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Not a shocker that corruption ruins things. I guess then the question is how you can design a broadly distributed system that removes the incentives for corrupt

Not a shocker that corruption ruins things. I guess then the question is how you can design a broadly distributed system that removes the incentives for corruption and minimizes its impact. My guess is that such a system won't be found in capitalism

CryptoPunk 5y ago
It will be found in open source networks, and possibly will come into being through government funding.
mcv 5y ago
Capitalism quite clearly requires strong regulation. At least, any sort of positive capitalism that doesn't immediately succumb to monopolies, cartels and corruption. The problem is that the loudest voices arguing for capitalism, also tend to argue against regulation, accountability, and that sort of thing.
- thewarrior 5y ago
  Who regulates the regulator ? If it is the government then it goes back to the people being aware of their interests and not allowing themselves to be manipulated. Which is never going to be the case.
  - blululu 5y ago
    The answer to this question has always been ideology. Establishing a deep an sincere belief in the purpose of an undertaking on the part of its functionaries is the most durable way to run a community of any sort. Successful anarchist programs require some degree of ideological commitment to a greater cause. Switzerland is probably the most decentralized society on earth and you will notice the incredibly tight sense of right/wrong throughout Swiss society.
    - thewarrior 5y ago
      The people at the top are deeply cynical of ideology. They fill the ranks of middle management with true believers and play their own games.
  - uabstraction 5y ago
    In theory the regulators, as part of the government, serve the will of the people. But the state under capitalism serves no one but the massive corporations which these regulators are meant to govern. So we end up with fossil fuel guys running the EPA and Verizon lawyers running the FCC. There is no one to regulate the regulators because the state in its entirety is isolated from accountability to the public.
- refurb 5y ago
  Capitalism requires strong regulation but communism requires top down control.
- olalonde 5y ago
  Regulations is what largely enables cronyism.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    The world isn't black and white. There is good and bad regulation. Effective and ineffective regulation. For example car safety regulations are pretty effective. Cars are more safe now than they ever have been and its rare for there to be a problem with the safety systems in cars. Financial market regulation has been mostly a disaster and is in large part due to capture by the industry and serious conflict of interests at all levels of government.
- csee 5y ago
  They argue against regulations because: - Regulations are often used as a tool of corruption and cronyism, e.g. regulation of housing construction entrenching landowner power. - Regulations can block legitimate progress, e.g. the private antigen tests that were blocked throughout 2020. - Regulations create complexity which acts as both a barrier to entry which creates monopolies, and as a hidden tax. - Regulations are often theatre. - Bad regulations are sticky; they don't sunset. That's why I favor less regulations overall. But I don't favor no regulations. I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Exactly. You don't want regulations merely for regulations' sake. Regulations need to be governed by a simple, transparent set of values, and enforce only those, but enforce them well and consistently, and keep the regulator accountable for how those values and regulations are enforced. Blindly trusting regulators to know what's best is just as bad as blindly trusting corporations to know what's best.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on. Not allowing pollution isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. Not allowing deceptive marketing (fraudulent contracts) isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. If you can't see the difference between regulations and property rights then yeah, opposition to regulations will seem a bit bizarre.
    - mcv 5y ago
      Deciding that these are property rights issues and enforcing them as such is itself a form of regulation. Property rights themselves are a basic form of regulation. Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation. Everything that regulate things in a way that protects and enforces people's rights, ensures people aren't being exploited, robbed, misled, etc, is a form of regulation.
      - 5y ago
- justinmchase 5y ago
  Regulation implies regulators, and regulators can become a bottleneck for power. They can demand bribes and favors in exchange for being allowed to operate and they can use their power to selectively eliminate political opponents sources of power. Read "The Path to Power", LBJ biography. They describe this process plainly and how he continuously used his across his entire career in this way. Its very enlightening.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Of course the regulators themselves also need to be regulated and held accountable. It's either that or prevent all concentrations of power, including corporations.
wrnr 5y ago
Government and NGO can also be corrupted too, just look at the recent doctors without borders sex for food scandals.
- episode0x01 5y ago
  Right, it's not something unique to corporations. It's a consequence of concentrated power
woile 5y ago
IIRC "the dictators handbook" mentions that the more people in a power position, the harder to corrupt, because it becomes more expensive. Of course this brings a slower process, so it's like a trade-off. Link: https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2020/dictators-handbook-summary#:~:text=So%20the%20authors%20say%20that%20to%20decrease%20corruption%20in%20FIFA%20and%20in%20the%20Olympic%20committee%20is%20to%20increase%20the%20number%20of%20people%20with%20voting%20rights%20in%20those%20institutions https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2020/dictators-han....
- dwallin 5y ago
  A great book, but I would love to see additional studies really breaking it down. My gut feeling is that this effect curves. At a certain size of selectorate you switch from direct influence, with linear costs, to indirect methods of influence, with much better scaling properties (eg. Uber and California Proposition 22). While it becomes expensive to outright buy people, it also becomes prohibitively expensive to educate, and an ability to outspend with emotional appeals becomes more important than having a cogent argument.
seventytwo 5y ago
Corruption can’t be decoupled from any human organizational system, though. The system needs to be designed in a way to take corruption into account and minimize it. In unregulated capitalism, corruption provides a huge competitive advantage, so controls must be put in place to counteract that. Typically that’s done with government intervention. The idea that we can “blame cronyism, not capitalism”, is a red herring. Cronyism and corruption is something capitalism, as a system, must be able to deal with, or else capitalism is a poor system. It’s like saying “don’t blame the engine, blame friction forces” for why an engine has poor qualities. Friction is a given and will always exist, it’s the poor engineering design of the engine that’s the problem. The design didn’t mitigate the friction appropriately.
- pibechorro 5y ago
  Unregulated free trade doesnt reward corruption, it's the opposite. It rewards value to the consumer. Goverment intervention is what rewards corruption when it eventually becomes captured and now insiders control the levers of the economy forcing themselves on the end user. You need to invert your thinking, we need more freedom and less interventions by middle management. Market feedback needs to be emergent from the bottom up.
  - seventytwo 5y ago
    I’d argue that absent any regulations, there’s no such thing as corruption, just like without laws, nothing is criminal! But is that the world we want? The fact of the matter is that corruption, like crime, will always exist, so the system within which the corruption exists better be able to handle it, or it’s a poor system. The author’s argument is basically the opposite - “the system is fine, it’s the pesky non-idealities that are the problem!” My point is that this is a totally useless take. It’s like trying to build a rocket and wondering why it collapses on the launchpad because you hand waved away all the non-idealities: “oh, the rocket design was fine, it was those pesky non-idealities that we’re the problem!”
adlorger 5y ago
capitalism seems like a more likely home for broadly distributed systems than government systems which are, by their nature, centralized
commandlinefan 5y ago
> such a system won't be found in capitalism It won't be found even harder in communism, where the cronyism is baked into the system of governance.
Aunche 5y ago
Since proof of work is inefficient in general and impossible for humans, society can only function with leaders. The problem with anti-capitalist ideology is that it without a healthy private sector, people who are uninterested in public service seek leadership positions there because those are the positions with most "profit." This is why every attempt at socialism has been a complete failure.
jimbokun 5y ago
> My guess is that such a system won't be found in capitalism It won't be found in communism or socialism, either.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

