Corruption

Corruption is a “blight” on society. It has existed for a long time, but it hinders people’s lives right now. The most interesting thing about corruption is that it is not a problem in itself, but rather a symptom. Fighting corruption as a phenomenon does not free society from the underlying causes of its emergence, but… punishment Corruption does not fix the problems it creates.

Ineffectiveness of fighting the symptom

There is a house in the historic center of Prague. It extends beyond the “red line.” The house was built behind forests and a high fence. When it was completed and everyone saw that it was beyond the “red line,” it was already too late to make any changes. But the government found a document that permitted the construction and simply hanged the official who signed the permit. Right on that house. The official was hanged, but the house remained standing and was not demolished. The dangling corpse was meant to warn other officials to uphold the law. Did they stop taking bribes? No. They just stopped leaving evidence of their activities.

Corruption should also be viewed as a game. There is risk and there is perceived benefit. The higher the risk, the higher the stakes of the game, but increasing the risk (through harsher penalties or more frequent arrests) does not lead to the end of the game. It only raises the stakes. Similarly, the fight against drugs generally leads to an increase in their prices.

It is also important to understand that the organization of the fight against corruption can provoke the involvement of the fighters themselves in corruption and lead to the establishment of corrupt pyramids, which, in the worst cases, end at the top of the power structure, especially if that structure is not legally the owner of the controlled territory.

Appointed officials

Now let’s look at when exactly corruption arose or could arise. Corruption is characteristic of hired bureaucrats. A leader who is not a hired official has no interest in corruption. Instead, he will earn his income from honest and transparent dealings (taxes for kings or shareholder profits for capitalists), and corruption will primarily rob him. This is why corruption was not typical of feudal lords as a ruling class. Whether a hired official is appointed by a lord (a king or someone else) or elected from the people, he must somehow justify his existence, or in modern economic terms, “create added value.”

If an official is appointed by the king or a higher-ranking official, he is generally not dependent on the people he is supposed to manage or the problems he is meant to solve—he is alienated from them. His “added value” is created through the control of the entrusted territory and the increase of tax revenues. In such a situation, he will do everything to secure additional income for himself, and corruption can thrive here, not limited to the top echelons of power, since the upper echelons are not interested in corruption and, importantly, possess an unlimited repressive apparatus. Thus, the corrupt official’s task is to take, but not so much that information about his bribery reaches the very top. In large controlled territories, where there existed a whole hierarchical ladder of other officials from the king down to the petty bureaucrat, corruption flourished and could not help but flourish.

Elected officials

But what if the official is appointed by the people? If there is an electoral system in the country and people choose their leaders, elders, administrators, or others themselves, where does corruption come from? This question is particularly interesting, as feudal relations are long in the past, and our officials are, in a way, elected or appointed by those who were elected.

To understand the source of the problem, we need to delve deep. And we do just that. Let’s take a community made up of, say, 10 people. In order to manage a certain accumulated resource, a representative of the community is needed to act in its interests. For example, the community has built a road and needs a guard to collect tolls from those passing through.

What will happen to this guard if anyone in the community finds out that he is letting people through for money, but pocketing part of it, or that he is allowing merchants to pass while charging them a lower fee than the actual cost of transport? This guard will, at the very least, be replaced immediately, and at most, he could be lynched and all the money taken from him.

Such practices still exist today, when, for example, parents of schoolchildren choose a chairperson for the parent committee, which collects money from parents and purchases necessary items for the class (lockers, excursions, notebooks, etc.). The slightest suspicion of bias, and that’s it—such a chairperson is immediately replaced.

It turns out that the added value of an elected official lies in providing administrative or managerial services to the community. The official more effectively manages the accumulated or shared resources for the benefit of the community than a crowd could. The official organizes the gathering of the community’s opinions on various issues and is also responsible for implementing the community’s directives.

The practice of electing the most deserving individuals to power was the first step in organizing authority. Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are classic examples of such organization. However, we have dialectics and the principle of quantitative-qualitative transition. A community of 10 people is not the same as a community of 1,000. Gathering the opinions of ten is much easier than gathering those of a thousand. Moreover, while it is possible to reach a consensus on the most deserving among 10 people, it becomes impossible among 1,000.

Then the idea of elections comes to fruition, specifically a) for a fixed term and b) by majority vote, but not by consensus or “overwhelming majority.” With this system, the concept of “instant replacement” disappears. Additionally, the notion of suspicion of dishonesty is eliminated. If you suspect something, it’s up to you to vote “against.” Everything is organized.

At this stage, the alienation of the official from the community he is supposed to serve occurs once again. Firstly, he has powers granted to him for a limited term, and it is difficult to revoke these powers according to the laws written by the community itself; secondly, the weight of an individual community member’s voice is diluted and insignificant. A specific person can be offended, pressured, or have their interests disregarded in favor of the “interests of society.” For example, in modern society, one local council member represents the interests of about 10,000 households. Is someone opposed? They can just file their objections away. There are still 9,999 families left.

Alienation

It turns out that theoretically, an elected official can deeply offend half of the electorate while only slightly rewarding the other half. In the next election, 50% of people will vote for him, and his wife will add one more vote. The official will benefit from the margin, the difference between the monetary equivalent of “offense” and the monetary equivalent of “reward.” Interestingly, in the next term, he can offend the second group even more while not offending the first group, who were already hurt. The first group will feel an “improvement” and vote for the official, while the opinions of the second group will no longer matter. In the third round… well, you get the idea. It’s also important to understand the very nature of this dynamic. deficiency ideas for alternative elections. Elections sooner or later turn into not a procedure for appointing an official, but a procedure for legitimizing the power that the official has usurped.

Also, if he has control over the media and propaganda, he can offend everyone. Some a little more, others a little less, while telling on television that “it’s even worse for others.” And what’s frightening is that there is no landowner, no señor, on whose land the official is running amok.

