Hello Friends

I was having a shower and was randomly thinking of stuff and reflecting on things I've seen. Then all of a sudden I remembered this video of Jacque Fresco.

I hope you watch it all, it is only 2 minutes. Anyway towards the end he talks about a random way of ending corruption, just randomly .. I don't think he himself, has thought it through thoroughly, but let me know if you think otherwise.

But then this got me thinking .. what viable ways are there of ending corruption ? Are there any at all ? Is being corrupt a part of our nature (through Evolution I mean) ? I've heard it said before that one of the factors of our brain growth was to out-smart the other members of the group, thus benefiting one's own genes more .. etc

I find this an interesting topic and I hope those that share the interest enlighten me a bit. I know very little, but I always love learning.

Apologies in advance if this topic is in the wrong section of the forum. I wasn't sure whether to post it here, or Politics.

Thank You.

Ciwan.

Hi, my first thoughts..

Literally ending corruption would be difficult I believe, for different reasons. Firstly because societies will always contain many subgroups, within subgroups, with competing interests. Plus there is always the ego-centric and opportunistic individual living within and among us.

That said, corruption can be reduced to acceptable levels by various means. Central to any succesful policy directed at reducing corruption would be decent pay. People without the means to properly support themselves and their families will be corrupt, I would.

Building trust, and more specifically "trustworthy institutions", is another important factor. Reliable institutions tend to be bureaucratic and inefficient, but the upside is less corruption which alleviate much of the downsides. The trust it radiates has countless positive effects, direct and indirect, for its citizens. Standardized ways of operations, control loops by people from yet other institutions, as well as transparancy all helps building reliable institutions.

Trust is important and it's a scarce commodity too. Someone once said that trust comes by foot, but leaves on horseback. Thus saying that it's easily destroyed and hard to build-up again. With less trust interactions between people become increasingly "expensive". One of the expressions of expensive interactions (on society level) would be corruption. With more corruption a society is less succesfull in building favorable social contructs (such as welfare systems, public transportation, decent functional army, public safety, trade regulations, environmental protection et cetera)

A lot more could be said about this I imagine.

ps: corruption - as a low-trust issue - is definitely a sociological subject

Cheers!

A decent salary and harsh penalties seem to be two of the key ingredients. Give people something to lose and they won't risk it. But they also need to believe they're going to get caught, and that if they do get caught, they'll get more than a slap on the wrists. That's where the stuff in mindhack's post comes in.

When it's corrupt all the way to the top, it becomes quite dangerous to take a hard line on the corruption of any aspect of government. Any high-profile arrest shines a light onto corruption as a whole. Best to just quietly remove them. When there is some sort of corruption crackdown, all to often, it's simply a way of removing political rivals.

Thanks Guys .. cool answers ! thank you.

@mindhack: How come an Army is a favourable social construct ?

@Joe(aka - I'm With Stupid): Are the presidents and majority of parliament members of top countries, e.g. USA, UK, Germany ... etc not corrupt ? Are they not puppets placed there by corporations ... etc ?

Thanks

How come an Army is a favourable social construct ?

In an ideal world, without external threats and unstable environment, an army would be superfluous. In the real world however, and you surely know this, an army is needed to protect a group's interests and possessions and to serve in times of great societal distress (e.g disasters).

An army should not be in power (unless under martial law), but instead be given orders from democratically elected politicians, which it executes. Material and supplies are always accounted for. A strict code of conduct must be upheld and its army personnel is professionally trained to obey and execute orders. Its operations are supervised by external parties (media/law) and bad behaviour/transgressions dealt with in public.

Not all armies are succesful societal constructs. When an army is there to suppress its own people for example (often in junta's, or dictatorships). Or when the army itself is corrupt (Russia), so that orders are not executed or material is missing, bad behaviour not repressed, mutiny and so on.

mindhack wrote:

How come an Army is a favourable social construct ?

