How would you go about diminishing corruption in third world countries?

[gonzomax]

Governments that are weak are actually run by local groups. That is the governance that locals deal with. Any money given to a national government winds up in the pockets of thieves and in Swiss bank accounts. When we give material aid, the national government wants the power to distribute it. That of course results in wholesale theft.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are run mostly by war lords and drug cartels. Giving them aid is wasteful and stupid.

[Gozu]

@athelas

This sounds like Romer’s Charter Cities idea. The problem is that I think cultures are much harder to change than he thinks, and laying on a new set of rules will just provoke resentment. And of course the left-wing anti-West brigade would have a field day.

Remember that corruption is not usually just a bunch of kleoptomaniacs running around. Cultures that foster corruption are usually those that value family ties more strongly than social ones, and you if you ask a kleptocrat, he is likely to justify his actions by saying that he’s acting out of loyalty to his family. Obviously this biological kin selection is a hard force to work against - just imagine trying to convince Westerners not to care more about their children than about random kids.

So, a culture needs to strenghten social ties to the point that they are more valued than family ties? Is this actually possible?

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Gozu

So, a culture needs to strenghten social ties to the point that they are more valued than family ties? Is this actually possible?

Of course it is. How many Westerners will go to war to avenge something done to their third cousin? How many Westerners even know who their third cousins are?

Attack the state, though, as in Pearl Harbor, and that’ll motivate retaliation by warfare even if one has no connection to any specific victim.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@ivan_astikov

This seems debatable. Isn’t the greatest amount of corruption likely to be where the most money is?

I think it’s the opposite–where there is the least money in the hands of the common people, there you have the most corruption. Bribery is rampant in places where government and military officials’ legitimate salaries are ridiculously low. Not long ago I heard a news story on NPR about some Iraqi or Afghani colonel who was living a fairly comfortable if corrupted life on his salary of approximately two dollars a week. Helloooooo!!! I wanted to shout. You’ve walked right through the elephant in the room here.

I think the answer is to distribute income more fairly.

[athelas]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

I think it’s the opposite–where there is the least money in the hands of the common people, there you have the most corruption. Bribery is rampant in places where government and military officials’ legitimate salaries are ridiculously low. Not long ago I heard a news story on NPR about some Iraqi or Afghani colonel who was living a fairly comfortable if corrupted life on his salary of approximately two dollars a week. Helloooooo!!! I wanted to shout. You’ve walked right through the elephant in the room here.

I think the answer is to distribute income more fairly.

Well, “income” doesn’t get conjured up out of thin air, but I agree that faux-egalitarian low government salaries can exacerbate a corruption-prone culture. Interestingly one of Lee Kwan Yew’s moves in Singapore was to dramatically increase the official pay of politicians - the Prime Minister gets paid several million dollars a year, and MPs are highly paid as well, commensurate with their ability to create or destroy value through legislation. This has both decreased the incentives for corruption and increased the quality of people who go into politics as opposed to the private sector - though LKY has admitted that this comes at the cost of a slightly less effective private-sector managerial class.

[MrDibble]

@Gozu

Richer countries seem to suffer less from corruption.

Pffft. This is sooo not the case. Corruption in the 3rd world is endemic, yes, but the kind of low-level bribery that’s rife pales in comparison to the kind of corruption you find in first world countries like America (with its industry lobbyists who can buy senators and the like, or its VP whose company profits from foreign wars he helped start) and Italy (Where the PM consorts with the Mafia, owns the TV and changes the laws to avoid prosecution). If third world politicians then demand favours from western resource companies etc, it is only because they are following the sterling example of the West.