabilise a democracy.
- makotech222 8y ago
  Thats literally what socialism is. Its democracy of the workplace that prevents wealth from accumulating in the hands of the few. This is why Marx is famous.

yasp 8y ago

>“With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe — often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies — we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” said Patricia Moreira, managing director of Transparency International in a press statement. So a politician responding to what the "populace" (i.e. the demos) wants ("populism") is a threat to democracy. Hmm.

danharaj 8y ago
That's not what populism is. Populism is when an elite claims to speak and act on behalf of the people without real input from them.
- yasp 8y ago
  Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected. In which case assuming the politician attempts to follow through on his or her campaign promises, that politician would not be a populist. (Of course, this assumes that there is such a thing as "the people".)
  - classicsnoot 8y ago
    It is a strange axiom but I have yet to see it otherwise: when the will of the people is Leftward, it is Democracy; when the will of the people is Rightward, it is Populism. The person that responded to you employed a classic "anti-rightward" trope equating populism to vicarious elite control. I fail to see the difference between Populism and Democracy on the "people" side of the equation, rather the difference is in which elites are pulling the strings.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      No, it's still called populism when it comes from the left. Bernie Sanders was described as a populist.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago

raincom 8y ago

Western countries have lots of anti-corruption laws, but these laws won't help. Nor creating more laws would help either. What we have is: ethically corrupt but legally clean.

munk-a 8y ago
I disagree, I believe corruption in western democracies can be addressed within their legal frameworks. A lot of the issues with money and politics have existed in some form or another for quite some time, but recently the excesses of corruption has become more extreme - still the American government is able to occasionally police itself, even if it's had trouble doing so recently.
- raincom 8y ago
  Even one removes the direct connection between money and politics, the current problems will take a different form: indirection. One kind of indirection we already see today: revolving doors So, where is the root problem of all these? It is collusion of power(politics), media(intellectuals, think tanks), money(capitalists, wealthy bankers). These powerful classes constitute 0.5% of any society, but these classes are colluding in order to advance their own interests. Yes, we have elections. What happens then? It is another fight between one group of colluders and another group of colluders. In many cases, the powerful classes bet on the both sides. How can one ban collusion? Look at office politics in any large organization. Think of banning collusions at work place.
  - vkou 8y ago
    You don't ban collusion. I mean, you can, but it's not going to be particularly effective. What you do, to solve this problem, is empower the lower classes. We've just observed how two unions - air traffic controllers, and flight attendants - have accomplished, with the threat of a work stoppage, something that both the Republican, and the Democratic party failed to achieve - a re-opening of the government. The 99.5% have all the power. What they need to do, is to use it in solidarity.
8y ago

elihu 8y ago

The way I've been looking at it recently is that any defects in the mechanisms of democracy don't just result in more-random results and slightly less satisfied constituents, they're actually exploitable weaknesses that allow powerful people or institutions to exert more power than they would be otherwise entitled to. We (speaking as a U.S. person) need to do away with the electoral college and first-past-the-post voting not because popular vote and a better election system are nice-to-have features, but because our current system paints a giant target on the political process we all rely on to ensure accountability. When the outcome of presidential elections depends on a few hundred or thousand voters in one or a few of Florida/Ohio/Michigan/Pennsylvania/Wisconsin, that's a systemic vulnerability. There are active exploits in the wild; this is less a matter of instituting reforms to make things a little bit better and more a matter of adapting to new threats in order to reduce the risk of a systemic collapse. Other exploitable vulnerabilities in our democratic process that have been weaponized to varying degrees include: Winner-take-all primary states (on the R side), superdelegates (on the D side), gerrymandering, Congressional procedural abuse (like the filibuster in the Senate, or refusing to vote on popular measures if it's opposed by a majority of the majority in the House), congressional gridlock, and sloppy campaign finance regulations.

alexanderdmitri 8y ago
Isn't there a catch-22 here? The system is a republic which writes its own requirements; if it's been compromised and exploited by outside systems to the point its kernel level processes are funadmentally corrupt/compromised, how can you trust it to autocorrect in a way that actually fixes the fundamental issues? The tools designed for "the people" to use and interact and influence the system have been neuteralized with mathematical precision (assuming a point where they worked as specified, there is an argument to be made that the system has always given lip service to the end user while really only catering to management). I think you only have a chance at implementing change if you're able to locate and leverage an exploit that the viruses within have either overlooked or can't completely secure against.
- elihu 8y ago
  I think democracy works pretty well in general, but it's prone to instabilities. Most problems that arise can be corrected. (I don't want to say that democracy is self-correcting; rather that correction is possible with appropriate intervention.) If things get too far off the rails, then the fate of the political process rests in the choices of a few powerful people whether or not to do the right thing, the level of engagement and organization of the resisting populace, the strength and independence of our various institutions, and plain dumb luck. There are many modern examples of failed democracies. We shouldn't think that "the pendulum will swing the other way"; sometimes it does, but if it doesn't then it's to late for a do-over. My thoughts on this are greatly influenced by a recent book called "On Tyranny; Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder.

maceurt 8y ago

Maybe it is just me, but I do not trust this "cpi" score at all. > This decline comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. So the ethics of a leader determines how corrupt a government is? How also are the ethics of leaders in power worse than they were before? We are seeing a rise in companies and corporations taking tough actions against things like sexual harassment, racism, etc. I disagree that people in power are getting less ethical.