4 ms·

Your response just proves his point. All of that paperwork, all of those contracts- that assumes you can trust the government to fairly enforce the law. In a

by tw04 7mo ago

Your response just proves his point. All of that paperwork, all of those contracts- that assumes you can trust the government to fairly enforce the law. In a society where corruption rules, you have no reason to spend time and money on any of that because you know you’re one bribe away from it all being kindling for your next bonfire. So yes, in areas with high corruption they don’t bother. They either just set aside some cash to pay off whatever official they need to if things go sideways, or they hire the local judge’s son to an empty position of power so that they can win anything that goes to “court”. That’s not a sign of high trust, that’s an acknowledgment there’s no point in bothering.

ecshafer 7mo ago
Lawyers in the west are a high status career, because we trust the rule of law. In China, its considered a joke career. What is the point of being a lawyer, when relative position, influence and power within the CCP is the lone factor in winning a case? Big companies all end up with shadow positions that are there just to pay money out to CCP honchos and their kids. Board positions and executive positions go to the CCP.
- Al-Khwarizmi 7mo ago
  That's nonsense. No matter how corrupt the CCP is, it cannot have a stake in all court cases in China. Maybe politically sensitive trials are a farce (arguably that's the case in much of the West too, but that's a different story) but that doesn't make the profession as a whole a joke.
  - PaulHoule 7mo ago
    A lot of what I've seen is that boring small civil and criminal cases (shoplifting) aren't that different in China than they are here.
  - jordanb 7mo ago
    The central government in Bejing doesn't care even a little bit about some property dispute in Henan but there's a local apparatchik who cares or who could be made to care with the right consideration.
  - ecshafer 7mo ago
    This is from my Chinese wife, basically by "joke" I mean its not the top students who are going into it. You don't become rich becoming a lawyer. The top students in Schools join government, become Engineers, do Business, etc.
- ModernMech 7mo ago
  And that's exactly what's happening here too, starting with the high-powered law firms who settled with Trump when he sued them instead of fighting. Overnight they ruined their reputation, because who is going to trust them when they folded so easily to government pressure? Moreover, as Trump's will becomes law, literally everything they went to school for becomes moot. All their experience about intellectual property or contract law or whatever is worthless when the law is actually whatever the guy in charge wants on any given day.
- AlecSchueler 7mo ago
  > In China, its considered a joke career. Is there a source for this or is more of a vibes thing?
  - ecshafer 7mo ago
    source is my wife who spent the first 25 years of her life in China. So I guess vibes? But she was/is pretty academically rigorous, so I believe her. So I would caveat it as if you are a really good strong student in China, it would seem that you are much more likely to go into Engineering, Business, or Join the CCP. Its not an A student type of career, more of a B or C student.
  - jjcc 7mo ago
    It's widely believed in Western society due to the language barrier to access Chinese social media. But it's not true , or only half true 30 years ago. I personally know 3 or 4 of my alumina abandoned their expertise of Optical Engineering to pursue Lawyer career 20 years ago and made big money. Another example is one of celebrity law professor (not lawyer though) who recently got involved in a controversy because of Epstein file. He shut down his “weibo" (a Chinese Twitter ) account. He also made tons of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Xiang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Xiang China moves very fast compare to the western society. Something true today might not be true 3 years later. Let alone half-truth 30 years ago.
    - AlecSchueler 7mo ago
      > It's widely believed in Western society due to the language barrier to access Chinese social media. > But it's not true Is it even widely believed in the west? I'm European and my idea of China is that it's the home of Confucianism and legalism and that bureaucracy, the state and the law are all taken seriously there.
