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New Data Shows 85% of Humans Live Under a Corrupt Government (newatlas.com)
schwit1 writes: According to one think tank that studies corruption in government, 85% of the world lives under governments that are essentially corrupt. New Atlas reports: "'Corruption' is defined by Transparency International (TI) as 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.' Each year since 1995, TI has published a Corruption Perceptions Index that scores the world's nations out of 100 for their public sector honesty and the just-released 2016 report paints the same bleak picture we've been seeing now for two decades except it's getting worse. According to the data, despite the illusion of elected government in half the world's countries, democracy is losing. Only two countries scored 90 out of 100 this year, and just 54 of the 176 countries (30%) assessed in the report scored better than 50. Fifty percent might have constituted a pass in a High School arithmetic test, but for an elected government to be so inept at carrying out the will of the electorate, it is a clear betrayal of the people. The average country score this year is a paltry 43, indicating endemic corruption in a country's public sector is the norm. Even more damning is that more countries declined than improved in this year's results. Our analysis of TI's data shows 85 percent of human beings are governed by regimes that score 50 or less, indicating that the integrity of people in authority across the globe remains sadly lacking." schwit1 notes: "Not surprisingly, the countries at the bottom of the list are almost all Middle Eastern nations, all of whom are the source of most of the world's terrorism and Islamic madness. The few others are those trying to become communist paradises, Venezuela and North Korea." New Atlas also mentions "the latest update of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, released on the same day as the Transparency International report, reflects an almost identical perspective. The EIU Democracy Index measures the state of democracy in 167 countries and the average global score fell from 5.55 out of 10 in 2015 to 5.52 in 2016, with 72 countries recording a lower score versus 38 which showed an improvement. You can register for free and download the EIU report here."
Nice editorializing at the end there. You may want to mention that the least-corrupt countries on the list are Nordic states (and New Zealand) with strong social welfare systems and high taxes.
I suspect that if you had a time machine and could gather data from every era of human history, you'd find that this '85%' they speak of is probably fairly consistent.
This is just click-flame-bait. By their definition all countries would be "corrupt." And it is logically absurd to claim that because some example of ethical violations exist in a country, that therefore the country itself "is" corrupt. It means everything is corrupt, even the word corrupt becomes so corrupted that it has no meaning.
The Chinese are overachievers yet again. 18% of the global population, but 21% of the corruption. Bravo! :)
Because, as of January of 2017, it should.
WTF?! Something is obviously wrong with their methodology.
According to the report they degraded the USA from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016 due to events happening in the country.
This seems contradictory to Trump's announcement to clean up with the corruption in Washington, and to "dry up the swamp". Also, what is more like a democracy, a country where the mainstream media always totally agree with the government, or one in which the government has to fight the media? Isn't it a great thing that media stops believing and printing the statements of the government as facts and starts creating fact checking teams?
I would have guessed 93% or higher.
With a score of 47, Italy ties with Cuba. That seems very unlikely.
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The provincial government is corrupt and we all know it, but somehow I don't think it's on the same level as Somali or Haiti corrupt.
Singapore near the top? This is the country where you get arrested for chewing gum and not flushing the toilet and the death sentence for drug possession? I also find it strange that Hong Kong is near the top.
Have gnu, will travel.
America was never a full democracy, it is and always has been a republic, and the difference fucking matters.
It has also been deeply flawed for a very long time. The democratic process is largely smoke-and-mirrors now, with a group of wealthy elites calling the shots.
Trump winning the presidency is an amazing about-face on that front, with the will of voters actually being imposed upon the established power base despite its preferences. Yes, I know Trump lost the popular vote. No, that isn't what I am talking about. Skip the pedantry and semantics and my meaning will become clear...Trump wasn't just an upset for democrats and liberals, Trump was also an upset for the established crop of power-holders, and THAT is the unusual result.
Trump's victory doesn't make this democracy flawed. The flaws are deeper, and older, and I am pretty sure Trump won't be able to fix them even if he tries.
The other 15â... run that corrupt government.
Name one that isn't mainly corrupt? You can't. But at least under Trump we may be moving in the right direction for the first time in a VERY long time. Perhaps since Lincoln.
