6 ms·

Only if you consider what Americans tend to consider corruption. If you, instead, get a little creative and include things like segregation (essentially a massi

Only if you consider what Americans tend to consider corruption. If you, instead, get a little creative and include things like segregation (essentially a massive state-sponsored in-group grift that cost the country an untold fortune in the lost proceeds of misallocated capital, primary among that being the very concept of the modern suburb and the automobile-based infrastructure required to head off its ever-imminent lack of sustainability) and a great deal of our foreign policy (meant to direct funds into the coffers of the MIC and the politicians directly invested in it, at the cost of untold blood and treasure)... well, we've been pretty damn corrupt.

_pi 3y ago
yeah the funny thing about these comments you have a bunch of people conflating a lot of stuff. For people who think the USSR was "more corrupt" they're often talking about a narrow conception of corruption that is defined by the US on technical terms. Or they're simply talking about the behavioral differences between rich vs poor countries. Boeing's quality issues are a great example because it's very obviously corruption, but not in the US technical sense. But the reality is that Boeing and the US government basically said yeah fuck it, do your own QA for the 737 Max and then after the fuckups turned around and said okay we won't charge you the full fine. And that would have just gone away if the 787 fuckups didn't happen. Now suddnely people look really bad giving Boeing sweetheart enforcement deals. Americans think corruption is a cop pocketing $ on the side of the highway, but it's not corruption when the cop confiscates $ on the side of the highway without trial, gives it to his police department, which pays out the confiscated funds as bonuses, new equipment, and other various frivolities. At least the Soviets spit in your face when and how they wanted to and were limited by physicality. Americans make a Rube Golberg machine where saliva of their oligarchs is collected throughout the day in massive quantities and piped out of the building where it happens to land on your face 80% of the time. Then they will tell you it's your fault for being in the way of the spit pipes. We cannot recognize corruption in the US because our corruption is mechanical, and we've precluded that mechanical things cannot be a form of corruption. USSR corruption was more visceral and obvious, that's pretty much it. This makes a lot more sense if you understand that all measures of "corruption" don't define corruption but use the perception of corruption. Another example. Ukraine is a corrupt country, no doubt about it. But the "anti-corruption" NGO complex in Ukraine essentially prevents certain laws from passing like sourcing laws which exist in all major developed countries. They see these laws as a form of corruption, which in and of themselves they're not. The other reality is that a lot of the anti-corruption NGO's are corrupt. The reason they argue against sourcing laws is because foreign entities stand to lose money if Ukraine has to buy a certain percentage of goods from Ukrainian factories. Foreign money buys NGO's easily there, so NGO's don't' want their funding to dry up. So everything is in stasis. But by Western standards none of the above is "corruption" because while the people making these deals can likely speak freely, by Western standards it's really easy to hide this corruption as coincidental and unrelated business decisions. In reality corruption itself is an industry because it's a way to make money and a tool to make money with. Corruption is not a really simple thing to adjudicate
snakeyjake 3y ago
>instead, get a little creative and include things like segregation There is a persistent myth that Communist Russia was an egalitarian paradise. I believe that his is primarily due to propagandistic efforts to pull third world countries into their sphere of influence through token displays of friendship. During the Cold War, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union were treated just as bad as US minorities. Today the situation is even worse. The Ukraine war is being used as, among other things, an excuse to ethnically cleanse the Russian Federation of ethnic minorities. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/24/2-years-into-ukraine-war-russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-killed-in-battle-a84170 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/24/2-years-into-ukrai...
- _pi 3y ago
  > During the Cold War, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union were treated just as bad as US minorities. This part is simply not true. > Today the situation is even worse. This part is. The USSR was never institutionally racist. Russian chauvanism was still a thing in the USSR and that was relic of the Tsarist era that keeps on giving. The USSR's repressions were not a cut and dry wealth transfer between ethnicities unlike the US policies. At their worst in terms of American morality, institutionally targeted programs were to enforce political control and break nationalistic tendencies of ethnic groups. The vast majority of the repressions in the USSR were a result of the explosive growth of productive forces. It's very hard to make the case for the USSR that the benefits of those productive forces inherently benefitted Russians over everyone else. It's very easy to make the case in the US for white supremacy.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > The USSR was never institutionally racist. I think you are misusing “institutionally” and mean something more like “openly” or “explicitly”, because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism.
    - _pi 3y ago
      > because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism. Please expand on this.

