There are some great movies that deal with this: Wall Street, The Firm, The Big Short, Suicide Kings, Michael Clayton, among others.
One can even consider the never ending Ethics classes in college an ironic form of corruption that never teaches anything we don't already know by secondary school, but used to pad credit numbers and tuition revenue.
"How can a group hold a worldview so at odds with the wider culture and
not appear to be greatly conflicted by it? The answer may lie in the distinction
between particularism and universalism. An individual develops social identities
specific to the social domains, groups and roles – and accompanying subcultures
– that he or she occupies (e.g. manager, mother, parishioner, sports fan).
[...]
In the case of corruption, this myopia means that an otherwise ethically-minded
individual may forsake universalistic or dominant norms about ethical behavior
in favor of particularistic behaviors that favor his or her group at the expense of outsiders.
[...]
This tendency to always put the ingroup above all others clearly paves
the way for collective corruption."
CS Lewis has a speech about the ingroups and corruption. His thesis is that the mere desire to be "in" is the greatest driver of immoral behavior:
"To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”"
> "Half of the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; But the harm does not interest them."
Also Lord Acton - “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
The author cites Arendt a fair bit, whose claim to fame was that entirely ordinary people could become voluntary instruments of atrocity.
I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to dispose them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup. Once we believe that the members of one's own family, or company, or country, carry more moral value than others, we're doomed to a descent limited only by our ability to make these world-worsening trades.
When I was a child, my dad would sometimes engage in small acts of corruption to please me or my brother. Taking somebody else's spot, telling white lies to get more than his share of a rationed good, that sort of thing. It never sat right with me. "Family first" has a very ominous ring to me.
also "Make America Great Again" states that America is not currently great, which given its geo-political and economic position is just dishonest. Combined with "America First" you get an entirely clean canvas to be incredibly radical while cosplaying conservative.
The brain actually has specific neurological system that compartmentalise reasoning contexts in different social contexts, so we operate according to different sets of assumptions and rules of behaviour and reasoning in different kinds of situations.
The situation in which people exchange favors within their mutually beneficial personal networks seems to be the basic and typical way things function. It’s actually remarkable that we are able to resist this tendency and normalize fair and impartial institutions.
The US supreme court allowed thank you gifts for politicians to not be considered bribes somehow in a 2024 ruling, I think that alone might break the US.
The US Supreme Court is the very worst a supreme court could be. They've been thoroughly co-opted and will only start to see the light when it is their asses that are on the line.
Corruption is not a moral failure; it is a system architecture failure.
The normalization of deviance begins the moment constraints are treated as runtime guidelines rather than compile-time axioms. If an architecture cannot physically reject an invalid state, it is designed to collapse.
Corruption is defined as deviation from universalism. Shouldn't orgs at least pretend to care about productivity or is that the ultimate sin for a universalist? Or is the ultimate sin not pretending that universalism is productive?
> Fear is induced by coercion, the threat of negative consequences such as
ostracism and demotion. To be sure, blatant coercion facilitates the denial of
responsibility and thereby compliance with corrupt directives. Such coercion,
however, leaves less room for (perceived) volition, a key precondition for the
dissonance reduction process discussed earlier. Newcomers subject to blatant
coercion have a sufficient justification for their obedience – to avoid the threat –
and thus do not need to realign their attitudes to accommodate the otherwise dissonant behavior. Indeed, blatant coercion may provoke resentment and reactance
against the source of coercion and the targeted behavior (e.g. Nail, Van Leeuwen
& Powell, 1996). The upshot is a greater likelihood of grudging compliance,
whistle-blowing and voluntary turnover (and thus, risk of exposure). Further,
coercion may affect behavior only as long as the pressure is applied. For these
reasons, blatant coercion tends to be an ineffective means of sustaining corruption.
Astute. When the average person is asked to imagine how corrupt leaders operate, I think they tend to overemphasize the effectiveness of simple violence. To foster a corruption that will last, you have to mold the circumstances so that corruption is the only option that makes sense.
It's Gwern! He's like a combine harvester for data in all forms, digesting it and putting stuff out there that is usually bullet proof and extremely enlightening. I've yet to see him put out something that didn't meet that standard. Well worth your time, also on other subjects.
You need only look at the bureaucracies in countries which rank high on the corruption index. Most join to just earn a livelihood but are soon "socialized into corruption".
Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the punitive damages multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted.
Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.
The references section has lots of links for further study of which Robert Klitgaard's Controlling Corruption is a classic with case studies.
One thing i would like to know more of is how Technology either reduces or exacerbates corruption.
With corruption, one needs to look at the overall system i.e. involving Society/Individual/Economics/Politics/Organizations/Processes/Technologies/etc. rather than narrow silos.
On the whole, i feel technology has been a corruption mitigater since it reduces the human factor (i.e. the motivation/cause) from the process chain. This has been validated in my own personal experience.
On the flip side, when used by people-in-control it concentrates power in the hands of the few and its non-linear disproportionate effects can exacerbate the problem tremendously eg. various Internet based scams.
One can even consider the never ending Ethics classes in college an ironic form of corruption that never teaches anything we don't already know by secondary school, but used to pad credit numbers and tuition revenue.
"How can a group hold a worldview so at odds with the wider culture and not appear to be greatly conflicted by it? The answer may lie in the distinction between particularism and universalism. An individual develops social identities specific to the social domains, groups and roles – and accompanying subcultures – that he or she occupies (e.g. manager, mother, parishioner, sports fan). [...]
In the case of corruption, this myopia means that an otherwise ethically-minded individual may forsake universalistic or dominant norms about ethical behavior in favor of particularistic behaviors that favor his or her group at the expense of outsiders. [...]
This tendency to always put the ingroup above all others clearly paves the way for collective corruption."
"To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”"
https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
-T.S. Eliot
I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to dispose them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup. Once we believe that the members of one's own family, or company, or country, carry more moral value than others, we're doomed to a descent limited only by our ability to make these world-worsening trades.
When I was a child, my dad would sometimes engage in small acts of corruption to please me or my brother. Taking somebody else's spot, telling white lies to get more than his share of a rationed good, that sort of thing. It never sat right with me. "Family first" has a very ominous ring to me.
The normalization of deviance begins the moment constraints are treated as runtime guidelines rather than compile-time axioms. If an architecture cannot physically reject an invalid state, it is designed to collapse.
For example if the organization is self-financing it breeds corruption.
If an entity mediates between buyers and sellers it can't be financed by sellers.
It should be fairly easy to compose that list by observing corrupt and underperforming setups that are already entrenched.
Astute. When the average person is asked to imagine how corrupt leaders operate, I think they tend to overemphasize the effectiveness of simple violence. To foster a corruption that will last, you have to mold the circumstances so that corruption is the only option that makes sense.
You need only look at the bureaucracies in countries which rank high on the corruption index. Most join to just earn a livelihood but are soon "socialized into corruption".
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption#Causes
Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the punitive damages multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted.
Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.
The references section has lots of links for further study of which Robert Klitgaard's Controlling Corruption is a classic with case studies.
One thing i would like to know more of is how Technology either reduces or exacerbates corruption.
On the whole, i feel technology has been a corruption mitigater since it reduces the human factor (i.e. the motivation/cause) from the process chain. This has been validated in my own personal experience.
On the flip side, when used by people-in-control it concentrates power in the hands of the few and its non-linear disproportionate effects can exacerbate the problem tremendously eg. various Internet based scams.
PS: Are emerging technologies helping win the fight against corruption? A review of the state of evidence - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016762452...