You don't get low corruption from "strong social welfare systems and high taxes". Those things and low corruption become possible (not ensured) when there is cultural uniformity. People think alike, worship alike, look alike, speak alike... and generally feel like extended family.
Most people wouldn't rip off their family.
or you'll fall prey to the big con. Here in the States we just elected a Simpson's punchline based largely on a private email server.
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Of course, there is a 15% margin of error...
Greenland, Iceland and Canada are I believe the only ones left, and I am not so sure about canada... Countries played their hands when the crash hit in 2008. The countries that bailed out the rich instead of the citizens proved who was the corrupt ones.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's the corruption perception index; it reflects what people believe about their country. People believing that their country is democratic isn't the same as their country actually being democratic.
According to this table of the 20 most populated countries, 9 of the top 10 had an index of 40 or lower. Only the United States (#3) was higher, with a score of 74. Those 9 countries alone account for about half of the world's population and over 90% of the population of the biggest 10 countries.
Rounding out the top 20, only Japan (#11, 72), Germany (#17, 81), the UK (#19, 81), and France (#20, 69) were higher than 50 points. Turkey (#17, 41) was the only other country in the top-20-population list to score above a 40.
The cynic in me says the only reason the top 10 weren't all failing was that the bribe must've worked (just kidding!).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As long as those punishments apply to everybody, without selective enforcement, it isn't even slightly corrupt.
They could even crank it up a notch, burning people to death if they write with a left hand. It's not corrupt unless powerful people are finding improper ways to avoid the punishment.
This headline could just as correctly read, "New Data Shows 85% of Humans Live Under the Least Corrupt Governments in the History of Humanity"
Would be good to know its rating.
I think it is about the same all over the world. The same as violence against women, it's about 30% everywhere, 1 of 3 women, by the WHO statistics:
http://www.who.int/reproductiv...
Recall what was in John Podesta email messages, which became known just by a mere accident, because he did not use two steps authentication on his Gmail. It is about the same everywhere, as it is a property of Homo Sapiens.
Institutions like the Electoral College were meant to be a check against the stupidity of the masses that might elect a Trump.
That's not entirely accurate. This history of it is a bit more nuanced. Effectively, the larger northern colonies that opposed slavery would have always won the presidency against the smaller southern states that wanted to maintain slavery. Southern states were afraid that in a pure democracy (one person, one vote), the north would always win elections and therefore set the agenda and force them to do things against their will: in particular, force them to give up slavery. Several states refused to sign on to the new Constitution if it was set up this way. So the compromise was to allow an electoral college, House by population by an equal vote for each state in Senate, to make it more "fair" toward the south so they would agree to it.
If that didn't happen, the US would have remained under the Articles of Confederation, which was too weak to really hold the nation together. The Confederation did not give Congress authority to do many things that were discovered required during the Revolutionary War. To some degree, Congress acted out of the bounds of law (their mandate from the states) to continue the war and draft the Constitution in the first place; they were initially only to make some minor changes to the Confederation, but majority of delegates decided that wouldn't be enough on their own.
To be fair, there was certainly fear from some early leaders about pure democracy, equating it to effectively mob rule. There were also concerns that foreign entities (particularly British spies at the time) would attempt to influence our elections. But the anti-federalists were very strongly pro-democracy. The federalists won the battle of words in the constitution at first, but the Federalist party quickly died out and was replaced by the anti-federalists under Jefferson. The anti-federalists splintered into today's Republican and Democratic parties. So effectively, most of our history has been very democratic and states' rights, even if some (not all) of founders thought closer to what you think.
But idiots clamored for more power by virtue of their numbers. So state governments neutered their own congressional delegations by requiring that they vote for the popular choice.
The result? Trump. And people clamoring for more democracy.
The history of the the 17th amendment is also complex. In a nutshell, the people clamored for direct election to stop corruption. Prior to this, the state legislators chose Senators, which as you can guess meant they were very prone to bribery and intimidation to get certain people selected for the Senate. Also, it was easy for state legislatures to get stuck without choosing anyone because of political infighting, meaning that some states would often not be represented in the Senate for lengths of time while state legislatures argued.
It was an interesting idea, but didn't appear to work out that great in practice, so we changed it. As the Constitution was specifically written to do, via amendments.
