4 ms·

It's a well written article, but a lot of it appears to be based on a flawed interpretation of Yuen Yuen Ang's "China's Gilded Age". Ang's argument is that the

It's a well written article, but a lot of it appears to be based on a flawed interpretation of Yuen Yuen Ang's "China's Gilded Age". Ang's argument is that there are 4 types of corruption - Petty Theft (eg. policeman takes a bribe), Grand Theft (eg. a Governor embezzles from the state pension fund), Speed Money (eg. business pay bribes to speed up processing of a permit), and Access Money (eg. pay bribes to get access to the bureaucracy). Ang's thesis posits that China's comparative ability to somewhat temper Speed Money corruption was the primary driver for China's economic growth (eg. via SEZs and allowing foreign corporate structures to leverage Hong Kong). This is not meant to be treated as a positive though. Ang points out that China still has an active problem with Access Corruption due to the chumminess between regulators and politically connected firms which can lead to systemic risks (eg. Evergrande Crisis): "China provides a sharp illustration: by enriching capitalists who pay for privileges and rewarding politicians who serve capitalist interests, access money perversely stimulates transactions and investment, which translates into GDP growth (Ang 2019; Ang 2020, chapter 5). Yet this does not mean that access money is “good” for the economy—on the contrary, it distorts the allocation of resources, breeds systemic risks, and exacerbates inequality. The harm of access money only blows up in the event of a crisis: for example, America’s first great depression of 1839 (triggered by risky public financing and state-bank collusion) (Ang 2016, chapter 7; Wallis 2000, 2001), the 1997 East Asia financial crisis (Kang 2002), and the 2008 US financial crisis (Baker 2010; Igan, Mishra, and Tressel 2011; White 2011; Fisman and Golden 2017; Fligstein, Brundage, and Schultz, Forthcoming)" - "Unbundling Corruption: Revisiting Six Questions on Corruption", Yuen Yuen Ang 2019 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3481412 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3481412

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
082349872349872 2y ago
was the "spoils system" the XIX equivalent of "access money" in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
- alephnerd 2y ago
  In a way. While the "spoils system" did incentivize access, the principal-agent problem in this case would treat a voter as the principal and a legislator as the agent, as is a common issue with patronage systems in general. Access Money in Ang's typology hasn't been extended to patronage politics (yet).
- gradschoolfail 2y ago
  My current take is that culture is just path-dependent[0] interpretations of pretty much the same situation [1] [0]large mean time between scattering events, e.g. number and make-up of parties dont change very much since the last time the current system became barely-functional (we take on socio-technical debt before we have actual social tech??) as it is, 1789 was a bit too long ago for founder-mode, may halloween continue to console us! [1]more tk. it seems mostly everyone is tripartite. Tripartism, has its own en.wikipage! But more research on YYA’s taxonomy is required of me.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    If you take the interpretation —as I do— that 1984 was a bunch of fast-forward* around the message that Orwell wanted to write, then it also says: a/ everyone is tripartite b/ every now and then, mid and high circulate, often by appeal to the low c/ as soon as the old mid becomes the new high, they forget their promises which is completely in keeping with what he said in Animal Farm. (did he have a third book on the topic?) {a: PIE, b: Veblen, c: Machiavelli}? (I recently learned the chinese latin TLA "SPA" from a Zhihu question about the PRC equivalent of the low) * not completely fast forward: one sentence of the last narrative explains why the Man even bothers to keep the low down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40023059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40023059 EDIT: on Tripartism, yeah, a large part of our current "The Middle" party was previously known as Christian Democrats.
    - gradschoolfail 2y ago
      Re:cruelty/VPS/offering struggle Not sure if the sage is allowed cruelty(=irreversibilty?<= deluging), more sure that the sage is forbidden from enjoying it (or even signalling its enjoyment, cf Not-Hillel)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

082349872349872 2y ago

was the "spoils system" the XIX equivalent of "access money" in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

alephnerd 2y ago
In a way. While the "spoils system" did incentivize access, the principal-agent problem in this case would treat a voter as the principal and a legislator as the agent, as is a common issue with patronage systems in general. Access Money in Ang's typology hasn't been extended to patronage politics (yet).
gradschoolfail 2y ago
My current take is that culture is just path-dependent[0] interpretations of pretty much the same situation [1] [0]large mean time between scattering events, e.g. number and make-up of parties dont change very much since the last time the current system became barely-functional (we take on socio-technical debt before we have actual social tech??) as it is, 1789 was a bit too long ago for founder-mode, may halloween continue to console us! [1]more tk. it seems mostly everyone is tripartite. Tripartism, has its own en.wikipage! But more research on YYA’s taxonomy is required of me.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  If you take the interpretation —as I do— that 1984 was a bunch of fast-forward* around the message that Orwell wanted to write, then it also says: a/ everyone is tripartite b/ every now and then, mid and high circulate, often by appeal to the low c/ as soon as the old mid becomes the new high, they forget their promises which is completely in keeping with what he said in Animal Farm. (did he have a third book on the topic?) {a: PIE, b: Veblen, c: Machiavelli}? (I recently learned the chinese latin TLA "SPA" from a Zhihu question about the PRC equivalent of the low) * not completely fast forward: one sentence of the last narrative explains why the Man even bothers to keep the low down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40023059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40023059 EDIT: on Tripartism, yeah, a large part of our current "The Middle" party was previously known as Christian Democrats.
  - gradschoolfail 2y ago
    Re:cruelty/VPS/offering struggle Not sure if the sage is allowed cruelty(=irreversibilty?<= deluging), more sure that the sage is forbidden from enjoying it (or even signalling its enjoyment, cf Not-Hillel)