# Social Credit System...can you imagine this working in your country? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 4, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829 "2018-04-04T20:25:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/22 "2018-04-05T15:09:47Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Tons of countries are more corrupt than China. China really isn’t that corrupt on the global scale. What makes them special is that they are a very wealthy relatively stable country that is horribly corrupt. Generally speaking, wealth and stability correlate with less corruption, but China doesn’t hold to such things. They are ranked wrt [corruption perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) as 79 which is pretty bad , though Russia is 131 so there is that. Most of the countries lower ranked than China are definitely pretty poor. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/23 "2018-04-05T15:20:59Z")
> [@XT](#): > > They are ranked wrt [corruption perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) as 79 which is pretty bad , though Russia is 131 so there is that. Most of the countries lower ranked than China are definitely pretty poor. Your own link shows **China as much less corrupt than almost all its neighbors**. Apparently you, like me, are not running the Sultan-Theme ‘Break CODE etc’ malware. As an incentive to click the malware, it shows, for me Location: The Land of Smiles Using the v3.7.3 option, you have to click my profile to see my location … or wait for me to pay my SDMB dues. (I’d pay the dues, but since AFAIK there’s no refund of unused portion and I’m on the verge of being BANNED, it seems like a poor bargain.) If you’ve never heard of the “Land of Smiles” I’ll let you waste a Google click. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/24 "2018-04-05T17:21:15Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Your own link shows China as much less corrupt than almost all its neighbors. > [@](#): > > Apparently you, like me, are not running the Sultan-Theme ‘Break CODE etc’ malware. As an incentive to click the malware, it shows, for me > > ``` > Location: The Land of Smiles > > ``` > > Using the v3.7.3 option, you have to click my profile to see my location … or wait for me to pay my SDMB dues. (I’d pay the dues, but since AFAIK there’s no refund of unused portion and I’m on the verge of being BANNED, it seems like a poor bargain.) > > If you’ve never heard of the “Land of Smiles” I’ll let you waste a Google click. Nope, I didn’t see that but yes, I did a quick Google. So, yes…your country is at 101 and listed as worse than China. Sorry I didn’t make the connect. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/25 "2018-04-05T19:08:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I hope the CIA and/or the NSA can hack this system as soon as, or before, it goes live. > … One hopes that they heard of this before I did, and have perhaps already done so. ---
**Author:** ![WillReadmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@WillReadmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillReadmore)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/26 "2018-04-05T21:03:32Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > One hopes that they heard of this before I did, and have perhaps already done so. Bolton was a prime mover in the Cambridge Analytic/Facebook assault on our election through his major personal work as paid by his PAC and is supposed to become our National Security guy TODAY!! This whole direction seems ridiculously bad to me. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/27 "2018-04-05T21:24:26Z")
FWIW, the opinion of some of my spouse’s Mainland Chinese co-workers is that corruption in China is what prevents it from descending to a complete authoritarian dystopia. Essentially, the regime would \*like \*to be able to micro-manage everybody’s life, but low-level corruption makes it hard for them to do so efficiently, and high-level corruption stops them from doing much about low-level corruption. I thought this was an interesting point of view! As far as Social Credit goes … you have to consider who’s running it, and for whose benefit it’s being set up. Being able to rate businesses down for engaging in shady practices or ripping off customers, for instance, sounds nice, but since the organisation running it is the Chinese Government, that’s not necessarily what they will in practice use it for. “Your new CEO used to belong to Falun Gong - minus a hundred points” or “Two of your employees said on Weibo that we shouldn’t let Xi be leader for life - minus fifty points” are also perfectly possible rating choices. This goes double for the personal rating aspect. They’re starting off smallish by downrating people for things like running out on their debts, which most people will agree is not a good thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to stay like that. I don’t want to get all Libertarian on us, but this is markedly different from private enterprise rating/filtering applications like Facebook or Google Reviews in that, where private enterprise is doing the rating, the rating organisation itself can lose the trust of the population, and we can all walk out en masse. And, there are a lot of different competing organisations available for people to use as raters. “Nobody’s forced to be on Facebook” really is a good answer to the question “well, how is the way we do it in the West any different to Social Credit?” ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/28 "2018-04-07T18:11:35Z")