At this point, it no longer matters whether an official profits from plain bribery or from “sitting on the valve.” It’s all corruption. And the source of it is the alienation of the people from the authority they have chosen.

Retrospective of decisions

When the people saw the chaos that was happening, three solutions were proposed to combat corruption:

1. To select or invite the most deserving individuals from abroad and grant them absolute power.
2. Elect officials for life and motivate them with “bonuses,” so that an official caught in corruption loses all privileges once and for all.
3. Punish not only the bribe-takers but also the bribe-givers.

Regarding point 1. Humanity has shifted from democracy to monarchy, and this has slightly improved the situation. At the same time, we must remember that an official appointed from above is, by definition, alienated from the people right from the start.

Regarding point 2. This practice is still in place today; for example, in many countries, a judge holds a lifetime position. But that doesn’t solve the problem. A person who enters the “system” simply cannot remain above board. The phenomenon of mutual protection will inevitably force them to play “by the rules” or to leave the system altogether.

Regarding point 3. An unpleasant situation arises when a bribe-taker, believing they have been underpaid, gains another lever of blackmail over the victim. Moreover, this is once again a measure aimed at the symptom rather than the cause. As is clear, corruption is not just about bribes; it is also about the misuse of resources that arise from the authority granted to officials to manage other people’s assets during their term.

The reason, the root of corruption lies in the alienation of officials from the people for whom they create “added value.” This alienation arises because it is extremely difficult to organize a large mass of people to make everyday decisions on various issues. It’s simply unrealistic. Few people are competent in the matter. Few people will even participate or consider a particular issue important for themselves. A permanent referendum…о.It is so ineffective that society is willing to “pay” with corruption to avoid it.

New opportunities

At the same time, the magical 21st century arrives, and it turns out that getting 1,000 people to do some silly thing, which is called a “flash mob,” is very easy. We now have technologies that can both personalize individual responsibility for certain decisions and gather people’s opinions, directing their activity in the desired direction. So, is the state a flash mob?

Of course not, but the idea is quite something. Here. — a more detailed concept that has not yet been realized. We just need to think about what to do with the passive part of the population that is willing to believe in authority but does not think for themselves. We also need to… to present create a system where delegates are not “urgent,” but can be recalled instantly, and their work is completely transparent and analyzable by everyone, especially by those knowledgeable in the field who can provide substantive feedback. Most importantly, we need to understand the purpose of the state itself.

If we move away from the concept of the “apparatus of violence” — which is certainly not needed by ordinary people — it turns out that the almost sole function of the entire bureaucracy is the collection and distribution of taxes. To understand how a system can function without a state, let’s imagine again the resolution of problems at the community level. For example, a housing maintenance service or a condominium.

The administration of the housing maintenance service or the condominium management addresses the following issues: collecting money from residents and allocating it for basic needs—such as painting the stairwell, paying for the concierge, managing the use of the shared court or parking, purchasing new gates for the yard, or repairing the streetlight. Additionally, the management’s responsibilities may include many other tasks that they do not intend to take on, such as arranging a shared school bus for everyone, organizing milk delivery, or setting up a high-speed internet connection.

It is precisely the “uncharacteristic” functions for a housing maintenance service that will show us how to proceed. How do people act now? They negotiate for a long time and pool their money, and then they assign one person to manage the “project.” (Moreover, if we talk about the internet and new technologies, there are already projects united by one term: Crowd Funding ). After that, it is worth take into account everyone’s contribution And if this is, say, a shared court or pool, then the profits from renting out the resource should be divided. Additionally, the court or pool needs to be shared among everyone so that each person can use it by booking in advance. Essentially, it’s worth looking at the collection of fees not as a burden to be avoided, but as a form of participation that is worthwhile. to strive Текст для перевода: ..

Conclusion.

It’s easy to imagine a system similar to a social network, but with features for organizing resource sharing and acquisition. (You can find a description of the project network) тут. A network with bulletin boards, karma (reputation scores given by users to each other), and a marketplace for resource traders, organized into groups based on shared interests in resources they want to acquire or utilize. This way, it will be clear who paid for what and to whom, rather than just a generic “rent.” Then, this system can be scaled up to the level of neighborhoods, cities, and even the country. The key issue is in organizing communities, from political parties to concessions for building a new hospital, communities that are formed around the common use of resources or collective contributions for a specific cause. In other words, there’s no need to start a so-called “national project for an electronic state.” It would be better to begin with a parking lot or garage, along with a technical specification for the software.

Since we’ve addressed the main issue, let’s touch on the secondary ones as well:

a) The passivity of part of the community, the “instantaneity” of powers, and the incompetence of the majority. It’s true: here are two bridge projects on the table. Which one should we fund? And should we even pay for a bridge at all, or would it be better to build a commuter train line? Or maybe we need a kindergarten? This question is resolved very simply. In fact, it has already been resolved. At Lloyd’s Corporation. And Here. how this approach can be applied to governance.

b) Transparency of officials’ actions. Firstly, the system described above leaves no room for abuse by officials. An official becomes a hired administrator for a particular project on behalf of the community. The level of their reputation (karma) will determine whether they can keep their job in the future. If they are not trusted, they simply won’t be assigned a new project. At the same time, the development of information technology removes another basis for corruption. We are all moving towards a society where everything will be accounted for: all movements of people, all transactions, all the property they own. There are not fewer discount cards and surveillance cameras. Money is rapidly moving into registered and documented transactions. cashless The form. Soon, very soon, it will be impossible to sell stolen goods, to steal, to accept a bribe, or to take advantage of one. Contradiction not everyone will have access to this data. This contradiction should ка. к. – то. to be resolved. Then it will come reconism.