It will be found in open source networks, and possibly will come into being through government funding.

mcv 5y ago

Capitalism quite clearly requires strong regulation. At least, any sort of positive capitalism that doesn't immediately succumb to monopolies, cartels and corruption. The problem is that the loudest voices arguing for capitalism, also tend to argue against regulation, accountability, and that sort of thing.

thewarrior 5y ago
Who regulates the regulator ? If it is the government then it goes back to the people being aware of their interests and not allowing themselves to be manipulated. Which is never going to be the case.
- blululu 5y ago
  The answer to this question has always been ideology. Establishing a deep an sincere belief in the purpose of an undertaking on the part of its functionaries is the most durable way to run a community of any sort. Successful anarchist programs require some degree of ideological commitment to a greater cause. Switzerland is probably the most decentralized society on earth and you will notice the incredibly tight sense of right/wrong throughout Swiss society.
  - thewarrior 5y ago
    The people at the top are deeply cynical of ideology. They fill the ranks of middle management with true believers and play their own games.
- uabstraction 5y ago
  In theory the regulators, as part of the government, serve the will of the people. But the state under capitalism serves no one but the massive corporations which these regulators are meant to govern. So we end up with fossil fuel guys running the EPA and Verizon lawyers running the FCC. There is no one to regulate the regulators because the state in its entirety is isolated from accountability to the public.
refurb 5y ago
Capitalism requires strong regulation but communism requires top down control.
olalonde 5y ago
Regulations is what largely enables cronyism.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  The world isn't black and white. There is good and bad regulation. Effective and ineffective regulation. For example car safety regulations are pretty effective. Cars are more safe now than they ever have been and its rare for there to be a problem with the safety systems in cars. Financial market regulation has been mostly a disaster and is in large part due to capture by the industry and serious conflict of interests at all levels of government.
csee 5y ago
They argue against regulations because: - Regulations are often used as a tool of corruption and cronyism, e.g. regulation of housing construction entrenching landowner power. - Regulations can block legitimate progress, e.g. the private antigen tests that were blocked throughout 2020. - Regulations create complexity which acts as both a barrier to entry which creates monopolies, and as a hidden tax. - Regulations are often theatre. - Bad regulations are sticky; they don't sunset. That's why I favor less regulations overall. But I don't favor no regulations. I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on.
- mcv 5y ago
  Exactly. You don't want regulations merely for regulations' sake. Regulations need to be governed by a simple, transparent set of values, and enforce only those, but enforce them well and consistently, and keep the regulator accountable for how those values and regulations are enforced. Blindly trusting regulators to know what's best is just as bad as blindly trusting corporations to know what's best.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on. Not allowing pollution isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. Not allowing deceptive marketing (fraudulent contracts) isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. If you can't see the difference between regulations and property rights then yeah, opposition to regulations will seem a bit bizarre.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Deciding that these are property rights issues and enforcing them as such is itself a form of regulation. Property rights themselves are a basic form of regulation. Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation. Everything that regulate things in a way that protects and enforces people's rights, ensures people aren't being exploited, robbed, misled, etc, is a form of regulation.
    - 5y ago
justinmchase 5y ago
Regulation implies regulators, and regulators can become a bottleneck for power. They can demand bribes and favors in exchange for being allowed to operate and they can use their power to selectively eliminate political opponents sources of power. Read "The Path to Power", LBJ biography. They describe this process plainly and how he continuously used his across his entire career in this way. Its very enlightening.
- mcv 5y ago
  Of course the regulators themselves also need to be regulated and held accountable. It's either that or prevent all concentrations of power, including corporations.

