I don’t think we agree on what corruption is. I hear this a lot from Danes in the context of “The farmers and bankers have whole political parties in their pockets” and “all our MPs are career politicians” and “you can’t get a nice job unless you know someone”.
While these statements aren’t fully true, they’re definitely real issues. But I would suggest these are not corruption. You could consider them problematic, sure, but corruption is about using your public authority to steal and misappropriate resources to enrich yourself. Stuff like bribes, embezzlement, etc. Which happens far less in Denmark than most other places I’d say.
The main exception is the royal house, which is super duper corrupt.
The first paragraph quotes are complaints about influence peddling, kickbacks, regulatory capture, cronyism, and nepotism, all of which are absolutely forms of corruption. I’m sure others forms probably apply as well.
I’m not sure what first paragraph quotes you are referring to, first paragraph of the report? Or of some comment here on Lemmy? Sorry if I’m missing something.
But are they? If the farmers band together to form a political party which gets voted into parliament doesn’t seem like definite corruption to me. If the farmers had judges and officials in their pockets that would be corruption.
If the majority of MPs have educated themselves within law, economics and social science to pursue a career of representing their communities, and they are then elected due in part to their experience ane expertise on state and governance matters, that’s not definite corruption to me. It’s not clear to me that someone like that cannot earnestly represent their electorate.
If someone is looking to make a hire, and they have many qualified candidates, them choosing to hire someone recommend by their peers in the field doesn’t seem like definite corruption. If they were to hire their family members or friends based despite lower qualifications, that would be nepotism.
The problem is all those ifs, and they’re giant ifs. Always assuming the best case scenario is the best possible way to get completely fucked over. Obviously those strawman statements are not proof alone of corruption, but to entirely ignore them as potential warning signs is beyond foolish. And to say they don’t describe corruption is demonstrably false.
Always assuming the best case scenario is the best possible way to get completely fucked over.
I agree, but here we are talking about reality, not assumptions. In this particular context, the majority of cases are as I describe. It’s completely justified to keep these things under intense scrutiny (Denmark is relatively transparent and has a functioning critical press across interests and political spectra), but if you assume the worst you start seeing corruption where there might be none.
And to say they don’t describe corruption is demonstrably false.
I’m not sure I see that, but I could well be wrong. Would you care to demonstrate?
Oh yeah, no problem! Sorry I don’t have a webcam or anything, so it’ll have to be a textual demonstration.
Web searches the phrase “forms of political corruption”
Clicks most relevant link, probably Wikipedia
Reads the webpage, processes the words thereon
Notices how people in politics committing fraud, graft, influence peddling, bribery & kickbacks, regulatory & state capture, nepotism, patronage, and cronyism (see, I knew more applied) would very reasonably cause their constituents to have complaints like “private minority interests have major political parties in their pockets” and “lots of our politicians have been in their positions of power for an unreasonable amount of time” and “you can’t get a good job or government contract or research grant or get a pothole filled unless you ‘know somebody’”
Demonstration complete, now it’s your turn! Let me know if you need to “see” any of that again, I can always s l o w i t d o w n for ya ;)
Notices how [corrupt] people […] would very reasonably cause their constituents to have complaints like […]
Thanks. Sounds like you’re saying the issues I mentioned could be signs of corruption, but are not corruption in themselves? Which is true for sure, but they don’t necessarily imply corruption.
And in this particular case, they get scrutinized and very little actual corruption is found.
I don’t think we agree on what corruption is. I hear this a lot from Danes in the context of “The farmers and bankers have whole political parties in their pockets” and “all our MPs are career politicians” and “you can’t get a nice job unless you know someone”.
While these statements aren’t fully true, they’re definitely real issues. But I would suggest these are not corruption. You could consider them problematic, sure, but corruption is about using your public authority to steal and misappropriate resources to enrich yourself. Stuff like bribes, embezzlement, etc. Which happens far less in Denmark than most other places I’d say.
The main exception is the royal house, which is super duper corrupt.
The first paragraph quotes are complaints about influence peddling, kickbacks, regulatory capture, cronyism, and nepotism, all of which are absolutely forms of corruption. I’m sure others forms probably apply as well.
I’m not sure what first paragraph quotes you are referring to, first paragraph of the report? Or of some comment here on Lemmy? Sorry if I’m missing something.
The quotes in the first paragraph of your comment that you were passing off as mildly unpleasant but not corruption. They definitely are corruption.
Ah, of course, thanks.
But are they? If the farmers band together to form a political party which gets voted into parliament doesn’t seem like definite corruption to me. If the farmers had judges and officials in their pockets that would be corruption.
If the majority of MPs have educated themselves within law, economics and social science to pursue a career of representing their communities, and they are then elected due in part to their experience ane expertise on state and governance matters, that’s not definite corruption to me. It’s not clear to me that someone like that cannot earnestly represent their electorate.
If someone is looking to make a hire, and they have many qualified candidates, them choosing to hire someone recommend by their peers in the field doesn’t seem like definite corruption. If they were to hire their family members or friends based despite lower qualifications, that would be nepotism.
The problem is all those ifs, and they’re giant ifs. Always assuming the best case scenario is the best possible way to get completely fucked over. Obviously those strawman statements are not proof alone of corruption, but to entirely ignore them as potential warning signs is beyond foolish. And to say they don’t describe corruption is demonstrably false.
I agree, but here we are talking about reality, not assumptions. In this particular context, the majority of cases are as I describe. It’s completely justified to keep these things under intense scrutiny (Denmark is relatively transparent and has a functioning critical press across interests and political spectra), but if you assume the worst you start seeing corruption where there might be none.
I’m not sure I see that, but I could well be wrong. Would you care to demonstrate?
Oh yeah, no problem! Sorry I don’t have a webcam or anything, so it’ll have to be a textual demonstration.
Web searches the phrase “forms of political corruption”
Clicks most relevant link, probably Wikipedia
Reads the webpage, processes the words thereon
Notices how people in politics committing fraud, graft, influence peddling, bribery & kickbacks, regulatory & state capture, nepotism, patronage, and cronyism (see, I knew more applied) would very reasonably cause their constituents to have complaints like “private minority interests have major political parties in their pockets” and “lots of our politicians have been in their positions of power for an unreasonable amount of time” and “you can’t get a good job or government contract or research grant or get a pothole filled unless you ‘know somebody’”
Demonstration complete, now it’s your turn! Let me know if you need to “see” any of that again, I can always s l o w i t d o w n for ya ;)
Thanks. Sounds like you’re saying the issues I mentioned could be signs of corruption, but are not corruption in themselves? Which is true for sure, but they don’t necessarily imply corruption.
And in this particular case, they get scrutinized and very little actual corruption is found.