Ways to limit corruption

[rocksteady]

Throughout history, corruption has been a huge problem in any society. As individuals gain power, a large percentage of those who wield power also yield to corruption.

As a free-market libertarian, I can see this problem exists in markets as well, and was wondering if anyone had ideas to limit it.

An obvious solution is to end corporate person hood, and just hold companies more responsible for their actions in general.

A more radical idea I recently had, is an cap on net worth. I know it reeks of socialism, but I believe it is a compromise between populist and libertarian ideals. Make the cap about 100 million, which gives people plenty of room to play. What to do with all the people that are already richer than that? Allow them to immigrate to another country, or ask them to give the extra money to charity, other wise it will be taxed until they reach 100 million.

I believe it could be a valid function of government to establish an "IRS" like agency that enforces this rule. (Obviously, after we get rid of the IRS ;)

The reasons that I think this could be a decent idea are that you still can practice conservatism and free-market economics, you just can't get to powerful. I could also see this appealing to liberals as a valid redistribution of wealth (which is what liberals are all about)

[errrzarrr]

Ways to limit corruption: Well is a big complex topic.

But on a "simplist" pragmatic way, I have this tools:

-End with "amiguismo" (It's translated "friendshipness" or so) and Nepotism. "amiguismo" is like nepotism, just with friends/friends-of-friends. It is when a friend of a politician or any administrator of X instituition gets unfair advantage of that position. When a citizen infringes the law and a cop tries to fine him, that citizen gets rid of the problem this way: "I am the brother/friend of the Police Chief, look I have his card signed by himself or I have his phone number I can call him so you talk with him personally, watch out kid". That's a very common problem in my country (and I think in Latin America), that's why I mention it.

-Meritocracy. I think the post important positions would/should be in hands of the most skilled for that job. In theory, things works that way; but in real life is different. There are a lot of skilled/gifted people out there doing dumby works just because there are a lot of dumbs on those positions of responsability.

-The change starts in ourselves. In each person and the society. It's a common mistake to blame politicians for all the madness/mistakes. Presidents are like the citizens (or similar), so the change stats in each one.

-Education. To explaing this point I just have one personal phrase I made myself: "Education is the real Revolution"

'nough said.

[thod]

An obvious solution is to end corporate person hood, and just hold companies more responsible for their actions in general.

Do you mean ending corporate responsibility? The directors of the company are held personaly responsible for some of its actions, the company for others. The small shareholders have no real say and so cant realy be blamed if some exec does wrong. The directors will probably get fired if they lose the shareholders too much money.


A more radical idea I recently had, is an cap on net worth. I know it reeks of socialism, but I believe it is a compromise between populist and libertarian ideals. Make the cap about 100 million, which gives people plenty of room to play. What to do with all the people that are already richer than that? Allow them to immigrate to another country, or ask them to give the extra money to charity, other wise it will be taxed until they reach 100 million.


This wont work. They move money offshore and the banks there will tell other governments nothing. They can always obfuscate holdings by complex financial corporate structures. You could even buy gold bars and bury them if you wanted more.

Suppose I had 100m and i wanted 200m. I would just ensure one of my companies lost 100m in a bad deal to another which i secretly control.

[Tsuru]

The only way to end corruption is to limit the scope of government. As long as politicians have power to do things outside of protecting individual rights, there will be the ability to do favors for friends, to take campaign contributions or bribes to make favorable laws or contracts for unethical businesses, to unjustly extort people or businesses with government guns, and the ability to go on power trips and abuse tax dollars for pet projects.

Capping net worth is a very very very bad idea. Firstly because it won't work from a technical standpoint and would be VASTLY unethical to execute. The uber-rich don't have their millions sitting in a big vault in the bank: it's all in the form of assets. Many don't even literally own it: they just control it via corporations for personal protection purposes (ie, so they can't personally be sued into oblivion by legal vultures).

Think of Bill Gates. His salary is only 100k$. His fortune is all nested into Microsoft stock. Are you saying that the government should force him at the point of a gun to relinquish his ownership of Microsoft or leave the US for the sake of equality, just because he is one of the world's most brilliant businessmen? Should Warren Buffet's controlling share of Berkshire Hathaway, his life work and legacy, have been confiscated by gunpoint and sold off by the government for redistribution because he was too good a businessman?

All that is secondary to the matter of property rights. By what right could we plunder people's fortune at gun point merely because they are too successful? It's pure banditry.

