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Corruption can be classic
I observed to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nancylebov some years ago that I had pretty much always understood that totalitarian governments were inherently corrupt, but I hadn't realized that corrupt governments always trended towards totalitarianism--because the one thing a corrupt government cannot risk is the freedom of the people to complain about the corruption.
Brought to mind byjames_nicoll's posting of the 2007 Transparency International rankings of the most corrupt nations in the world. The US came in #20 least-corrupt (out of 179 countries rated), its worst showing in the ten years of surveys on the site, down from a peak of #14 in 2000.
nancylebov some years ago that I had pretty much always understood that totalitarian governments were inherently corrupt, but I hadn't realized that corrupt governments always trended towards totalitarianism--because the one thing a corrupt government cannot risk is the freedom of the people to complain about the corruption. Brought to mind by
james_nicoll's posting of the 2007 Transparency International rankings of the most corrupt nations in the world. The US came in #20 least-corrupt (out of 179 countries rated), its worst showing in the ten years of surveys on the site, down from a peak of #14 in 2000.