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My own frustration isn't corruption per se, a state cannot exist without it - at least not for long, but how cheap African corruption is in general. Others may
by vagrantJin 2mo ago
My own frustration isn't corruption per se, a state cannot exist without it - at least not for long, but how cheap African corruption is in general. Others may require considerable resources and billions perhaps. Not here. Just a few Land Rover discoverys for key officials and a scholarship for their kids in Europe is all that is required to sell a whole state. To say nothing of a sporting organization.
- fifilura 2mo agoWhat do you mean that "a state cannot exist without [corruption]"?
- doomboiardee 2mo agoAssuming they meant it as in it's unavoidable. We should still be frustrated by it, but I think I get what they were getting at.
- runarberg 2mo agoWhen you tie money to power (i.e. capitalism) people will use money to buy more power, and their power the gain more money. This is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. The system is working as intended. Luckily capitalism is not the only system available to us, and we can find a system which is not inherently corrupt.
- p91paul 2mo agoI think that's not capitalism, that's human nature. On every possible power structure you can think of, there will be people available to compromise on their moral principles if given the right incentives to do so. Under capitalism that's easily money, under other systems it might be something else. You can work to mitigate or detect and deter it (the amount of effort put on that is what makes the difference between limited and widespread corruption). You cannot hope to eliminate it entirely.
- fifilura 2mo agoFWIW when i replied the OP was phrased differently. Like corruption had its place in a healthy society. But fine to rephrase, clearer now.
- 10000truths 2mo agoIt's not cheap to them. You have to adjust for purchasing power - the US dollar goes a lot farther in most African countries than it does in the US. That Land Rover, if sold on the open market, could yield enough for a Nigerian live the rest of their life in Lagos without having to work. An equivalent-purchasing-power bribe in the US would be on the order of several million USD.
- ornornor 2mo agoThat’s not Africa only. When a corruption scandal comes up (bribing, lobbying), I’m often surprised at how cheap it was to buy the official. It’s often in the 10–50k eur region.
- jurgenburgen 2mo agoThe average person is remarkably bad with money. It should not surprise us that politicians are no exception.
- ornornor 2mo agoYou’d think that for risking jail time etc the price would be much higher.
- londons_explore 2mo agoI assume the politicians are kept in a very carefully managed microcosm so that they actually think they're making the best choices for their nation, because all other options have been hidden from them or misrepresented.
- bornfreddy 2mo agoYou know how it is: 10k here, 30k there... and there is a few M in a swiss bank account (or whatever the modern hiding place is).
- le-mark 2mo ago
- librasteve 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- queenkjuul 2mo agoIIRC a British MP was caught on camera accepting like $5k bribe. Imagine most US governors and congresspeople would need any more that that either.