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Countries with high paperwork and bureaucratic burden are famous for also being highly corrupt. This is probably not a coincidence. Likely all the excess paperw

• deleted 4y ago
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• rqtwteye 4y ago
  I would replace “countries” with “systems”. You can see this in the US with government contracting or health billing. Tons of paperwork but totally opaque and prone to corruption.
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with physical paperwork (See Japan which runs on paper forms even today; most hospitals in US are paperless but they're far from efficient), but the underlying policies that dictate the requirements and how the approval process must be conducted, number of parties/agencies/teams involved and the incentives put in place to make sure it gets done within a certain timeframe (QA controls). Some governments are better than others. Paperwork really isn't to blame here because even if everything was digital, the people behind the operation and the policies that govern their behavior is still the same. The problem isn't the interface between citizens and the government, it is the backend source code of the government. You are all barking at the wrong tree.
  • silasdavis 4y ago
    Paperwork and bureaucracy conducted face-to-face is completely different in its capacity for bribery, cronyism, and discriminatory behaviour outside of the official system. Automated systems can be quite awful (original research: Spain) but neither paper or digital systems would officially state the human factors involved in turning them over. There's simply less opportunity for these human factors in more automated digital systems.
    • usrusr 4y ago
      Particularly if you consider the on-ramp to corruption: being a little more lenient and helpful to those who are more polite than others blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who you consider "on your team" blends into blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who give favors in return blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who offer cash. Only then the artificial roadblocks begin. Fully developed corruption would likely find ways to continue after digitalization, but the ramp to get there would be so much less inviting.
  • wincy 4y ago
    During the pandemic I paid for a concierge care doctor and man it was the most convenient experience I’ve ever had with a medical provider. Cut out the insurance, he had a nurse and one office assistant and virtually no paperwork. Guy actually had brain power leftover to know who I was and what my situation was. I feel really bad for anyone wanting to become a doctor in this day and age, it seems absolutely grueling. I don’t know why anyone would go through all that trouble.
    • throwaway2037 4y ago
      Wow, please share more details. What city and what was the total cost compared to other options? I have heard this exists in very rich places in New York City, but it costs a pretty penny!
• somat 4y ago
  The paperwork is an attempt(usually misguided) to stop the corruption. The idea is that if you have to account and document all actions you will have act in the proscribed manner and not in a way that benefits you. This usually fails for the reason you posted. I am not really sure how you are supposed to stop corruption once it gets rooted in your society. It is a vile and subversive menace that turns every one into a criminal, preying on their fellow man. A very unpleasant environment to live in. The best article on corruption I have seen.(if you have time for an hour long power point presentation ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    The video talk about Russian military handing out Million dollar contracts to companies registered weeks before the tender. Well, guess what, the exact same thing happened in UK for PPE contracts: "Within weeks of the company’s incorporation on 12 May 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded contracts worth £203m to supply millions of masks and gowns." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/07/michelle-mone-referred-company-for-ppe-contracts-five-days-before-it-was-incorporated https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/07/michelle-mo...
    • ricardobayes 4y ago
      It's actually kind of disturbing how there are basically only a handful of countries on the planet without systematic corruption. Maybe there are none. Perhaps it's a human trait.
      • arlcode 4y ago
        Some types corruption are worse than others. With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the end. From what I heard, for example, in Russia you do that but then the quartermaster goes and sells half of your equipment off on the black market and the grunts sell off the other half and replace it with something much inferior. The first kind of corruption is bad and should be rooted out, but the second type is much more destructive as can be seen in Ukraine right now. Secrecy at all levels and for minor details, as well as "encouragement" from the highest levels of politics for this kind of theft are core ingredients.
• napier 4y ago
  Absolutely. Also, in paperwork superpowers, oftentimes the only ways to get things done are by resorting to what global consensus evaluative norms view as corruption, and a significant form proportion of what goes on frankly is corruption of corruption of the parasitical criminal kind... but there's also a great deal of routing around dysfunctional nodes in the system with legitimate intent on all sides. Interpersonal networks and middlemen routers evolve over time into parallel tracks of shared understanding about how to achieve mundane process flows and solve problems when the official channels are broken.
• megablast 4y ago
  Is Japan the exception?