- jordanb 7mo ago
  I feel like that's breaking down in the west. I've seen more and more news articles describing someone as a "well-connected lawyer." The idea that the most important things that a lawyer possesses is connections to people in power is becoming normalized. When I was young I remember people describing Alan Dershowitz as "the greatest legal mind in America." The idea was that he got his clients what they wanted through fiendishly good logic and argument. Of course we now know that he just knew who to send poorly-written emails to.
  - mothballed 7mo ago
    I'm of the opinion that most legal judgements and arguments (especially at the highest levels like SCOTUS or circuit courts) are just post-facto rationalization of the outcome they want. Any superior logic and argument is just a reflection that such minds tend to be more cunning at access the inner workings of power if they weren't already born there.
    - jordanb 7mo ago
      Mid-century I think judges were more committed to "fair and honest application of the law." This actually led conservatives to rage against judges who would "become liberal" on the bench. The quintessential example of this was Chief Justice Earl Warren (appointed by Dwight Eisenhower) but there were may other cases like Justice Souter (appointed by George HW Bush). So conservative groups started developing lists of "ideologically reliable" judges who the Republicans were supposed to appoint. Reagan and HW Bush would negotiate with these groups that they would appoint a judge from the list followed by a more "normal" judge, splitting their appointees between hardliners and institutional jurists. Clearance Thomas was one of HW Bush's "hardliner" appointments opposite Souter. In the Clinton era, Thomas was frustrated at the pay SC justices received and threatened to resign to make his fortune in private practice. To prevent this conservative activists started showing him with gifts. His main benefactor was mega-landlord Harlan Crow.[1] This more than anything started the eara of "justice for pay" in America, where the purpose of getting on the bench was to be ideologically reliable, partisan, and to make a fortune off of the people coming before the bench. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-com...
- AngryData 7mo ago
  I certainly do not believe the Rule of Law matters at all in the US, even if we ignore the current administration. US courts have been corrupt for many decades, if not longer, and the only thing that matters to US cops and courts is extorting civilians for money. People with money to spend on lawyers get off easy every time, people without money for lawyers get fucked every time.
dzink 7mo ago
In places where you can’t trust courts, you see organized crime fill the gap - goons start enforcing rules for the bad guys and there are no individual good guys big enough to stop an army of well paid goons. With tech enabling every kind of surveillance in the US, that could be a very dangerous combination (bad guys get privacy, while normal people can be ripped out of their homes).
pohl 7mo ago
> contracts Are you assuming that the foundation for those, Rule of Law, is alive & healthy in an autocracy?
graemep 7mo ago
In societies where the government is corrupt, or even where the courts are slow and expensive, people then trust in the individuals becomes more important. Being able to rely on being able to enforce contracts means you need less trust in people you do business with.
einpoklum 7mo ago
If a person or an organization can "trust the government", that means they don't have to trust their business partners that much, and don't even have to bother with a lot of contract language, since the government will force the other party to general legal norms and to act in good faith. If the government cannot be trusted, or rather, can be trusted to be biased and corrupt, then - a person or an organization needs a lot of trust in their partner, and writing contracts is, like you say, not very interesting. But actually, I would say it's the middle ground, where trust is partial, is where you see long and detailed contracts with provisions and indemnification clauses and long definitions and long lists of corner cases etc.