> [@XT](#): > > They are ranked wrt [corruption perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) as 79 which is pretty bad , though Russia is 131 so there is that. Most of the countries lower ranked than China are definitely pretty poor. China’s #79 rank puts it above the median, only slightly behind countries like Italy (#60) and way ahead of Iraq (#166) whose governmental system was designed from scratch by U.S. neocons. _ **I don’t dispute that U.S.A. has much less corruption than a country like Thailand** _, but I doubt the advantage is as clear-cut as many think. Thailand doesn’t have for-profit prisons which state governments are, in effect, under contractual obligation to fill (with, in at least one case, a U.S. judge bribed to increase occupancy of a for-profit juvenile jail). Note that the cited index scores _Perception_ of Corruption. In Thailand, corruption is a common topic of conversation, while many Americans remain willfully ignorant of corruptions in the U.S. I may finally follow through and start a “Ask me about rural Thailand” thread in MPSIMS with anecdotes about corruption being an early topic. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/29 "2018-04-07T18:27:45Z")
I wonder how a more distributed system might work, similar to faction ratings in MMORPGs. People can give you up-or-down scores, but they do it as part of a faction that they join, and you can see other folks’ ratings by factions and by the populations of those factions. So I might choose to join the American Liberals, 50 million strong, and verry slowly build a reputation there. The American Conservatives, 50 million strong, might automatically ding me-but only in their faction ratings. Or I might join the Doper Durpers, 100 strong, and get a higher (?) reputation in a much smaller faction. I would still get ratings from other factions, but my own ratings might not be as significant. I dunno–very vague thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/30 "2018-04-07T20:29:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > China’s #79 rank puts it above the median, only slightly behind countries like Italy (#60) and way ahead of Iraq (#166) whose governmental system was designed from scratch by U.S. neocons. > > _ **I don’t dispute that U.S.A. has much less corruption than a country like Thailand** _, but I doubt the advantage is as clear-cut as many think. Thailand doesn’t have for-profit prisons which state governments are, in effect, under contractual obligation to fill (with, in at least one case, a U.S. judge bribed to increase occupancy of a for-profit juvenile jail). Note that the cited index scores _Perception_ of Corruption. In Thailand, corruption is a common topic of conversation, while many Americans remain willfully ignorant of corruptions in the U.S. > > I may finally follow through and start a “Ask me about rural Thailand” thread in MPSIMS with anecdotes about corruption being an early topic. 🙂 So…you are saying that American’s are too stupid to know how corrupt we really are? 😛 Ironically, most Americans actually feel their country is much more corrupt that it actually is in reality because they simply don’t travel enough to see first hand the difference, and it’s also a topic of debate. Just for the record, that perception index is measured by “ranking countries “by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.”” by a group called Transparency International (TI). Perhaps the US is skewed upward by the stupidity of it’s citizens, but they supposedly balance that ignorance with expert opinion as well. ETA: Italy is considered a pretty corrupt nation, so the fact that China ranks 19 places above them is a good indication that they are pretty bad. Iraq, of course, is a totally dysfunctional system, so not sure the Chinese should take too much pride in being less corrupt than they are. As I said, for wealthy and technologically advanced countries China is one of the highest. Russia is higher, but not sure they are that wealthy, though they are technologically advanced so the Chinese can be proud they rank better than Russia at least. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/31 "2018-04-08T00:00:19Z")
[Sorry to continue on this off-topic veer, but I don’t want to leave the last exchange unanswered.] One point to note to make sure we’re not comparing apples and oranges is that “corruption” is often defined by international experts to depict business costs like bribery. In fact some “corruption” is neutral or even good for business. The for-profit prisons in the U.S. don’t affect businesses; and poor worker welfare may be a “plus”! > [@XT](#): > > So…you are saying that American’s are too stupid to know how corrupt we really are? 😛 I’m not sure what we’re really arguing about. We both acknowledge that there’s a strong negative correlation between prosperity and corruption: “Most of the countries lower ranked than China are definitely pretty poor.” [Disclaimer: I did not double-check these lists.] However, when I compare the corruption list with a list showing GDP-per-capita I see seven major countries with higher GDP-per than China, but worse corruption: Russia Panama Mexico Argentina Costa Rica Lebanon Kazakhstan and at least three others with higher GDP-per, but about the same corruption index: Kuwait Brazil Turkey Only a few minor countries (mostly in Africa) show lower GDP-per and lower corruption than China: Botswana Jordan Namibia Georgia Senegal Rwanda Doing the same evaluation for the U.S., we find only Qatar as higher GDP-per and higher corruption, while countries with lower GDP-per than the U.S. and lower corruption include Belgium Australia U.K. Germany Canada Netherlands Singapore Sweden New Zealand Finland I hope these comparisons lead to a more nuanced view than U.S.-Good / China-Bad. