481. Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China? | Freakonomics Radio

[@wenbinyang1689]

I was searching for the author's name in the description, however, it's not there. I mean, really? I think she deserves more credit

[@wenbinyang1689]

@@ThatonedudeCR12956 sure, but is it too much to ask to put speaker's name and her book in the description?

[@wenbinyang1689]

@@ThatonedudeCR12956 thanks for the reply by the way

[@mimile2397]

Good point - they don't have it here but in the updated version they do.

[@griphlet]

Why does no one analysing power/money in capitalist systems acknowledge that capitalists don't want a "free market." It's bad for capitalists if market disruptors are given access to current systems.

[@josephbravo2590]

Call the Devil Out By Name One might respectfully argue that the term “Capitalist” is misapplied in your cogent critique. Corporations who posses market dominance in their industries are, as you astutely assert, not big fans of free markets. Indeed, while they might initially protest regulatory schemes, this isn’t because they actually oppose them on principle. History would indicate these feigned protestations are usually little more than a stalling tactic until they can engage in regulatory capture strategies that create insurmountable barriers to new entrants to the markets. A piece of calculus is done whereby they figure how much profit can be gained through increased marketshare garnered as mid to small sized competitors are driven out of the market or acquired when entry barriers become too great or their increasingly low margins become unsustainable. There is a regulatory sweet-spot at which the benefits from market consolidation outweigh the added expense of the regulations. Once financially ascertained and politically enacted, these oligarchically optimized regulatory schemes advantage the largest corporations at the disproportionate disadvantage to smaller producers. There is a technical term used to describe this economic model but, contrary to popular misconception, that term is not “Capitalism.” In Capitalism, the means of production resides in private hands and producers fairly compete for their share of the profits from that market. The market determines the outcomes. Whereas, in Socialism, the means of production is owned by the state, economic outcomes are controlled by the state and there is no competition as the state creates and distributes goods according to political rather than market exigencies. There is, however, a third economic model that dare not speak its name due to the connotative stigma associated with it. In that third model, large corporations collude with government to set the terms of competition in which the means of production and profits are privately held; but, in this system of regulatory capture, those terms are set to disproportionately benefit the producers who already possess market dominance. Thus the oligarchical corporations and the political elite exist in symbiosis to one another with each dependent upon the other to secure their relative economic and political market shares. The technical economic term for such a power consolidating system is “Fascism.” Economic Fascism need not be accompanied by black leather fashion statements or socially impolite rhetoric, though these tendencies might appear in the fullness of time. But in its initial stages, Fascism emerges in the ostensibly more benign contexts of the efficiencies of scale along with economic and political synergies as well as stability and incrementalism. It placates popular discontent related to vast wealth disparity and political capture through Progressive rhetoric and relatively generous social subsidies. Fascism reifies the status quo and vilifies disrupters. It prizes predictability far more than it values genuine competition. Competition is only tolerable if it’s manageable and restricted to those with equivalent stakes in the status quo. Any external factor that is emergent, be it regulatory, technological or structurally innovative, is viewed as a potential threat to be stifled for as long as possible until it can be co-opted and instrumentalized by the economic and political oligarchy. The old saying goes, “The greatest achievement of the Devil was to convince people he doesn’t exist.” The greatest achievement of the Fascists was to convince people that Fascism was rendered extinct at the end of WWII. It wasn’t. Xenophobic Nationalistic Fascism may have gone out of fashion with jackboots and long leather coats. But Globalist Fascism has been alive and well while simply rebranded these last many decades as “Social Democratic Capitalism” and, as many are beginning to realize, it is a good deal less democratic than its name might imply and its social welfare programs more strongly resemble unaccountably inefficient and unsustainable Ponzi schemes than genuine wealth redistribution. If one were to speculate on how, at the dawn of the 21st century, the West has arrived at this illiberal destination it is because, throughout the 20th century, Socialism has everywhere proved that it is so hopelessly inefficient as to be utterly economically unsustainable. But the horrifically destabilizing events of the mid-20th century caused many among the elite to question whether bonafide Capitalism was actually politically sustainable. So the architects of the Breton Woods Agreement concluded that the best compromise was to establish a rebranded Globalist Fascist world order with the xenophobic nationalist sting taken out. With it came the increased financialization of the economy and an erosion of national sovereignty along with trade and regulatory schemes of such Byzantine complexity and opacity so as to confound the comprehension of the various national polities and generally inhibit the emergence of anything that might even resemble disruptive competition. With no way of ascertaining actualities with any epistemic certainty then electorates had to rely on propagandists to make sense of otherwise unfathomable economic and political realities. These polities could be easily confounded with emotive rhetoric while cynically divided, conquered and placated according to exigencies in a highly managed political system that superficially retained the illusion of competition and democratic process without the disruptive substance. Competition was replaced with mere choice but choices were predetermined such that either outcome was acceptable to the Fascists. The propagandists of the autocratic PRC might disingenuously call it “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” while, in the Neoliberal West, the politically captured corporate mass media might euphemistically refer to it as “Social Democratic Capitalism,” but whatever you call it, a turd by any other name would smell as foul. So, while your point is well-taken, I would still quibble with your semantics because, if one would genuinely seek to defeat the Devil then he must first be called out by his actual name. 😈

[@luck484]

It seems like the measurement of corruption in the USA is vastly understated. There is more to corruption than a simple parasitic load to productivity. There is also the ability to eliminate or subvert positive actions. Using lead in gasoline is one of many examples of a significantly damaging solution to a growing problem. Choosing industries, products, processes and beliefs on the basis of who experiences benefit, instead of other considerations entrenches negative but tolerable consequences. hope this helps

[@CountJeffula]

She should include or at least discuss intellectual property theft as a separate category of corruption. It’s arguably lead to the hyper-individualism or corporations and lack of synergistic business relations since everyone is incredibly fearful their innovations will just be stolen and copied.

[@PhilipWong55]

Politics determines how wealth is distributed within a country, while wars and diplomacy determine how wealth is distributed between countries. These are not good outcomes of US government policies for US citizens: Economic inequality, inflation, stagnant real wages for the last fifty years, costly healthcare, an expensive education system, student loan debt totaling $1.7 trillion with an average balance of $38,000, poor public transportation systems, racial inequality, mass incarceration, the militarization of police, deteriorating infrastructure, housing affordability, homelessness, the opioid epidemic, and gun violence. The Chinese population does not enjoy any of the above issues. The IPSOS 2023 Global Happiness Level Report lists China at number one position with the happiest people in the world at 91%, with Saudi Arabia second at 86%. In the US, the wealthy dictate (lobbying, political donations, and pork-barrelling are legalized) government policies. In China, the wealthy have no special say in government policies. In China, the people cannot change their government, but they can change the government policies. In the West, the people can change their government, but they cannot change the government policies.

[@bernardzsikla5640]

That is the best written nonsense I have had the displeasure of reading. It is as disinformation and misinformation had a cognitively disabled child.

[@genocidegrand2057]

thx

[@TristanMorrow]

Guanxi?

[@alansevern6922]

❤

[@Lodimerg]

US is totally corrupted