_pi 3y ago

yeah the funny thing about these comments you have a bunch of people conflating a lot of stuff. For people who think the USSR was "more corrupt" they're often talking about a narrow conception of corruption that is defined by the US on technical terms. Or they're simply talking about the behavioral differences between rich vs poor countries. Boeing's quality issues are a great example because it's very obviously corruption, but not in the US technical sense. But the reality is that Boeing and the US government basically said yeah fuck it, do your own QA for the 737 Max and then after the fuckups turned around and said okay we won't charge you the full fine. And that would have just gone away if the 787 fuckups didn't happen. Now suddnely people look really bad giving Boeing sweetheart enforcement deals. Americans think corruption is a cop pocketing $ on the side of the highway, but it's not corruption when the cop confiscates $ on the side of the highway without trial, gives it to his police department, which pays out the confiscated funds as bonuses, new equipment, and other various frivolities. At least the Soviets spit in your face when and how they wanted to and were limited by physicality. Americans make a Rube Golberg machine where saliva of their oligarchs is collected throughout the day in massive quantities and piped out of the building where it happens to land on your face 80% of the time. Then they will tell you it's your fault for being in the way of the spit pipes. We cannot recognize corruption in the US because our corruption is mechanical, and we've precluded that mechanical things cannot be a form of corruption. USSR corruption was more visceral and obvious, that's pretty much it. This makes a lot more sense if you understand that all measures of "corruption" don't define corruption but use the perception of corruption. Another example. Ukraine is a corrupt country, no doubt about it. But the "anti-corruption" NGO complex in Ukraine essentially prevents certain laws from passing like sourcing laws which exist in all major developed countries. They see these laws as a form of corruption, which in and of themselves they're not. The other reality is that a lot of the anti-corruption NGO's are corrupt. The reason they argue against sourcing laws is because foreign entities stand to lose money if Ukraine has to buy a certain percentage of goods from Ukrainian factories. Foreign money buys NGO's easily there, so NGO's don't' want their funding to dry up. So everything is in stasis. But by Western standards none of the above is "corruption" because while the people making these deals can likely speak freely, by Western standards it's really easy to hide this corruption as coincidental and unrelated business decisions. In reality corruption itself is an industry because it's a way to make money and a tool to make money with. Corruption is not a really simple thing to adjudicate

snakeyjake 3y ago

>instead, get a little creative and include things like segregation There is a persistent myth that Communist Russia was an egalitarian paradise. I believe that his is primarily due to propagandistic efforts to pull third world countries into their sphere of influence through token displays of friendship. During the Cold War, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union were treated just as bad as US minorities. Today the situation is even worse. The Ukraine war is being used as, among other things, an excuse to ethnically cleanse the Russian Federation of ethnic minorities. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/24/2-years-into-ukraine-war-russias-ethnic-minorities-disproportionately-killed-in-battle-a84170 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/24/2-years-into-ukrai...

_pi 3y ago
> During the Cold War, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union were treated just as bad as US minorities. This part is simply not true. > Today the situation is even worse. This part is. The USSR was never institutionally racist. Russian chauvanism was still a thing in the USSR and that was relic of the Tsarist era that keeps on giving. The USSR's repressions were not a cut and dry wealth transfer between ethnicities unlike the US policies. At their worst in terms of American morality, institutionally targeted programs were to enforce political control and break nationalistic tendencies of ethnic groups. The vast majority of the repressions in the USSR were a result of the explosive growth of productive forces. It's very hard to make the case for the USSR that the benefits of those productive forces inherently benefitted Russians over everyone else. It's very easy to make the case in the US for white supremacy.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The USSR was never institutionally racist. I think you are misusing “institutionally” and mean something more like “openly” or “explicitly”, because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism.
  - _pi 3y ago
    > because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism. Please expand on this.