It isn't the rich that are the root of corruption: they have no avenue for it without the politicians, and the politicians have no avenue for it without a large government.

[errrzarrr]

The only way to end corruption is to limit the scope of government. [...]

I wonder how did I forget this one, goverment just can't have unlimited power. That simple.

Another one very important is Transparency of government and institutions. Citizens have the right to know what is being done with their funds and how much the institutions are collecting.

[thod]

The only way to end corruption is to limit the scope of government. As long as politicians have power to do things outside of protecting individual rights, there will be the ability to do favors for friends, to take campaign contributions or bribes to make favorable laws or contracts for unethical businesses, to unjustly extort people or businesses with government guns, and the ability to go on power trips and abuse tax dollars for pet projects.

Well they will still need to award contracts for police uniforms and guns. There will still be a need for a military and awarding contracts for tanks and battleships. So there is scope for corruption there.

Someone has to choose supreme court judges. Democracy is a lousy way of doing it since the average joe cant tell the difference between the brilliant lawyer and the genius lawyer. If you took it out of the hands of politicians you gain the same scope for corruption by a different group.

Think of Bill Gates. His salary is only 100k$. His fortune is all nested into Microsoft stock. Are you saying that the government should force him at the point of a gun to relinquish his ownership of Microsoft or leave the US for the sake of equality, just because he is one of the world's most brilliant businessmen? Should Warren Buffet's controlling share of Berkshire Hathaway, his life work and legacy, have been confiscated by gunpoint and sold off by the government for redistribution because he was too good a businessman?

All that is secondary to the matter of property rights. By what right could we plunder people's fortune at gun point merely because they are too successful? It's pure banditry.

It isn't the rich that are the root of corruption: they have no avenue for it without the politicians, and the politicians have no avenue for it without a large government.

Property rights are just that. Rights granted to you by the state. You cant own anything other than by the states consent. Its where these survivalist nutcases go wrong. They fill a warehouse full of canned food and say I am covered now. No they are not. If a disaster should strike men with guns would simply take it from them.

The poor man and the rich man are just the same. Each can fire a gun. The state that keeps most people poor and a few rich is doomed. The idea is to prevent the poor becoming so poor they become desperate. Deperate, hungry men with nothing to lose make a mockery of intellectual concepts like property claims.

Its perfectly ok for the poor to vote that the rich lose all their wealth, thats democracy.

[xhaan]

There is no way. End of discussion.

Really, truly, there is no way to END corruption. No matter what system you come up with, there is a way to corrupt it. Every time.

Edit:
Yes, you can try to make laws to 'limit' it, but that depends on:

1. The laws actually working
2. People actually following them
3. The people making and enforcing the laws actually enforcing them fairly, and not using them to their advantage.

[errrzarrr]

yeah. The thread's name is Ways to limit corruption.

Human itself is sinner and corruptible. So ending corruption is not posible at all.

[xhaan]

yeah. The thread's name is Ways to limit corruption.

Human itself is sinner and corruptible. So ending corruption is not posible at all.

Yes, 'limit' may be in the title, but law is inherently permeated by corruption. By seeking to limit it, you just invite it in another form. if you are lucky, it will be a more 'acceptable' form. Otherwise it could be worse.

In other words, what works in a 'vacuum', may not work with people. Ultimately you have to trust people to do the 'right thing', and just try things out, and hope it doesn't run away from you.

[rocksteady]

Yes, 'limit' may be in the title, but law is inherently permeated by corruption. By seeking to limit it, you just invite it in another form. if you are lucky, it will be a more 'acceptable' form. Otherwise it could be worse.

In other words, what works in a 'vacuum', may not work with people. Ultimately you have to trust people to do the 'right thing', and just try things out, and hope it doesn't run away from you.

I dunno, I believe most people are generally good, it's just that money problems are an easy way to ruin a person. I like to think of this as "taking from the rich and giving to the poor" a way to help bring some balance to our country. Get rid of that whole 20% of the population using 80% of the resources type stuff.





rocksteady added to this post, 0 minutes and 52 seconds later...


Another one very important is Transparency of government and institutions. Citizens have the right to know what is being done with their funds and how much the institutions are collecting.

This is a simple but very effective way to help fight corruption, corruption mainly happens when people think no one is watching!





rocksteady added to this post, 2 minutes and 43 seconds later...

Do you mean ending corporate responsibility? The directors of the company are held personaly responsible for some of its actions, the company for others. The small shareholders have no real say and so cant realy be blamed if some exec does wrong. The directors will probably get fired if they lose the shareholders too much money.