In an ideal world, without external threats and unstable environment, an army would be superfluous. In the real world however, and you surely know this, an army is needed to protect a group's interests and possessions and to serve in times of great societal distress (e.g disasters).

Thanks MindHack.

I get the bit about disasters .. etc .. I was thinking maybe the Firemen can help with that. But about the protection of a group's interests and possessions ... does that not lead to conquests and wars ... etc. I don't mean to sound like a hippy .. I'm just trying to understand things.

For example the US and its army ... going to Libya to expand interests for the US. It had no interests there previously. The main reason for it going there was the Oil and natural resources (as far as I can see). This is why it isn't getting involved in Syria .. since Syria is quite poor in Oil and Gas.

What do you think .. ? Again .. apologies if I sound like a hippy, honestly I just want to understand.

A society is plural and it's interests often obscure. Armies on conquest can act in favour of society. For example the Roman empire was built around expansion and its import of slaves. It crumbled when it no longer could. As for Libya and US involvement, I'm no expert, but it's fact the US and the entire world are in strive competition for limited supply of oil. As the Romans needed slaves, we need oil. Our current society cannot function without oil so it is in everybody's favour to make sure enough flows in. If this is specifically the case for Libya I don't know, but as a principle it is true.

Besides conquests an army is also for defense. Look what happened to Tibet for example. What if those peaceful monks were instead raging fanatics with access to nuclear bombs? China would not have dared to annex it, I bet.

Thanks that did shed some light on the matter. But it doesn't sound fair to me .. do you think it is fair ?

I don't think it's fair, but sometimes necessary (given circumstances)

If you ask me it would be fair to try to make a transition towards a sustainable society which is self-sufficient, and with stable population, as quick as possible. I think then would be a time to have a meaningful discussion on fairness.

Now, as it seems, it is a dog-eat-dog world with social entities grown too large, with people too close-minded and locally oriented and short-term thinking. Fairness is not what I expect to find in such a world.

So we continue with things as they are ? is there nothing at all we could do ?

A lot is being done, but also a lot is being undone. 7 billion people all diffusely attached to whatever social constructs. All having different interests, working with and agaainst eachother. Just do the right thing yourself - even when nobody is looking - and help others close to you. That's all a person could do.

Well said MindHack. Thank You very much.

Glad to be heard

Sorry I'm back.

One more thing @MindHack. When we say "decent pay" .. how much do we mean ? What amount of money is "decent pay" ? How can we assess what decent pay ought to be ?

Thanks

That's a tough one.

Certainly it should be enough to support you and your (normal size) familiy. Other then that it is relative to the circumstances. In my country for example the police is paid ridiculously low wages, yet they are not corrupt. I suspect this is because there exist a lot of feed back loops (rules and control). Plus I suspect they are specifically selected for being able to obey orders and carry out rules.

I would advise to listen to what the people have to tell. If they are unhappy, address their grievances - communicate honestly and open (build trust). Such things. Though I think it's hard to fixate a certain number on "decent pay".

Tough indeed. Let's say I'm a guy with 3 children. I don't have any special degrees (or any good education) .. etc I can do just general labour.

Should I be paid more than some other bloke who is single, don't have any children ... but does the same job as me ?

No, people are paid for the job, not for how many children they have.

Still, if you have 3 kids and the job doesn't pay too well society should provide for some tax cuts or susidies. We have a lot of those in the netherlands. Poor people get cuts on their rent, tax, get free legal support et cetera. People who work, have a few kids and don't do anything extraordinary should be able to reach the end of the month with their money or something is wrong imo.

Cool, and what if the money from the general labour job does allow him/her to reach the end of the month, but it does not allow for toys for the kids, or a good winter coat ... etc

They'll live, but not comfortably.

that's a common problem recently. There is no money everywhere. You know, financial crisis going out of control. A lot of resentment about it, and understandbly so. However, I think we should not expect too much now, given the circumstances. So, no, no new toys for the kids