I think we need to continue the fight against corruption by opening our system up to even more democratic measures. Much corruption comes today from our laws effectively requiring a two-party political system (so many committees require equal numbers of GOP and Dems, for example, as if those parties were written into the constitution; they weren't, and in fact a good chunk of the Federalist Papers goes on about how corruption and political parties are the worst things that could happen to our country). I think changing to a different voting method (Approval, Score, or Ranked Choice Voting) would eliminate the "spoiler" effect and allow citizens to vote for who they actually think is the best for the job, and not just to "stop" the "other" candidate.
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I don't know what high school that might be, the one I attended a score of 85% was a failing grade.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Trump is a piece of shit!
Throwing another piece of Karma on the fire....
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Where did the USA fall on the corruption index?
How does this even fall into the the realm of tech news. No shit every government is corrupt.
You should read a whole lot more into the EU and the mess it's in.
Hint: there's a VERY good reason for Brexit which many people, including Europeans and Brits, are entirely ignoring.
Italy does have a history of corruption, mafia, etc. as others mentioned but the economic pressure from the EU (i.e., your country is getting broke by the second) makes politicians do the only thing they can to maintain their power: steal & stash money!
It's so bad that Italians (think: middle-class, have a profession, can speak English) are fucking off.
Even Spain which is hella-corrupt and nothing short of an economic nightmare is highly attractive to Italian nationals.
With the economies not doing as well as originally theorized, and the Schengen agreement (free-movement) being shat all over, which does have economic implications as well, I really wonder what value the EU brings.
As seen by Brexit, they make it nearly impossible to leave the damn thing (like, Scientology kinda BS, "oh, sure, you can leave, but you'd owe us a shbazillion Euros and we'll cut all trade with you...").
And the UK is not doing great economically right this second but they do have what it takes to stabilize and do much better on their own, something that cannot be said about Italy.
I knew trump and Clinton were yapping, but to declare them dog ;)
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visit randi.org
Humans are corrupt.
Table-ized A.I.
It may not be that upset you think it is. The biggest upset is that they know they have a moron before them (counting the crowd, and the "million of illegals") but make no mistake he IS part of the establishment. If anything you just have to look at his cabinet, and the way he nominated folk which contributed but have no clue about the job (BeVos for example). But his victory show the weakness of the US democracy : a demagogue with an imbecilic program, racist & misogynistic tone, mocking handicapped folk, was easily elected. This is what the founding father wanted to avoid by NOT having the president elected by normal voter by the way, and this is the sole reason the EC existed originally. Trump will not make "america great again" that america never existed, older folk away from the city are thinking of the beaver show and other shows of the 50ies showing model family. The reality is that manufacturing will not abandon automation. And the blue collar job are gone forever.
IMO, The main problem is not the number of people or geography. Look you may think you have vast difference between texan and new yorker, but when you scratch the paint a bit, you are much more alike than you think - at least for the big cities, outside differences are much more pronounced. If I compare, say to the difference between Germany and France in culture, habits, politics etc - even ignoring languages....
No the great split you have is not geographical, it is political. Your great national disunity is manufactured by the 2 political parties, which kept playing the people until there is an enormous divide between a democrat and republican neighbors. And then they play the american on that desunity like a fiddle on regular basis, and you bite it hook and sinker.
But that 2% pretend like they're 80% of the world.
Phenomena such as Non-Corrupt Government does not exist.
Hi there, I live in Vietnam. I just saw a govt. owned newspaper (tuoi tre news) say that the Prime Minister thinks Vietnam could be the home of a tech giant like Google, Facebook, etc.
I don't think so. They have a comments section (most likely to find troublemakers like me) but I've been so frustrated that I decided to send the following reply. (If I start posting from another country, you'll know what happened).
************ In response to the PM saying that Vietnam could be the home to a tech giant **************
While I wish what PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc said would happen, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Certainly there is potential in Vietnam. In my almost 10 years here, I've been impressed by the ambition, hard work ethic and focus on education that is a hallmark of the Vietnamese people. IF they think their efforts will be rewarded, the Vietnamese work just as hard the Chinese, Japanese or even Koreans (my ethnicity :); this is no doubt due to their shared confucian cultural heritage. This is in contrast to their S.E. Asian neighbors who have a more relaxed buddhist/muslim/hindu approach to life. Whether or not this "better" depends on what you think the purpose of life is, however for getting ahead in a material world it is obvious which one is more focused on the here and now instead of the hereafter (or previous life).
