And in addition, some of the judges that decide if she is following the rules are betting on her to win.
And if there ever is the threat of consequences down the road, she just threatens to start swimming in a different league unless they make an exception for her.
So because the US is arguably not as corrupt as Turkey, Mexico and India, then it’s safe to assert that it’s not actually corrupt?
Sorry, I don’t see why Americans should let Turkey, Mexico or India set our standards for us about what qualifies as actual corruption.
According to the Corruption Perceptions Index at Transparency International, which uses a comparative scale from 0 (“very corrupt”) to 100 (“very clean”), the current high score of 88 is held by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, with other Scandinavian and Germanic countries along with Singapore scoring above 80. Canada, UK, Hong Kong, Japan, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Uruguay, France and Seychelles, among others, all score above 70. The UAE at 69 and Bhutan and Taiwan at 68 also score above the US, which ties with Chile at 67.
And I’m supposed to feel okay about the US’s appalling corruption levels compared to many other developed democracies, just because India’s score on that scale is 40, Turkey’s is 38, and Mexico’s is 31??? Of all the pathetic low-bar-setting excuses I’ve seen for American underperformance, that pretty much takes the cake.
Why in the world should it be considered in any way “narrow” or “parochial” or “melodramatic” or “sour grapes” for Americans to expect and demand that our government shouldn’t be drastically more corrupt than that of, say, Canada or Estonia or the UK? Since when are Americans supposed to put up with the kind of smug low-achiever complacency that says “if we’re not as broken as Turkey or Mexico then you’ve got no business griping about us”?
It’s like eating at a restaurant that’s a solid C from the health department.
You probably won’t get sick, but how comfortable are you going to be eating there?
IME, broadly, the intransigent, irrational defense of 'Murica (not singling anybody out here) usually originates in:
I’ve long said:
You think America is great ? To whatever degree it is, it got that way in spite of people like you, not because of people like you.
We have a rich American history of passionate defense of the utterly indefensible. Some or all of the above ‘reasons’ are pretty much always at play.
Linked from that page,
hence, it is not a measure of actual corruption, only of what it appears to certain people to be. And, quite frankly, including “businesspeople” in it is one of those fox/henhouse kind of things.
You can’t measure “corruption” in a country with a single number and presumably everyone in this thread knows it.
It’s probably superficially true that “you don’t see corruption every day in America” like you do in some of the most corrupt countries out there.
When you do your taxes (as a random middle class person), you are not expected to personally bribe any officials. You are likely going to pay a tax filing company like Intuit that itself lobbies our government to make it difficult/inconvenient enough for you to do your taxes yourself so that they can charge you to get your taxes done. But that doesn’t feel like there was any corruption, so win for truth, justice and the American way!
Especially when it comes to discussions about healthcare, guns, taxes, or social changes, comparisons to other countries that are getting better results in those categories is considered irrelevant.
But when it comes to corruption in our country, comparing ourselves to countries that are very obviously and malingly corrupt is considered to be a compelling argument.
I suppose that is human nature. We don’t want to do the work of living up to role models, but we can console ourselves that things are good as long as there is anyone left to look down on.
'Nother one of my pithy takes:
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: The fundamental belief that we’re better than every other nation, in every other way. But we’re not. We’re not, and no end of objective, quantitative information bears that out. It’s really much more about you – you whose deep-seated insecurities won’t allow you to see when there’s a better way. You revel in understanding worst practices – who does something worse than the US. And why not ? It allows you to be complacent and smug. But you won’t ever look at best practices – who’s doing something better than we are, and then trying to emulate it ?
#Murica !
I admire the way you think.
That’s not as pithy as it could be.
My pithy take is that American Exceptionalism means that we do mediocrity poorly.
By sheer chance, I’m currently reading American Theocracy, by Kevin Phillips. Despite the title, he ranges far afield in multiple areas. Chapter 2 contains this pertinent gem:
Across the channel, thirty out of thirty-seven senior executives of Total, the French oil giant, on trial in 2003-2004 were convicted of taking kickbacks and embezzlement. . . . The outraged judge who presided over the trial, Eva Joly, wrote a book entitled Is This the World We Want? about institutional corruption in the French Republic.
That inspired me to do a little digging.
“Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it is unlawful for a U.S. person or company to offer, pay, or promise to pay money or anything of value to any foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business.”
And guess what? Out of the 10 largest settlements that the US government has obtained under that law, several of them are from countries that your link holds out as paragons of virtue, with Sweden, The Netherlands, France, and Germany all holding at least one slot in the top 10.
Nonsense: neither I nor anybody else is trying to claim that higher-ranking countries on that list are “paragons of virtue”. The problem is that so many oversensitive Americans such as yourself get so butthurt about other Americans’ dissatisfaction with the fact that our country is significantly more corrupt than even those non-paragon fellow developed democracies.
