TL;DR: actions that society considers morally reprehensible and "corrupt" when carried out by public institutions, are seen as normal and acceptable when it comes to private institutions, so traditional comparisons of "corruption" between capitalism and socialism put socialism at a disadvantage by definition.
1- Let us imagine that I'm a business owner, and I decide to carry out some renovations in my building. I decide that, since I have a reliable friend who owns a renovations company, I will simply carry out the renovation with their company. We sign a contract, the renovation is carried out, the work gets done, the other company gets paid. Nothing out of the norm here.
Now let us imagine the case in which this first business, instead of being owned by me privately, is socialized and owned by the state: a public entity. Some renovations are necessary, so I, as a public administrator, decide to order the renovation to be carried out by a friend... except that's corruption! I need to organize an auction and order impartially from a variety of firms, by lowest expense and by highest level of satisfaction! What is normal and approved in capitalism, is unthinkable and in most instances illegal under the principles of public ownership!
2- Another example: I'm a worker in a private company. One year, the CEO that is put in place by the stockholders, happens to be a former employer of mine, and because they know me and my performance, I get promoted. Meritocracy! Some people even call that "networking", which is a necessary social skill in capitalism and highly regarded in wealthy circles.
Now let us imagine the case of a soviet workplace, in which I'm a worker with excellent performance. The union-approved party member in charge at this time, sees my performance and my contributions and involvement with the union and party, and decides to offer me a promotion. Oh, what a blatant case of dictatorial bureaucracies, in which only party members giving each other favours get to rise to the top! What an unfair and corrupt system!
Whenever we hear these claims of "corruption", "bureaucracy" and such from socialism, please make it a point to compare these events with similar instances in capitalism, and how normalized and approved by the social majority they are. Why do we only expect transparency, efficiency and impartiality from public institutions, but normalize the opposite behaviours in capitalist enterprises?
Great post
This kind of reminds me of the thing
has talked about how certain words are only used for official enemies.Like saying “hand picked successor” when all you mean is vice president.
This kind of reminds me of the thing has talked about how certain words are only used for official enemies.
Their bribery.
Our lobbying.
When the old Civilization II game had a "corruption" mechanic that only kicked in once communism because a government option and then there was "democracy" which removed all corruption tokens from each city even as a naive liberal kid I felt that was presumptive.
I thought only the first Civilization had no corruption under democracy?
It's still a series rooted in a Eurocentric liberal worldview of societal progress, and in some ways that gets even worse in Alpha Centauri, like with the ”Human Hive” with its ”police state” form of government.
Some people even call that “networking”
Yes! Fucking preach! I loathe how many times I’ve been told by even my university that I need to “network” in order to be successful and what they say is “make friends with these people so they can help you get a job” But what I hear is “use friendship to manipulate this person for your own career goals.”
Sure I should talk to my professors and get involved in research, but not because I want the possible job advantage of knowing people in the industry. I should get involved because it’s cool fucking research!
Wow this is genuinely a brilliant post. I never thought of this myself in that way.
So basically, when a socialist state "fails" it's when the people ignore the public structures in place and revert back to more capitalistic ways which are considered corruption in a socialist society but not a capitalist one (except for rare exceptions).
Could you please do that? I'm on mobile phone right now and I'm gonna fuck up I feel
In the United States, we legalized bribery by allowing dark money contributions to PACs….
So there’s no corruption in the USA…..
Also, politicians would never be influenced by Israeli backed AiPAC campaign contributions. That’s unthinkable.
Public entities are tasked by the people to act in their best interest. If they don't do that, and instead use the power entrusted to them for their personal gain, that's corruption.
Business owners only represent themselves. They are free to hire anyone, because they do not have any power that has been entrusted to them by anyone else.
And its not like an administrator of public entities cannot hire a friend, they just have to convincingly make sure that that's actually in the people's best interest.