Unfortunately due to the, there is no way to beat around the bush, CORRUPTION in Vietnam, this potential is wasted or going abroad. I'm not singling Vietnam out, fully 85% of humanity lives under a corrupt government (http://bit.ly/2kd9LNc). However no country has created a global (tech) giant without getting corruption at least somewhat under control. I'm afraid Vietnam is far from close to doing so.
I speak from experience, I had two successful (if small) high tech companies in the U.S. before coming to Ho Chi Minh City almost 10 years ago to retire. Now, with time on my hands I've been toying around with they idea of starting a bio-tech company utilizing the latest techniques in DNA nanopore sequencing along with bioinformatics (hopefully enhanced by machine learning). However, I've found the bureaucratic hurdles to be almost unsurmountable. Just getting a simple chemical in Vietnam, a process that is literally overnight in the U.S. takes up to two months. Getting customs approval for more advanced material has been a nightmare; many times shipments are delayed on items that must be kept below freezing. I'm sure some of them have been damaged as a result.
No, much more likely than Vietnam growing its own tech giant, would it contribute to one in another country. This would follow in the fine tradition of Syria (Steve Jobs), South Africa (Elon Musk), Russia (Google founders), Andy Grove (Intel, Czech) who all went to America. Not that America is immune; now that the Trump has come, the republican party has already tried to get rid of anti-corruption efforts and his wealthy white cabinet (and himself!) are filled with major conflict of interest problems. It's sad, the people who believe Hillary was corrupt, instead of just ambitious (and what presidential candidate isn't?), were the reason why Fake news (and Russian involvement) succeeded. However, the U.S. still has many fantastic strengths, Vietnam not so much. So, while I can easily see the next tech giant being founded/run by a Vietnamese (in fact I know of someone who is well on his way to doing so in the next big thing in biotech :) I'm afraid it won't be in Vietnam.
Vietnam has been good to me, I've actually been able to gain a level of proficiency in genetics at a university here (thank you International University!) and maybe I'll even be able to repay the country a bit by doing something here (if the government doesn't kick me out). However, to really be successful, I'll need to go somewhere that doesn't require a "expedited fee" to get things done or regulations whose only purpose is to elicit said fees.
New Zealand anyone?
The few others are those trying to become communist paradises, Venezuela and North Korea."
Many bothans died bringing this information on corruption for this think-tank. May the force of law be with you!
Before I get a raft of Hillary bashers commenting on my post let me try to condense the discussion to save your time (and mine).
"What! Of course Hillary is corrupt, she made hundreds of thousands per speech to Goldman Sachs!"
First of all, from what I understand, the money from Goldman went to her foundation not her personally. Not only has her foundation been repeatedly vetted (as opposed to Trump's foundations which are still under investigation over activities directly pertaining to their purpose) they got decent ratings from third parties (not perfect, they sometimes tried too many things) at least they weren't a glorified tax shelter. That is, at least she (and Bill) tried to make the world a better place instead of just using them to avoid taxes (speaking of taxes look up Trump using over $800M in other people's losses in his business to effectively not pay taxes).
Of course the ironic thing is that now a former (head?) of Goldman Sachs is on Trump's cabinet. (Or, since I don't know if he's been confirmed, at the very least a bunch of very rich guys. So much for draining the swamp).
"They (the foundation) took money from foreign donors" Sure, and Trump (almost) had a chief of staff who had $12M earmarked for him on accounts from Russian allies in Ukraine. The first is not illegal (at least not unless she held public office which she didn't at the time). Again, like it or not (I don't), this is very common on Washington :( On the other hand, Trump was right to remove him (unfortunately he did so only when he was exposed).
"But she had her own e-mail server!" Yes, just as her republican predecessor (Colin Powell) had and in fact recommended that she do herself.