If the only way you can feel good about the ethical standards of the US sociopolitical system is by comparing them to those of a few pathologically corrupt developing nations, then you’ve got some denial issues going on that all the Sweden-nitpicking in the world won’t fix.
It is striking how many of the classic philosophers support the idea of aristocracy. Yet very few rulers turn out to be enlightened or selfless. There are more Neros than Napoleons.
The strong have always ruled in some form. This may be a soldier, if the military has power. It may be a king. Yet how many kings or tsars or leaders were merely figureheads for wealthy families or hidden oligarchies? Democracy has certainly failed to deliver the wisest, cleanest or fairest rulers. The amount of money influencing the political process and decisions will continue to perpetuate policies that benefit elites. The US has been markedly successful in convincing blue collar types that a man like Trump is the best - nay, the only choice to fight for what they hold dear. Really?
The US is a work in progress. Far from perfect. But compared to other places, could be a lot worse. There is a degree of social and economic mobility. The legal system is flawed but in principle offers a degree of relief. The poorer families in the US may be disadvantaged. But things have improved.
Most have access to education, food, shelter, entertainment. These things may be too basic or inadequate, but these things are not omnipresent and should not be dismissed as insignificant. This is not to justify corruption or complacency. This is not to ignore important measures like health, access to care or quality of life. However, it is only fair to judge the US in the context of other places. They can do better. There is a chance they will do better.
American laws against corruption regarding business practices are relatively strong and real. There is probably some goodwill wanting to solve these problems. Reducing the influence of money in politics is often a reasonable starting point.
Is Singapore a better example? It pays enough to attract good politicians and civil servants. People obey the law. There are other trade-offs to prioritize these goals. Do Americans really want to make them? Hard to believe. So which examples are better.
I actually don’t know what tradeoffs at least regular people have available to them at this point given both the constitution and how the 2-party system works.
There are countries with stricter laws on political campaigns/campaign finance but we don’t have at least the strictest options available to us due to the 1st Amendment. The 2-party system in the present day effectively blocks any chance at meaningful reform.
And I definitely don’t think there’s a connection between how obedient regular Americans are and how much the playing field is tilted towards the richest and most powerful Americans.
Indeed, one thing that Republicans overlook in their quest for minority power is how difficult governance will be with a recalcitrant majority chafing under it.
The culture will go where it wants and legislation can’t stop it.
My point wasn’t that the US doesn’t have corruption, it’s that it doesn’t really have much corruption, and what we do have is more in the vein of getting extraordinary stuff done, not merely in getting anything done.
It’s like a whole other order of magnitude of corruption in places like Turkey and Mexico from what my grad school friends were saying. The US is firmly in the same “tier” of corruption as the other Western European nations, I’d say.
And I’m not saying it’s ok, just that the breathless pearl-clutching outrage from the OP is maybe a bit hyperbolic and misplaced.
I would buy that argument maybe about the OP’s use of the word “total” in the thread title: that is obviously hyperbolic, since not everything in the US is corrupt (and as you note, there are plenty of routine small-scale transactions where corruption isn’t present).
But if you think the sort of massive high-level malfeasance that the OP is complaining about is typical of “Western European nations”, I think you’re deluding yourself.
There is an interesting Economist article on crony capitalism. People usually become billionaires through enterprise, inheritance or buying public assets at low prices - or some combination. A high percentage of Russian and Chinese billionaires may have had a lot of help from the State since they were involved in certain industries. The Economist reckons only about ten percent of American billionaires used crony capitalism, rather than enterprise, for their wealth. This number is higher in many countries.
Since this is hard to measure, one supposes, The Economist assumes that five businesses are especially dependant on government largesse. It identifies these as banking, casinos, construction, defence and mining or extraction. It lists a lot of countries and gives an estimate about where fortunes were made. I could not vouch for its accuracy.
heh, you should read what went on in the 19th and 20th centuries the US robber barons make putins crew and most people today look like pikers …
But if you want an example of modern crony capitalism … look at the defense industry it used to be a general or admiral could count on getting a paid position on Boeing Northrup or one of the gun makers exec boards as a “liaison” to the defense dept and a lot of things were bought at high prices because everyone "played ball "
There’s a thin line there though, between cronyism and legitimate utility of having an ex-military person on staff.
For example, I know a guy who was a pilot (a Colonel, in fact) who had quite a bit of combat experience, a whole lot of flight hours, and a few medals and awards for his pilot stuff. And he was a test pilot of sorts, or at least commanded test pilots for a while.
When he retired, he stepped immediately into a fairly high management role at a big aircraft manufacturer in their advanced projects division testing and evaluation organization (as best as I can tell from deciphering the acronyms on his LinkedIn page). In his case, it makes a LOT of sense to hire him right out of the military for that job- his military experience is a huge asset to the job he’s doing.