wrnr 5y ago

Government and NGO can also be corrupted too, just look at the recent doctors without borders sex for food scandals.

episode0x01 5y ago
Right, it's not something unique to corporations. It's a consequence of concentrated power

woile 5y ago

IIRC "the dictators handbook" mentions that the more people in a power position, the harder to corrupt, because it becomes more expensive. Of course this brings a slower process, so it's like a trade-off. Link: https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2020/dictators-handbook-summary#:~:text=So%20the%20authors%20say%20that%20to%20decrease%20corruption%20in%20FIFA%20and%20in%20the%20Olympic%20committee%20is%20to%20increase%20the%20number%20of%20people%20with%20voting%20rights%20in%20those%20institutions https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2020/dictators-han....

dwallin 5y ago
A great book, but I would love to see additional studies really breaking it down. My gut feeling is that this effect curves. At a certain size of selectorate you switch from direct influence, with linear costs, to indirect methods of influence, with much better scaling properties (eg. Uber and California Proposition 22). While it becomes expensive to outright buy people, it also becomes prohibitively expensive to educate, and an ability to outspend with emotional appeals becomes more important than having a cogent argument.

seventytwo 5y ago

Corruption can’t be decoupled from any human organizational system, though. The system needs to be designed in a way to take corruption into account and minimize it. In unregulated capitalism, corruption provides a huge competitive advantage, so controls must be put in place to counteract that. Typically that’s done with government intervention. The idea that we can “blame cronyism, not capitalism”, is a red herring. Cronyism and corruption is something capitalism, as a system, must be able to deal with, or else capitalism is a poor system. It’s like saying “don’t blame the engine, blame friction forces” for why an engine has poor qualities. Friction is a given and will always exist, it’s the poor engineering design of the engine that’s the problem. The design didn’t mitigate the friction appropriately.

pibechorro 5y ago
Unregulated free trade doesnt reward corruption, it's the opposite. It rewards value to the consumer. Goverment intervention is what rewards corruption when it eventually becomes captured and now insiders control the levers of the economy forcing themselves on the end user. You need to invert your thinking, we need more freedom and less interventions by middle management. Market feedback needs to be emergent from the bottom up.
- seventytwo 5y ago
  I’d argue that absent any regulations, there’s no such thing as corruption, just like without laws, nothing is criminal! But is that the world we want? The fact of the matter is that corruption, like crime, will always exist, so the system within which the corruption exists better be able to handle it, or it’s a poor system. The author’s argument is basically the opposite - “the system is fine, it’s the pesky non-idealities that are the problem!” My point is that this is a totally useless take. It’s like trying to build a rocket and wondering why it collapses on the launchpad because you hand waved away all the non-idealities: “oh, the rocket design was fine, it was those pesky non-idealities that we’re the problem!”

adlorger 5y ago

capitalism seems like a more likely home for broadly distributed systems than government systems which are, by their nature, centralized

commandlinefan 5y ago

> such a system won't be found in capitalism It won't be found even harder in communism, where the cronyism is baked into the system of governance.

Aunche 5y ago

Since proof of work is inefficient in general and impossible for humans, society can only function with leaders. The problem with anti-capitalist ideology is that it without a healthy private sector, people who are uninterested in public service seek leadership positions there because those are the positions with most "profit." This is why every attempt at socialism has been a complete failure.

jimbokun 5y ago

> My guess is that such a system won't be found in capitalism It won't be found in communism or socialism, either.