• N1cknamed@feddit.nl
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is it idealistic? My country in western Europe is pretty corruption free as far as anyone can tell. Seems perfectly achievable to me.

    • Zodiark
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      deleted by creator

    • ReadFanon [any, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Corruption-free is when you have a government that works hand in glove with corporations to protect their interests and you have a revolving door between politics and mahogany row.

      Corruption-free is when most corruption has been legalised through regulatory capture.

      Corruption-free is when your supranational organisation is opaque, anti-democratic, and riddled with lobbyists.

      You're not really going to tell me that there aren't countless examples of government corruption in Western Europe that I could point to, are you?

      Keep in mind that China's population is 1.4 billion. Whichever country you happen to live in, I can tell you right now that its population pales in comparison. Of course there are going to be cases of corruption when you have a population that large.

      • N1cknamed@feddit.nl
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The EU is of course famous for not protecting consumer interests or regulating corporations. They never do such a thing.

        Compared to the US, where the government does everything in its power to protect the status quo of the wealthy, or China, where the people can't even vote for, let alone criticize their own government, European countries seem to be making quite a good effort to accommodate the will of the common man.

        • ReadFanon [any, any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          That's a lot of whataboutism and goalpost-shifting that you're doing there. I never claimed that the EU doesn't ever pass consumer protection laws or that they never regulate corporations.

          In fact, implicit in my argument about regulatory capture is the notion that there exists regulatory bodies who are performing the function of regulation of the market whose interests get perverted by the appointment of business people and executives, often from the exact same industries which said regulatory body oversees. So pointing out that regulatory bodies regulate in the EU is no more proof to the contrary of the existence of regulatory capture than using ice-skates on a hockey rink disproves the fact that ice-skates are designed for use on ice.

          You must be pretty across China to be able to make a call like "let alone criticize their own government".

          I take it that you don't consider the White Paper Protests to be criticisms of the Chinese government and its COVID policy for some reason? Have you just not looked into this protest or is there some other reason why it's not an example of Chinese citizens voicing criticisms of their government?

          And as for elections, China has them. (Remind me again how people are elected to the European Commission, the Secretariat of the European Parliament, the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, and the Committee of Permanent Representatives...)

          • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            1 year ago

            I hear you, I hear you, but does China even have changedotorg and fearless journalists willing to speak truths handed down by power?

            • RNAi [he/him]
              hexagon
              ·
              1 year ago

              C'mon tell us where are you from so we can dunk on your chauvinism even harder

              • HighOnCopium [she/her]
                ·
                1 year ago

                they're located in the netherlands, a country that, frankly, shouldn't exist. ridiculous language and ""culture"" that has contributed nothing to the world.

    • NPa [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      as far as anyone can tell

      wtyp people in Europe are naive idiots when it comes to identifying corruption

      • N1cknamed@feddit.nl
        ·
        1 year ago

        Or... we actually did something about it, and as a result enjoy some of the highest standards of living on the planet. But sure, we should strive to live more like the Chinese do.

          • N1cknamed@feddit.nl
            ·
            1 year ago

            I don't really care what they've done. All that I know is that the parties I've voted for generally vote in my interests, and that actual noticeable change comes from it. As a result I enjoy high standards of living. The impression I get from my government is that they're genuinely trying to make things better for their citizens (even if it doesn't always work out). That's all I really need to know.

            If corruption/lobbying is somehow rampant, it hasn't stopped many legislative measures to protect my interests. A good recent example is the many actions the EU has taken against anti-consumer tech giants. I lobbying was a thing here, do you think that would've happened? God knows these companies have the money.

            I'm not omniscient, but I think we're doing quite alright.

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              1 year ago

              So by the same standard, if China, for example, were to lift 800 million people out of poverty, a little corruption would be okay?

              As lobbying is a fact throughout Europe, yes, I think the fact of gains and the fact of corruption can happen at the same time.

              For another look at a contradictory unity of opposites, here's a look at how the corrupt EU is willing to fund research into combatting excessive PFAS in water while at the same time allowing companies to pump excessive PFAS into the water: https://www.uva.nl/en/content/news/news/2023/02/pfas-in-drinking-water.html?cb

        • nohaybanda [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Right, that’s why you have this standard of living, not centuries of colonial exploitation of the Global South

            • Duży Szef [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              1 year ago

              Oh wow, "Museum of mercantalist past"?

              Wonder what exhibits they have...

              *removed externally hosted image*

              Huh, so that's how they got prosperous.

              Theft.

            • Redbolshevik2 [he/him]
              ·
              1 year ago

              Laughable. Europe outside of Constantinople was a backwards shithole that needed to purchase all its manufactured goods from the superior civilizations of India and China. Absolutely nothing before colonialism.

            • duderium [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Europe was a backward hellhole before the 1500s and wasn’t really “modern” by any standard until the 19th century, which very curiously coincided with the Scramble for Africa. Hmm, interesting.

              Edit: so you’re Dutch. Isn’t the Netherlands’s wealth built on slavery? Why didn’t you guys give all that stolen money back?

              • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
                ·
                1 year ago

                Didn't you hear? They spent it and everything they have since the 1960s is due to hard work and intelligence (just don't ask whose).

        • HornyOnMain
          ·
          1 year ago

          we actually did something about it

          What do you think China is doing now?

          • N1cknamed@feddit.nl
            ·
            1 year ago

            Arresting one man instead of changing the system that lead to his corruption in the first place. Classic.

            • HornyOnMain
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              China has actually been doing a mass anti corruption campaign for about a decade to root out corruption throughout the country; this guy is just the latest guy to get prosecuted.

            • silent_water [she/her]
              ·
              1 year ago

              ahh but the system that legalizes corruption and bribery -- that's ok and doesn't need changing because it protects your interests.