"She got hacked" You know, when a state power (Russia in this case) wants to hack you, you can't expect to prevent it. By the way, what did the Russians find? Anything really damaging (like how they need to hide Obama's lack of being an American citizen from the people? Or their plans to overthrow the government?). Aren't you impressed by, aside from all the stupid half-assed things her staff were doing and saying (like in any large organization) there was no apparent corruption (like where to put all the bribe money?).
Look, I am not going to be able to refute the entire industry set up to bash Hillary. Maybe you believe that where there's smoke there's fire. Well sometimes that's not true; you can go back in history to as far as the Salem Witch trials, to the McCarthy "Red Scare" to see how many people were convinced through their equivalent of "Fake News". In this case, you've got literally tens of millions of dollars in direct investigations trying to find the "fire" that was causing the "smoke" made by the hundreds of millions being spent by her opponents. So, in the words of another old campaign slogan, "Where's the beef?"
The great thing about Trump is that all of his "fire" is out in the open, he's saying these things HIMSELF or not saying like as in not releasing his taxes (although that's just one of many in a long string of significant broken promises).
I guess that's why our justice system is "innocent until proven guilty". Too bad that politics (and people) don't hold themselves to this standard.
It seems everyone is resigned to going about things in a half-assed manner. Coherency is one key missing ingredient preventing people from waking up to the realization it's all falsified, by decree. And what isn't yet in the open will find its way through cracks smaller than even the cockroaches that came through them to hide could fit.
A story about politicians
This is a story I've wanted told for a long time. I think it is a story worth reading, even if you do not necessarily agree with its conclusions because I think it offers an interesting alternate view of our politicians.
The thing is, this isn't really /my/ story to tell. Rather, it is a recounting of various conversations I have had with a friend? (Peer? Acquaintance? A guy I did business and with whom I had some interesting discussions.) While I myself have had little contact with politicians, this gentleman has, and over several years he has shared some of his insights on them; how they think and why they do the things they do. I've actually asked him to come here and share these thoughts with the people on Slashdot, but he has always demurred. Partly - although he has never said so in as many words - because he doesn't think it's worth his bother talking with IT geeks on a tiny, fairly inconsequential website but mostly because he values his discretion and feels that were he to make a public statement it might be traced back to him and reflect badly not only on him but on the people for whom he works. On the other hand, I have mentioned that I intended to share his thoughts - properly anonymized - and he didn't seem too upset about it.
So who is this gentleman? I guess the best description for him would be an "Aide" or "Secretary", although I recall him once self-effacingly describing himself as an "incredibly overpaid intern" and a "go-fer". He is one of those mostly faceless people who work with our politicians, actually going and and doing most of the things they order. His tasks have varied from simply mundane chores as fetching coffee, to meeting and negotiating with other power brokers, to helping read and write bills his patron intended to back. He himself has no official rank and his position has varied over the years, but it probably would not be too far off the mark to consider him second behind his master. He has worked for politicians on both sides of the Aisle - although he tends to favor those on the Left - and has over the years worked with politicos of all levels, from local government, to state legislative, to members of Congress. It's allowed him to garner an interesting viewpoint of the hows and whys of government.
I met this gentleman many years ago when he needed assistance with some IT work. It was a very brief professional acquaintance, but over the years we have kept in touch; he often reached out to me to answer a quick IT-related question. Over the years we have had a number of chats and he told a number of interesting anecdotes - all sanitized of names to protect the innocent - and it's from these discussions that I have distilled the following insights. I will be the first to admit that my friend has his own biases and - like most of us, works in his own bubble - but I think that's partly what makes these stories so interesting. You might not agree with his conclusions or argue that he is defending the indefensible, but I think he was being honest. I - like many here - tend to revile our political leaders, thinking them all untrustworthy and corrupt, waffling on important issues, indebted to corporate masters, etc. These tales offer a different light on thing. It's all going to be a bit stream-of-consciousness, I'm afraid, as I remember things he told me, but I hope you find it interesting as well.
So.
One of the first insights he gave me was that most politicians tend to enter into the game because they have one issue they really care about. Maybe some of them have two, or even rarely three, but - whether it is gun-control, or military spending or health care, pushing that issue is usually the primary force behind not only their entry into politics but also the reason they stay in politics and keep pushing up the ladder seeking positions of more power and authority. They want their issue to succeed, and they keep reaching upwards in hopes of not only getting it achieved, but also - if they are successful -
We talk a lot about corrupt goverments, but that corruption came from the private sector.... Big corporations are paying to the politicians!