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/32 "2018-04-08T02:53:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > [Sorry to continue on this off-topic veer, but I don’t want to leave the last exchange unanswered.] > > One point to note to make sure we’re not comparing apples and oranges is that “corruption” is often defined by international experts to depict business costs like bribery. In fact some “corruption” is neutral or even good for business. The for-profit prisons in the U.S. don’t affect businesses; and poor worker welfare may be a “plus”! > > I’m not sure what we’re really arguing about. We both acknowledge that there’s a strong negative correlation between prosperity and corruption: “Most of the countries lower ranked than China are definitely pretty poor.” > > [Disclaimer: I did not double-check these lists.] However, when I compare the corruption list with a list showing GDP-per-capita I see seven major countries with higher GDP-per than China, but worse corruption: > Russia > Panama > Mexico > Argentina > Costa Rica > Lebanon > Kazakhstan > and at least three others with higher GDP-per, but about the same corruption index: > Kuwait > Brazil > Turkey > Only a few minor countries (mostly in Africa) show lower GDP-per and lower corruption than China: > Botswana > Jordan > Namibia > Georgia > Senegal > Rwanda > > Doing the same evaluation for the U.S., we find only Qatar as higher GDP-per and higher corruption, while countries with lower GDP-per than the U.S. and lower corruption include > Belgium > Australia > U.K. > Germany > Canada > Netherlands > Singapore > Sweden > New Zealand > Finland > > I hope these comparisons lead to a more nuanced view than U.S.-Good / China-Bad. Two things on this and then I’m just going to let this go, as you say it’s really not related to the OP. First, per capita GDP is kind of a silly metric to use. Take your first list (I also didn’t check, just going to base it on the assumption it’s right). Of those countries listed, none of them are in China’s league despite having roughly equivalent GDP per capita. It’s silly to compare Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Costa Rica or Lebanon, let alone Kazakhstan and try and make a case that they are roughly equivalent because of per capita GDP. China is the number two economic power wrt total GDP, and while Russia is still a military power they aren’t really in China’s league either from an economic or global impact perspective. I’m willing to entertain that Brazil and Turkey are at least arguably large powers to compare with China for the sake of the corruption debate but those others aren’t even close. I’m unsure what your point about the US having higher GDP per capita than your final list is supposed to show, but the point I was making is that if you think that Americans don’t talk about corruption in the US you are sadly misinformed. In the US, corruption within America is constantly talked about, though as with many things American it has a decided political tilt. Right wingers rail about corruption at the federal level (you have but to listen to Trump and his followers on this, as it’s pretty much in everything they discuss) and leftwingers talk about corporate corruption and politicians in the pockets of Big Business™. I’m fairly sure that part of the reason the US ranks so relatively high on the list is because if you use polling data you are going to get a hell of a lot of Americans and probably everyone else thinking the US is riddled with corruption. I’ll make a final point (ok, so it was 3 points not 2 :p) wrt corruption in China. We could go into all the aspects…personally, I think China should be ranked a hell of a lot higher…but let’s just look at one thing going on for the last few years. Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. So far, over a million members of the CCP have been prosecuted over the last decade or so for corruption. Over 100k in 2016 alone. Now, there are many theories as to what is really going on in China. Some subscribe to the view that the CCP is just riddled with corruption. Some subscribe to the view that a lot of this is basically part of Xi and his factions power grab. I think it’s a little of both. Either way, however, that alone shows a systemic corruption issue in China, something that goes from the lowest levels of their government (i.e. the CCP) to the highest levels. And that’s but scratching the surface of corruption in China. Just the Falun Gong stuff alone, even if we discount the whole executing prisoners for meditating and using their spare parts for profit thingy should put China high up on the list. Final final point (yeah, that’s 4…sigh)…I DO have a nuanced view of this ‘than U.S.-Good / China-Bad’. I’ve bothered to look into China from a number of different view points, and have changed my own (pretty ignorant and simplistic, admittedly) position on China over the years. I used to think that China was a pretty good place, that they had mainly put aside the communist roots and embraced capitalism, and that much of the bad press they get was just growing pains of an emergent economic superpower. But then I started to dig a bit deeper and found there IS more nuance in all of this than my rather simplistic view of China from before. While I don’t believe that the US is the font of all goodness and light in the world, I think I’m pretty safe in saying that the CCP IS BAD, and the US in a straight comparison is ‘good’ for certain definitions of that term. Personally, I think that this board has a dual standard and some serious blinders on when looking at China (or Russia for that matter, though this whole Trump thing is changing that). Anyway, enough drunk posting and streams of consciousness for the night (I had a 5th point, but mercifully it has vanished with this latest glass of tequila). I’ll probably regret hitting submit tomorrow. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/33 "2018-04-08T05:05:42Z")