by tw04 7mo ago

ecshafer 7mo ago

Lawyers in the west are a high status career, because we trust the rule of law. In China, its considered a joke career. What is the point of being a lawyer, when relative position, influence and power within the CCP is the lone factor in winning a case? Big companies all end up with shadow positions that are there just to pay money out to CCP honchos and their kids. Board positions and executive positions go to the CCP.

Al-Khwarizmi 7mo ago
That's nonsense. No matter how corrupt the CCP is, it cannot have a stake in all court cases in China. Maybe politically sensitive trials are a farce (arguably that's the case in much of the West too, but that's a different story) but that doesn't make the profession as a whole a joke.
- PaulHoule 7mo ago
  A lot of what I've seen is that boring small civil and criminal cases (shoplifting) aren't that different in China than they are here.
- jordanb 7mo ago
  The central government in Bejing doesn't care even a little bit about some property dispute in Henan but there's a local apparatchik who cares or who could be made to care with the right consideration.
- ecshafer 7mo ago
  This is from my Chinese wife, basically by "joke" I mean its not the top students who are going into it. You don't become rich becoming a lawyer. The top students in Schools join government, become Engineers, do Business, etc.
ModernMech 7mo ago
And that's exactly what's happening here too, starting with the high-powered law firms who settled with Trump when he sued them instead of fighting. Overnight they ruined their reputation, because who is going to trust them when they folded so easily to government pressure? Moreover, as Trump's will becomes law, literally everything they went to school for becomes moot. All their experience about intellectual property or contract law or whatever is worthless when the law is actually whatever the guy in charge wants on any given day.
AlecSchueler 7mo ago
> In China, its considered a joke career. Is there a source for this or is more of a vibes thing?
- ecshafer 7mo ago
  source is my wife who spent the first 25 years of her life in China. So I guess vibes? But she was/is pretty academically rigorous, so I believe her. So I would caveat it as if you are a really good strong student in China, it would seem that you are much more likely to go into Engineering, Business, or Join the CCP. Its not an A student type of career, more of a B or C student.
- jjcc 7mo ago
  It's widely believed in Western society due to the language barrier to access Chinese social media. But it's not true , or only half true 30 years ago. I personally know 3 or 4 of my alumina abandoned their expertise of Optical Engineering to pursue Lawyer career 20 years ago and made big money. Another example is one of celebrity law professor (not lawyer though) who recently got involved in a controversy because of Epstein file. He shut down his “weibo" (a Chinese Twitter ) account. He also made tons of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Xiang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Xiang China moves very fast compare to the western society. Something true today might not be true 3 years later. Let alone half-truth 30 years ago.
  - AlecSchueler 7mo ago
    > It's widely believed in Western society due to the language barrier to access Chinese social media. > But it's not true Is it even widely believed in the west? I'm European and my idea of China is that it's the home of Confucianism and legalism and that bureaucracy, the state and the law are all taken seriously there.
jordanb 7mo ago
I feel like that's breaking down in the west. I've seen more and more news articles describing someone as a "well-connected lawyer." The idea that the most important things that a lawyer possesses is connections to people in power is becoming normalized. When I was young I remember people describing Alan Dershowitz as "the greatest legal mind in America." The idea was that he got his clients what they wanted through fiendishly good logic and argument. Of course we now know that he just knew who to send poorly-written emails to.
- mothballed 7mo ago
  I'm of the opinion that most legal judgements and arguments (especially at the highest levels like SCOTUS or circuit courts) are just post-facto rationalization of the outcome they want. Any superior logic and argument is just a reflection that such minds tend to be more cunning at access the inner workings of power if they weren't already born there.
  - jordanb 7mo ago
    Mid-century I think judges were more committed to "fair and honest application of the law." This actually led conservatives to rage against judges who would "become liberal" on the bench. The quintessential example of this was Chief Justice Earl Warren (appointed by Dwight Eisenhower) but there were may other cases like Justice Souter (appointed by George HW Bush). So conservative groups started developing lists of "ideologically reliable" judges who the Republicans were supposed to appoint. Reagan and HW Bush would negotiate with these groups that they would appoint a judge from the list followed by a more "normal" judge, splitting their appointees between hardliners and institutional jurists. Clearance Thomas was one of HW Bush's "hardliner" appointments opposite Souter. In the Clinton era, Thomas was frustrated at the pay SC justices received and threatened to resign to make his fortune in private practice. To prevent this conservative activists started showing him with gifts. His main benefactor was mega-landlord Harlan Crow.[1] This more than anything started the eara of "justice for pay" in America, where the purpose of getting on the bench was to be ideologically reliable, partisan, and to make a fortune off of the people coming before the bench. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-com...
AngryData 7mo ago
I certainly do not believe the Rule of Law matters at all in the US, even if we ignore the current administration. US courts have been corrupt for many decades, if not longer, and the only thing that matters to US cops and courts is extorting civilians for money. People with money to spend on lawyers get off easy every time, people without money for lawyers get fucked every time.

dzink 7mo ago

In places where you can’t trust courts, you see organized crime fill the gap - goons start enforcing rules for the bad guys and there are no individual good guys big enough to stop an army of well paid goons. With tech enabling every kind of surveillance in the US, that could be a very dangerous combination (bad guys get privacy, while normal people can be ripped out of their homes).

pohl 7mo ago

> contracts Are you assuming that the foundation for those, Rule of Law, is alive & healthy in an autocracy?

graemep 7mo ago

In societies where the government is corrupt, or even where the courts are slow and expensive, people then trust in the individuals becomes more important. Being able to rely on being able to enforce contracts means you need less trust in people you do business with.

einpoklum 7mo ago

If a person or an organization can "trust the government", that means they don't have to trust their business partners that much, and don't even have to bother with a lot of contract language, since the government will force the other party to general legal norms and to act in good faith. If the government cannot be trusted, or rather, can be trusted to be biased and corrupt, then - a person or an organization needs a lot of trust in their partner, and writing contracts is, like you say, not very interesting. But actually, I would say it's the middle ground, where trust is partial, is where you see long and detailed contracts with provisions and indemnification clauses and long definitions and long lists of corner cases etc.