I think we must to attack the causes to eliminate the consequences....
It's Obama's fault due to his "oh, America is so arrogant to get involved in other country's problems all the time" policy.
"The few others are those trying to become communist paradises, Venezuela and North Korea."
The author is a bit off on comprehension or desires your own comprehension to lack.
"they are small, protestant, ethnically uniform countries"
Consider this for a moment, in two parts:
- Small: Less government power, closer to the citizens. You meet your government ministers on the train, in the local coffee shop, at the grocery store. Big countries could improve their situation by removing power from the central government and putting it in the hands of local government. Even better: break up big countries into smaller ones. The EU is an experiment in the wrong direction; Brexit is one country realizing that such a union is not in their national interest.
- Culturally uniform: This is one of the fundamental messages of the alt-right. People are inherently tribal. Let us finally recognize this and find the best ways to live with it, instead of trying to force multiculturalism to work. There is nothing inherently wrong with nationalism, cultural and ethnic uniformity. You have your culture in your country, and we will have our culture in ours. Friction happens when you mix two utterly incompatible cultures - refer to Sweden.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
TI does not report corruption level, it reports corruption perception level.
If we perceive that it's getting worse, it can be because it's actually getting worse, or it can be because we know better than before.
"Power corrupts" isn't just an adage, it's a genuine psychological phenomenon. The corruption is exacerbated when it's wielded in an institutional environment like a government. Look no further than the Stanford Prison Experiments. In the course of only six days, a group of healthy, psychologically stable people who were elevated to a position of power became so abusive that the experiment had to be stopped.
Big government is corrupt at an institutional level that transcends the people who happen to be in charge at any one time. The communists and socialists argue that their systems would work if only the "right people" were in charge. The framers of The U.S. Constitution understood that there are no "right people" and the only way to keep corruption and abuse under control is to limit and decentralize the power of government. It was good while it lasted. In the current USA government, where 535 people control a $4 TRILLION annual budget, corruption is 100% guaranteed.
Fifty percent might have constituted a pass in a High School arithmetic test
What kind of high school is that? I guess this is the new math -- make it as hard as possible for anybody to fail.
I would have assumed that it would be much higher, say +98%. And given recent events (at least here in the US) there doesn't seem to be any real push to weed corruption out, just flail about aimlessly at it while in actuality making it worse.
That's a strange way of writing '100%'
There is an ingenious way to make thimgs scale, so that what works in smaller, more homogenous cultures like Norway can also work in a large, very diverse country like the United States. A group of really smart people figured out how to implement it and wrote down a plan.
What you can do is recognize that Texas, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Utah have some culture and interests in common, and some very different. For example, people in those states have very different ideas about the second amendment and gun control. Heck, objectively gun laws that makes sense in Yuma County, Arizona are very different from what makes sense 275 miles away in Los Angeles. On the other hand, people in both places want a strong dollar, they benefit from good relations with other countries, etc.
So what you can do is have the common US government handle monetary policy, international relations, and a few other things that affect the whole country, while Arizona decides how they want to do things in Arizona. If Arizona wants to license concealed carry after proper training, they can do that and it doesn't much affect people in LA. If LA wants to have toll roads, or a tax on large sodas, they can do so - it doesn't affect people in Yuma. Later, people in Yuma and in LA can look at the results of different policies and see if they want to emulate the policies that worked well.
This is called a "federal" system, as in a federation of states. It worked very well when the US tried it, from 1776 to about 1929.
Trump is a pussy grabber!
...and it's all to blame on capitalism which is of course based on greed...the rule of men (particularly bureaucrats and strong men) not laws, cultural rot, and utopian ideologies have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Breaking news! Power corrupts.
Surely not on earth.
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker
Voting in elections is hegemony, not democracy
Casteism
Too bad they don't break it down by state in the USA. I live in New York, and somebody needs to drain the swamp in Albany.
Show me a government without corruption.
Taxation is the same thing as theft.
Libertas in infinitum