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I thought a lot about this being from a country with severe corruption problems, although not nearly as bad as yours. I agree that in these situations "people l

I thought a lot about this being from a country with severe corruption problems, although not nearly as bad as yours. I agree that in these situations "people largely get what they deserve" but I don't think the problem is that they vote for corrupt leaders. I think the problem is the people themselves, their culture and values are a lot more corrupt compared to a civilized country. You can observe corruption at every level, not just the top, a fact that you mention as well. Even the poorest people, the ones who are victims of corruption are just as corrupt themselves. They are exploiting any opportunity to steal for themselves and would not change a thing given significant power but only steal more. I don't know if I made myself understood, my point is I don't think this is a situation you can vote yourself out of. I honestly don't know what can be done in such situations.

pydry 4y ago
It's neither values or "people getting what they deserve". Nor is it "socialism". Resources are just a curse. When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. The only country to really escape the resource curse is Norway and that's likely coz they were discovered quite late after they had developed a high trust society and were able to manage the spoils effectively and fairly. They're the exception not the rule.
- trabant00 4y ago
  Eastern Europe (where I'm from) has no significant resources. The corruption is still rampant. So there must be another cause.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Eastern Europe has been routinely contested territory by great powers for the past 1000 years. It's got very unfortunate geography.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      So have most other regions. Where hasn’t had this happen? The longer humans have been somewhere, the more they seem to fight.
      - pydry 4y ago
        Switzerland and the USA are two countries blessed with particularly fortuitous geography.
  - from 4y ago
    Well the government owned every legal business and then was pressured to dispose of all those businesses quickly when the USSR collapsed. It is not surprising that that kind of environment invites massive amounts of corruption, especially because there was almost no one before privatization who had enough money to buy those businesses for their true prices. At a lower level it probably has more due to do with low wages and general disillusionment with "the system."
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. Oh please. Last I checked the midwest and Austrialia were doing just fine. There are tons of commodity exporters that don't fit this pattern.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Australia started out pretty good and has a long way to fall, but it is getting worse all the time - and most of its dysfunction is thanks to lobbying from resource extractors like Gina Rinehart. Even so they have actual functioning non-resource economies unlike Nigeria and Venezuela and resource extraction can not dominate politics nearly as much.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      >Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Are you serious? You're comparing Australia to Nigeria? Hell, I almost included Russia(!!) in my comment because even they have quite functional and non-corrupt government relative to the area of the spectrum we're talking about here. Just because some nation doesn't turn the screws on industries you don't like as hard as you want them to doesn't make them dysfunctional and corrupt.
      - pydry 4y ago
        > You're comparing Australia to Nigeria? Yes, because Australia has been developing a resource heavy economy with dysfunctional politics to match while Nigeria's has been completely resource dominated for a long time and been a basket case for most of its history because of it. >Hell, I almost included Russia(!!) in my comment because even they have quite functional and non-corrupt government A country more resource dominated than Australia and less resource dominated than Nigeria is more politically dysfunctional than Australia and less dysfunctional than Nigeria? Shocking (!!). It's weird that I even have to utter this sentence but... Russia is not non-corrupt, by the way.
naijaboiler 4y ago
i struggle to get on board with "corruption as a cultural value". What's deeper than these are usually more positive values, perhaps it's entepreneuralism, or often its just a sense of justice (communal resources belong to members of community). What you see is "corruption at every level" is just a systemic lubricant necessary for business to occur in the absence of rules and regulations that arefair, just, "followable", and are agreed to by everyone.
- trabant00 4y ago
  There is no lack of rules and regulations where I'm from - Eastern Europe. People are well aware they are breaking said rules. As for spreading wealth - far from it, everybody hoards as much as they can for themselves at the expense of others who are in many cases worse off. About cultural values, an anecdotal example: every time somebody gets prison time for stealing, fraud, embezzlement, etc, people comment things like "4 years for X million euros? Would gladly take that deal". Also people who make money with drugs or human trafficking are idols for many young people and they are open about it. We have song hits about this life style. This is what I call culture.
  - eloff 4y ago
    I met a Russian in the “banana export” business once. He espoused that exact same mentality: "4 years for X million euros? Would gladly take that deal". Interpol caught up with him since and he’s living that deal now while his wife manages his assets. I wonder if she’s still his wife and I wonder if he still thinks it was worthwhile.
    - from 4y ago
      How much do you think he made? Even if he got 20 years if he made $20 million it could still be worth it to him (assuming he was successful enough his wife probably doesn't know about all his assets anyways). Most of these people come from nothing and do this for living knowing the risks so I doubt prison is the end of the world for them.
- 4y ago

