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Corruption

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Mandelbaum says that societies rooted in corruption exist because their inhabitants can’t move past the idea that private, familial and friendly allegiances are more important than one’s allegiance to the impersonal concepts of law and order. I heard this explanation before and I don’t buy it.

In the former USSR, corruption is insanely wide-spread. And familial, etc allegiances are non-existent since the era of stalinism when people learned to hate nobody more than their family members and close friends. My people aren’t corrupt because they want to do something nice for friends and relatives. They’ll screw over friends and relatives with great gusto before they screw over anybody else.

And what about India? India is very corrupt but at the same time Indians make the most law-abiding, honest immigrants anybody has known. It should be the other way round if Mandelbaum’s theory held because immigration brings out the need to stick close to one’s own but it doesn’t work this way either for Indians or my people.

16 responses to “Corruption”

  1. Vic Crain Avatar
    Vic Crain

    Corruption in the US doesn’t necessarily fit this theory either.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Yes, it’s too simplistic and reductive.

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  2. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    Corruption under this definition doesn’t depend on niceness, it’s about who can be relied to do things for you. Your family could be nasty and backstabby as all get out, but in getting the business of life done, you could rely on them more than the government. Perhaps you could substitute “the party” for those personal allegiances in the former USSR and have a true statement? Especially since you’ve said current power tracks with people who used to be high in the party?

    As for honest immigrants coming from corrupt societies to less corrupt societies, the process of immigration does a lot to weaken private, familial and friendly allegiances. I love my uncle for example, but when most real life situations come up, he cannot help me simply because he is over 10,000 miles away. (It feels weird typing this sentence because it means my grandfather is gone.) Also you could say that immigration could filter for atypical members of those home societies. Obviously not every Indian is a highly educated person who tests well.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “Your family could be nasty and backstabby as all get out, but in getting the business of life done, you could rely on them more than the government. ”

      • NOT in my country.

      “Perhaps you could substitute “the party” for those personal allegiances in the former USSR and have a true statement”

      • The last generation that had a sentimental allegiance to the party was that of my grandparents.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      The main difference is that I can’t imagine an Indian mother showing up at my office to tell me that if I give her son a good grade, I can expect a good gift, wink wink. While with Latin Americans and Ukrainians I did have such an experience (not in the same form precisely but the meaning was always clear.)

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      1. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        “The main difference is that I can’t imagine an Indian mother showing up at my office to tell me that if I give her son a good grade”

        Traditionally, in India, the teacher has been given the status of almost a god. So, if your child fucks up his grades, you’ll 100% blame your kid and not the teacher.

        Also, there’s something else going on. In most nations outside of the US there seems to be a lot of deference given to authority and experts. I see European TV shows (Borgen, for example) and marvel at dialogue like ‘Here is Niki, an expert, she’ll inform us about this situation’.

        That shit never flies in america. Fuck the experts. My opinion’s as valid as yours. Which is why I call my doctor stupid and uninformed because he doesn’t know that eating organic kale will cure cancer.

        ‘The secret the medical community doesn’t want you to know!’

        Another example. CNN holding online polls leading up to the Iraq war.

        ‘Do you think Saddam has hidden weapons of mass destruction in underground bunkers?’

        Yes
        No

        ‘Is Bin Laden hiding in Afghanistan?’
        Yes
        No

        Haha. And then having discussions about it. On the one hand you have CIA intelligence, and then you have Bob ManOnTheStreet giving his views. Gotta hear both sides!

        Also, Teach The Controversy (as relating to Evolution and Creationism), because well, it’s scientists on one side and millions of people on the other side. Clearly, the matter’s not settled!

        This distrust is both healthy and unhealthy. Tyranny of experts is a real thing. Having the requisite degree just insulates people from any consequences of their awful advice and recommendations. We see that in government a lot. Whereas here, there seems to be so much crossover in careers that you almost never end up in the field which you majored in college. It’s more rigid in other places, which leads to fucked up bureaucracies, in my opinion.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “That shit never flies in america. Fuck the experts. My opinion’s as valid as yours. Which is why I call my doctor stupid and uninformed because he doesn’t know that eating organic kale will cure cancer.”

          • So true! It took me a while to get used to this truly strange habit. I agree that it is healthy to believe that any axiom can and should be questioned but that shouldn’t turn into dumb denial of actual existing knowledge. I wish people realized that there is nothing shameful in saying every once in a while, “I don’t know much about thi, so I’m not ready to express an opinion.”

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      2. The Dark Avenger Avatar
        The Dark Avenger

        <

        blockquote>ROM: So, how do you get to be an FCA liquidator anyway?

        BRUNT: Hard work, bribes, sucking up to the boss. Just like any other job.

        <

        blockquote>

        In China, it’s called the back door. I was once offered 5,000 USD by my granduncle, who was a Catholic priest, BTW, to marry a Chinese girl so she could get a green card to stay here. I turned it down on the grounds that she might find she likes me, and then I’m stuck. I love Chinese women, but I never want to marry one.

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        1. Stringer Bell Avatar
          Stringer Bell

          In the context of this conversation, it would be better if you turned it down on the grounds that it is a felony, rather than your weird fantasies about Chinese women.

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          1. The Dark Avenger Avatar
            The Dark Avenger

            I come from Chinese on my mother’s side. I have no fantasies, but the knowledge of the harsh reality of what they can be like.

            Liked by 1 person

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              I also always knew I’d never marry a Russian speaker.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    I think most descriptions/definitions of corruption are kind of lacking.

    Corruption in various forms seems to be a human societal universal, but the forms it takes the results it produces are of course very different.

    The idea of putting family (including extended family and/or clan or tribe or whatever) first is one type of origin for some types of corruption but there are lots of situations that cannot be explained in that way.

    On the USSR: What many who didn’t experience life behind the Iron Curtain first hand (even in an extremely limited form for an extremely limited time*) don’t understand is the atomizing and alienating power of post WWII European communism.

    This worked to different degrees in different places (and seems to have been especially bad in the USSR) but it was the furthest thing from a collectivist system possible – it turned all human relationships into a kind of low grade eternal war of every person against every other person. Alliances were possible but tended to be short lived and no trust was ever involved.

    In places like Poland and Hungary that worked very hard to escape the communist system the results weren’t as bleak as you describe for the USSR but there were elements of it and they’re still slowing working themselves out of those societies (not completely that’ll never happen).

    *like me, I was just there for a couple of months but the every-person-for-themselves aspect was completely obvious from the very beginning

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “This worked to different degrees in different places (and seems to have been especially bad in the USSR) but it was the furthest thing from a collectivist system possible – it turned all human relationships into a kind of low grade eternal war of every person against every other person. Alliances were possible but tended to be short lived and no trust was ever involved.”

      • Absolutely. It’s so hard to explain to people that in our countries no place is less hospitable and kind than one’s own family. Both N and I feel nausea whenever we hear the word “family.” This is a very tragic consequence of stalinism when family members were put in the situations where they had to suspect each other and rat each other out. And then there was the general powerlessness that people too out on those who depended on them.

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  4. J. Otto Pohl Avatar
    J. Otto Pohl

    Not exactly sure where to put this. But, this article from Bild notes that Moscow now admits that Snowden is a Russian agent.

    http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/edward-snowden/von-russen-als-spion-angeworben-46601344.bild.html

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I’m not into Schindler but his argument is unimpeachable.

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      1. J. Otto Pohl Avatar
        J. Otto Pohl

        Here is an English language article on the same subject.

        https://20committee.com/2016/07/02/the-kremlin-admits-snowden-is-a-russian-agent/

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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