  • Vibgyor5 4y ago
    Not really - Germany is equally infamous for its obsession with paperwork and bureaucracy (unlike India, Germany still used fax)
  • resonious 4y ago
    To my knowledge, Japan's Yakuza used to be highly involved with the government. That's basically just a rumor though. I don't have any details. The rumor also says that this is no longer really the case anymore.
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    • throwaway2037 4y ago
      I cannot answer about the original rumor, but I can say in the last ten years there has been a dramatic (economic) fall for the Yakuza. Slowly, the Japan gov't has passed tighter and tighter domestic money laundering laws -- taxes, building / business permits, banking, etc. Many times I have been asked to sign a form stating no connection with "anti-social forces". The Japan gov't is putting the economic equivalent of the "sleeper hold" on Yakuza. You hardly see them now (in visibly obvious forms) except the dodgiest places. I never see anyone with a missing half their pinky finger. (Yes, it is real / weird / scary.)
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  • ekianjo 4y ago
    Corruption at the government level is rampant in Japan
  • sn41 4y ago
    From my experience with both countries, surprisingly, Japan is more paperwork oriented than India. For some reason, they really want things in hard-copy, too. The difference, and it's a major one, is that paperwork does not slow the pace of work in Japan. Once papers are there, progress is usually instantaneous.
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• pjmlp 4y ago
  I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.
  • DocTomoe 4y ago
    Oh, corruption still exist, but most people are too poor to play in that league. Compare that to "developing country corruption", where you can often ... ahem ... prematurely show your gratitude towards an official for as little as 20 bucks.
    • pjmlp 4y ago
      Sure, but it is another league, not like back home in Portugal, where everyone does everyone little "favours", you cannot even get into some hospitals without a little help.
      • throwaway2037 4y ago
        How many times are you going to copy-pasta this exact same comment? Quick search shows three times. Keep it up. Great work.
        • pjmlp 4y ago
          I care for the lazy readers that don't bother to read all comments, as means to find out why I made the top comment. Congratulations you aren't one of them.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Switzerland is far less bureaucratic than Germany.
    • soco 4y ago
      There was a saying "if I look at myself I hate myself, if I compare myself I love myself"
    • 4y ago
• Ironlikebike 4y ago
  Every new piece of paperwork that requires an additional face-to-face hand off or brings in a new entity provides another avenue for corruption to occur and a place for money to disappear. I've had employees (in Brazil) who don't ever claim reimbursement on personal expenses because if their paycheck varies too much their bank freezes their funds (in the name of preventing money laundering) and then the employee has to go to the bank and bribe someone to get the funds unfrozen. Just showing the cause for the variation in payroll doesn't cut it. As the employee puts it, every requirement to show up in front of an official for anything requires a bribe.
• throwaway2037 4y ago
  How do explain doing business in Japan and Korea? They are famous for stamps, applications, and exceedingly complex rules and regulations. Yet, there are relatively low corruption. I heard Germany and Austria are also very heavy on paperwork and bureaucracy. They essentially have zero obvious corruption. Corruption is a weird thing. Why do some countries have more of it than others -- holding GDP per capita constant? I cannot explain it. Look at the United States -- "googols" of money spent to influence lawmakers. It cannot be healthy and looks like legalised bribery in comparison to other highly developed democracies.
• slim 4y ago
  the corruption business is very similar to racket. the threat being making you lose indefinite amount of time (instead of violence). as a business you have deadlines and not meeting them would make you lose money. sometimes losing money can be deadly to the company, that's why people unwillingly participate in corruption. the business model of corruption is : 1- slow the process as much as you can 2- some people will have deadlines and will be willing to pay to meet them 3- profit the slowness is there on purpose, to be able to provide quick process as a paid service
• phonon 4y ago
  Japan being a notable exception.
  • mrkstu 4y ago
    No, it's there. Look at the scandal around the assassination of Abe and the Unification Church. The church has had the main party of Japan bought and paid for for decades.
• stubish 4y ago
  If you have lots of paperwork, it means you are dealing with lots of different departments so lots more chances of encountering corruption. In the article, the author needs to chase dozens of different bits of paperwork. Quite a few there were no problem. But quite a few incompetent, corrupt, or both. Now, how about a system where you submit one application in one place, and if other departments need to know or collect fees or approve it is the responsibility of the submission point to pay or collect approvals? One desk is held responsible.