No I want more liability on individuals within a company, as of right now, in the U.S, corporations have all the rights of a citizen, but with none of the responsibilities, which means corporations have a distinct advantage in the court system, this needs to change. (this has happened in the last 20-30 years) Stock holders, depending on level of investment, should also share some level of responsibility for said companies actions. No sense in telling people it's OK to invest in "bad" companies just because they make money.

[Doppelbock]

The only way to end corruption is to limit the scope of government. As long as politicians have power to do things outside of protecting individual rights, there will be the ability to do favors for friends, to take campaign contributions or bribes to make favorable laws or contracts for unethical businesses, to unjustly extort people or businesses with government guns, and the ability to go on power trips and abuse tax dollars for pet projects.



Yep. What he said.

Our founding fathers understood the corrupting influence of powers and sought a form of government that provided the minimum powers necessary to: (a) preserve the peace at home; and (b) protect us from foreign aggression. But with a wink and a nod, politicians today just "reinterpret" the constitution to mean whatever they want it to. If we want to reduce corruption we need to get back in line with the constitution. Limit the powers available to a person and you limit the possibility of corruption.

DB

[rocksteady]

/\ agreed, but that only effects government corruption, I am worried about business as well.

Ways to limit corruption: Well is a big complex topic.

But on a "simplist" pragmatic way, I have this tools:

-End with "amiguismo" (It's translated "friendshipness" or so) and Nepotism. "amiguismo" is like nepotism, just with friends/friends-of-friends. It is when a friend of a politician or any administrator of X instituition gets unfair advantage of that position. When a citizen infringes the law and a cop tries to fine him, that citizen gets rid of the problem this way: "I am the brother/friend of the Police Chief, look I have his card signed by himself or I have his phone number I can call him so you talk with him personally, watch out kid". That's a very common problem in my country (and I think in Latin America), that's why I mention it.


ahh, that reminds me of "networking", where people get ahead based WHO they know, not WHAT they know. Unfortunately, I don't see any easy way to get rid of that!

[OmegaPsi]

Throughout history, corruption has been a huge problem in any society. As individuals gain power, a large percentage of those who wield power also yield to corruption.

As a free-market libertarian, I can see this problem exists in markets as well, and was wondering if anyone had ideas to limit it.

An obvious solution is to end corporate person hood, and just hold companies more responsible for their actions in general.

A more radical idea I recently had, is an cap on net worth. I know it reeks of socialism, but I believe it is a compromise between populist and libertarian ideals. Make the cap about 100 million, which gives people plenty of room to play. What to do with all the people that are already richer than that? Allow them to immigrate to another country, or ask them to give the extra money to charity, other wise it will be taxed until they reach 100 million.

I believe it could be a valid function of government to establish an "IRS" like agency that enforces this rule. (Obviously, after we get rid of the IRS ;)

The reasons that I think this could be a decent idea are that you still can practice conservatism and free-market economics, you just can't get to powerful. I could also see this appealing to liberals as a valid redistribution of wealth (which is what liberals are all about)

Sorry, Im still not liking the limint of financial possibilities. Maybey if you could offer further substance for the idea I might like it.

[rocksteady]

Sorry, Im still not liking the limint of financial possibilities. Maybey if you could offer further substance for the idea I might like it.

I dunno, i just came up with it a couple days ago, i'm not sure if there are any other resources on the subject. It just seems like a good way getting rid of that 20% of the population owns 80% of the wealth problem, without going too far to one extreme.

How about justifying the need to have more than 100 million dollars? what would the reasons be?

[xhaan]

Yep. What he said.

Our founding fathers understood the corrupting influence of powers and sought a form of government that provided the minimum powers necessary to: (a) preserve the peace at home; and (b) protect us from foreign aggression. But with a wink and a nod, politicians today just "reinterpret" the constitution to mean whatever they want it to. If we want to reduce corruption we need to get back in line with the constitution. Limit the powers available to a person and you limit the possibility of corruption.

DB

Corruption is not limited to the government.
Perhaps this thread was intended to single out 'government corruption', but corruption in the masses is just as bad or worse, especially in 'democracy' because the majority rules. Instead of what we call 'government' ruling us (people with guns doing what they think is best) we could have terrorists, revolutionaries, organized crime syndicates ruling us (still people with guns doing what they want to do)

Edit:
And yes, I believe most people want to do good. It's just the people who do BAD, are really good at being bad, and generally they aren't going to let up.