2 ms·
> The article talks about corruption like it's just a clearly bad thing and people either do the bad thing or not, but it's a blurry line between engaging in co
by bsder 2y ago
> The article talks about corruption like it's just a clearly bad thing and people either do the bad thing or not, but it's a blurry line between engaging in corruption and the normal ways that organizations work.
Until you have "cops" every 10 miles on the freeway all demanding a bribe at gunpoint.
"Corruption" is sand in the gears of everything.
You can't go from point A to point B in a consistent amount of time or money. You can't order something and expect it to work without triple checking everything yourself. etc.
We have a great example of the pernicious effects of corruption: Russia couldn't roll over Ukraine because corruption completely hollowed out their military.
- esperent 2y agoI've lived for several years in parts of the world where bribing police is, unfortunately, normal. There's a couple of places around the country where it's known that the police do shakedowns (although they certainly don't point guns at you). I guess especially corrupt police work in those areas. But for the most part I am much less likely to get stopped for minor traffic violations than I would be back home, where bribing the police isn't a thing. I'm sure there are other countries where police shakedowns is a problem, but it's not just a simple equation of bribable police = shakedowns.
- foxglacier 2y agoYea I know it's generally bad most of the time. But I think the details of what is and isn't corruption are too complicated for ordinary people to decide based on morals because they'd have to understand all the implications. That's what the law is meant to be for, but does corruption magically stop being objectionable if it's made legal? I think we'd still call that corruption in obvious cases.