pydry 4y ago

It's neither values or "people getting what they deserve". Nor is it "socialism". Resources are just a curse. When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. The only country to really escape the resource curse is Norway and that's likely coz they were discovered quite late after they had developed a high trust society and were able to manage the spoils effectively and fairly. They're the exception not the rule.

trabant00 4y ago
Eastern Europe (where I'm from) has no significant resources. The corruption is still rampant. So there must be another cause.
- pydry 4y ago
  Eastern Europe has been routinely contested territory by great powers for the past 1000 years. It's got very unfortunate geography.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    So have most other regions. Where hasn’t had this happen? The longer humans have been somewhere, the more they seem to fight.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Switzerland and the USA are two countries blessed with particularly fortuitous geography.
- from 4y ago
  Well the government owned every legal business and then was pressured to dispose of all those businesses quickly when the USSR collapsed. It is not surprising that that kind of environment invites massive amounts of corruption, especially because there was almost no one before privatization who had enough money to buy those businesses for their true prices. At a lower level it probably has more due to do with low wages and general disillusionment with "the system."
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. Oh please. Last I checked the midwest and Austrialia were doing just fine. There are tons of commodity exporters that don't fit this pattern.
- pydry 4y ago
  Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Australia started out pretty good and has a long way to fall, but it is getting worse all the time - and most of its dysfunction is thanks to lobbying from resource extractors like Gina Rinehart. Even so they have actual functioning non-resource economies unlike Nigeria and Venezuela and resource extraction can not dominate politics nearly as much.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Are you serious? You're comparing Australia to Nigeria? Hell, I almost included Russia(!!) in my comment because even they have quite functional and non-corrupt government relative to the area of the spectrum we're talking about here. Just because some nation doesn't turn the screws on industries you don't like as hard as you want them to doesn't make them dysfunctional and corrupt.
    - pydry 4y ago
      > You're comparing Australia to Nigeria? Yes, because Australia has been developing a resource heavy economy with dysfunctional politics to match while Nigeria's has been completely resource dominated for a long time and been a basket case for most of its history because of it. >Hell, I almost included Russia(!!) in my comment because even they have quite functional and non-corrupt government A country more resource dominated than Australia and less resource dominated than Nigeria is more politically dysfunctional than Australia and less dysfunctional than Nigeria? Shocking (!!). It's weird that I even have to utter this sentence but... Russia is not non-corrupt, by the way.

naijaboiler 4y ago

i struggle to get on board with "corruption as a cultural value". What's deeper than these are usually more positive values, perhaps it's entepreneuralism, or often its just a sense of justice (communal resources belong to members of community). What you see is "corruption at every level" is just a systemic lubricant necessary for business to occur in the absence of rules and regulations that arefair, just, "followable", and are agreed to by everyone.

trabant00 4y ago
There is no lack of rules and regulations where I'm from - Eastern Europe. People are well aware they are breaking said rules. As for spreading wealth - far from it, everybody hoards as much as they can for themselves at the expense of others who are in many cases worse off. About cultural values, an anecdotal example: every time somebody gets prison time for stealing, fraud, embezzlement, etc, people comment things like "4 years for X million euros? Would gladly take that deal". Also people who make money with drugs or human trafficking are idols for many young people and they are open about it. We have song hits about this life style. This is what I call culture.
- eloff 4y ago
  I met a Russian in the “banana export” business once. He espoused that exact same mentality: "4 years for X million euros? Would gladly take that deal". Interpol caught up with him since and he’s living that deal now while his wife manages his assets. I wonder if she’s still his wife and I wonder if he still thinks it was worthwhile.
  - from 4y ago
    How much do you think he made? Even if he got 20 years if he made $20 million it could still be worth it to him (assuming he was successful enough his wife probably doesn't know about all his assets anyways). Most of these people come from nothing and do this for living knowing the risks so I doubt prison is the end of the world for them.
4y ago