4 ms·

It's not the fault of a system that rewards unethical behavior by having a massively skewed risk/reward profile for said behavior, it's the fault of people with

• jjoonathan 5y ago
  "The system harnesses the power of incentives to make people do the right thing!" "But here the incentives point in the wrong direction." "It's not the system's fault! People shouldn't follow those incentives!"
• merpnderp 5y ago
  That same line of argument could work for socialism/communism. What country that doesn't use the free trade paradigm for their economy isn't some authoritarian nightmare of poverty and despair? Are they just bad actors using the system wrong, or is it a system that always ends that way?
  • lupire 5y ago
    If every system ends up the same way, it's probably the people not the systems.
  • mojuba 5y ago
    Not always the case. There are non-democratic capitalist societies with varying degrees of performance, from great (Singapore) to awful (the entire post-Soviet space). On the other hand, over-regulated or fully socialist societies seem to be incompatible with democracy, I'd agree with that one.
  • CuriouslyC 5y ago
    Corruption isn't a problem of free trade, it's a problem resulting from centralization of authority. A single (or small cabal of) regulatory gatekeeper is comparatively cheap to pay off compared to satisfying all interested parties. Bribe one person? Check. Bribe 10,000 without having it break the bank or turn into a PR nightmare? Not so much. Clearly, our "free market" isn't really free, and our regulatory and enforcement strategies are the problem.