_ **Please note again that I do NOT claim U.S. is as corrupt as China.** _ But I do not understand why you don’t acknowledge [from the easy-to-read graphic at your own link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index#/media/File:Corruption_Perception_index_2013.png) that China is one of the LEAST corrupt countries in all of Asia, and less corrupt than most of the countries in Africa or South America. Again, I don’t know what other claim you think I’m making that you need to argue against. > [@XT](#): > > First, per capita GDP is kind of a silly metric to use. Even a brief glance at the list shows that _ **per capita GDP has a very strong negative correlation with corruption** _. This is well-known and quite visible in the lists. I suppose I’ll run a linear regression for you if you need proof. > [@](#): > > It’s silly to compare Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Costa Rica or Lebanon, let alone Kazakhstan and try and make a case that they are roughly equivalent because of per capita GDP. China is the number two economic power wrt total GDP, and while Russia is still a military power they aren’t really in China’s league either from an economic or global impact perspective. I’m willing to entertain that Brazil and Turkey are at least arguably large powers to compare with China for the sake of the corruption debate but those others aren’t even close. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but are you implying that the more powerful country “should” have less corruption? This could show up in the linear regression but note that _while powerful China has less corruption than the smaller countries in its GDP per capita class; the powerful U.S.A. has higher corruption than the smaller countries in its class._ > [@](#): > > I’m fairly sure that part of the reason the US ranks so relatively high on the list is because if you use polling data you are going to get a hell of a lot of Americans and probably everyone else thinking the US is riddled with corruption. Again reading between the lines, you imply that the U.S. is NOT more corrupt than countries like Sweden, Germany, New Zealand, etc. I do NOT think you will find any agreement on that claim. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/34 "2018-04-10T02:39:03Z")
I was going to write something about “so long as forocoches exists…” but no: so long as Spanish culture is the kind of culture that gave rise to forocoches, a social credits system would work for the approximately .03 milliseconds it would take half the population to start trolling. The other half would be busy and need a bit longer to get with it. To give you a couple of references, forocoches are the guys who got the fellas linked below into Eurovision; they also tried to get a ship of Her British Majesty named after [Blas de Lezo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo) (the Brits caught on and deemed the entry unacceptable). [Don’t click while drinking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_PQtwa7c_M). We find the whole idea of asking for references from someone you don’t know absurd. We understand foreigners do it; those of us who do business with foreigners on an ongoing basis have had to come up with ways of dealing with that. But to us it’s completely ridiculous, because why would you trust the opinion of someone you don’t know? How do you know the guy telling you “oh, Joe is just such an asshole!” isn’t related to someone named Weinstein, or that the other person telling you “Joe is great, please tell me you’re not thinking of hiring him away from us” isn’t trolling you or trying to get rid of a coworker from hell? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829/35 "2018-04-10T14:00:00Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Again reading between the lines, you imply that the U.S. is NOT more corrupt than countries like Sweden, Germany, New Zealand, etc. I do NOT think you will find any agreement on that claim. No, I don’t think the US is less corrupt than Sweden, Germany or the others ahead of it on that list. So, no, it’s not a ‘claim’ I’m making. What I was saying is that, like in your home country, Americans constantly discuss corruption in the country. This seems contrary to your own view on the US that I quoted and was responding too. The difference, if there is one, is that corruption in the US usually breaks down along partisan lines, with both sides accusing the other (or institutions aligned with the other) of being corrupt. > [@](#): > > I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but are you implying that the more powerful country “should” have less corruption? This could show up in the linear regression but note that while powerful China has less corruption than the smaller countries in its GDP per capita class; the powerful U.S.A. has higher corruption than the smaller countries in its class No, not at all. I think comparing things like rule of law adherence is a better metric. I just don’t think per capita GDP is all that helpful a metric to compare corruption between nations. > [@](#): > > Even a brief glance at the list shows that per capita GDP has a very strong negative correlation with corruption. This is well-known and quite visible in the lists. I suppose I’ll run a linear regression for you if you need proof. Can you demonstrate that correlation equals causation? To me, it looks like a way to cherry pick to get the answer you want, but maybe I’m missing something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-credit-system-can-you-imagine-this-working-in-your-country/811829.md?page=1)