For your 4th paragraph: this can actually qualify as corruption. The CEO is tasked with acting in the shareholders' best interest. If they hire friends even though someone else would be better suited, that's corruption. (Of course in the case you described, the CEO would hire a former employee, so they could argue that knowing your performance, you are actually the best fit for the position in their eyes) I have to do regular sensitivity trainings for that kinda stuff at my company. If I encounter an acquaintance during a hiring process, I have to report this conflict of interest, so that someone else may examine my decision. If I don't, I can get fired and taken to court. This is because, yes, corruption is also possible within a private company.
Public entities are tasked by the people to act in their best interest
Business owners only represent themselves
So, public entities are democratic with the objective of bettering a society, whereas businesses are completely egotistic projects conceived exclusively for the profit of a few. This is exactly why I'm a socialist.
For your 4th paragraph: this can actually qualify as corruption. The CEO is tasked with acting in the shareholders' best interest
Ok, please tell me what CEOs are publicly known that have been convicted because of that. If it's exclusively so "de jura" but not "de facto", it's useless to me. Regardless, in your example it's just because it's a delegation of power from the shareholders to the CEO. If it were the shareholders abusing nepotism, it wouldn't be a case of corruption because they're the owners. That's never the case in the public sector.
Notice how the point of my post isn't to avow corruption in the public sphere, but show how otherwise morally (or even legally) objectionable behaviour is completely normalized in capitalism.
But the contention here would be that the business owner has been entrusted with power — e.g. control of a factory and its workforce — ultimately by the state
I guess you could say that by allowing a business owner to operate a business, a state implicitly grants power to that business owner.
Contrary to a public entity however, noone expects them to use this power in the interest of the people. Instead, the legal framework provided by the state explicitly allows businesses to act in their own interest.
This means that they can't abuse anyone's trust because no one expects them to act in their interest anyway.
What an incredible way to miss the point of the post. The post about how in capitalist society, corrupt practices in private entities are not called out, and are even sometimes praised as "smart"
And here you are, going "well, nobody expects corporations not to be corrupt, so they don't have to be called out for that, this is perfectly normal"
What an incredible way to miss the point of my comment.
Corruption is an abuse of trust. You cannot abuse trust if nobody trusts you. Its not corrupt to transparently act in your own interest. Acting in your own interest is only corrupt if you claim/are supposed to act in the interest of others.
I also clarified that corruption in corporations is indeed an issue that is recognised and being combatted. Corruption in this case not being corporations acting in their interests, but individuals inside the corporation acting in their interest at the detriment of the corporation as a whole.
But private corporations do have trust placed in them, and have a responsibility to the public. My own country recently privatized our energy company, and sold it to an incompetent private company. That private company is constantly making decisions to minimize costs, which results in poorer service and constant blackouts. But it's 100% legal for them to be incompetent and corrupt, while a public energy company would be held to a higher standard.
The logic here is that if a private firm is corrupt, it'll be less efficient than a firm that isn't corrupt, and is marginally outcompeted. A public entity has a monopoly by nature and cannot be outcompeted, so corruption in a public entity is inherently more problematic. But an elementary tendency that Marxists have been shouting about for centuries is that there is no free market competition under capitalism in the long term: in a competition, someone wins, and captures the market share of all the competitirs. In practice, a private corporation will eventually have the same monopoly that a public entity has, with none of the legal responsibility.
Corruption is an abuse of trust.
You've just redefined corruption
Abusing a position of power for personal gain or nepotism. There are many actions that count as "abusing a position of pwer".
Even though we live under capitalist hegemony, there are many things like embezzlement, favoritism, negligence and so on that a business owner could do that is frowned upon and/or illegal.
Even a sole trader who embezzles money from himself is committing a crime, as they are hiding their taxable income from the government. And even for favoritism, which is hard to prove, if you are being too blatant, others in the business will look down upon you. Because your decisions are not good for the firm.
You're just doing the "lobbying isn't corrupt, because it's legal" argument. It's pedantic. We're looking at how power is used objectively, not at the expectations people have
by allowing a business owner to operate a business
There is no "allow". The state's protection is absolutely vital to the function of capitalism much in the same way that your skin is vital to your body.
