yeah the funny thing about these comments you have a bunch of people conflating a lot of stuff.
For people who think the USSR was "more corrupt" they're often talking about a narrow conception of corruption that is defined by the US on technical terms.
Or they're simply talking about the behavioral differences between rich vs poor countries.
Boeing's quality issues are a great example because it's very obviously corruption, but not in the US technical sense. But the reality is that Boeing and the US government basically said yeah fuck it, do your own QA for the 737 Max and then after the fuckups turned around and said okay we won't charge you the full fine. And that would have just gone away if the 787 fuckups didn't happen. Now suddnely people look really bad giving Boeing sweetheart enforcement deals.
Americans think corruption is a cop pocketing $ on the side of the highway, but it's not corruption when the cop confiscates $ on the side of the highway without trial, gives it to his police department, which pays out the confiscated funds as bonuses, new equipment, and other various frivolities.
At least the Soviets spit in your face when and how they wanted to and were limited by physicality. Americans make a Rube Golberg machine where saliva of their oligarchs is collected throughout the day in massive quantities and piped out of the building where it happens to land on your face 80% of the time. Then they will tell you it's your fault for being in the way of the spit pipes.
We cannot recognize corruption in the US because our corruption is mechanical, and we've precluded that mechanical things cannot be a form of corruption.
USSR corruption was more visceral and obvious, that's pretty much it. This makes a lot more sense if you understand that all measures of "corruption" don't define corruption but use the perception of corruption.
Another example. Ukraine is a corrupt country, no doubt about it. But the "anti-corruption" NGO complex in Ukraine essentially prevents certain laws from passing like sourcing laws which exist in all major developed countries. They see these laws as a form of corruption, which in and of themselves they're not. The other reality is that a lot of the anti-corruption NGO's are corrupt. The reason they argue against sourcing laws is because foreign entities stand to lose money if Ukraine has to buy a certain percentage of goods from Ukrainian factories. Foreign money buys NGO's easily there, so NGO's don't' want their funding to dry up. So everything is in stasis.
But by Western standards none of the above is "corruption" because while the people making these deals can likely speak freely, by Western standards it's really easy to hide this corruption as coincidental and unrelated business decisions.
In reality corruption itself is an industry because it's a way to make money and a tool to make money with. Corruption is not a really simple thing to adjudicate
For people who think the USSR was "more corrupt" they're often talking about a narrow conception of corruption that is defined by the US on technical terms. Or they're simply talking about the behavioral differences between rich vs poor countries.
Boeing's quality issues are a great example because it's very obviously corruption, but not in the US technical sense. But the reality is that Boeing and the US government basically said yeah fuck it, do your own QA for the 737 Max and then after the fuckups turned around and said okay we won't charge you the full fine. And that would have just gone away if the 787 fuckups didn't happen. Now suddnely people look really bad giving Boeing sweetheart enforcement deals.
Americans think corruption is a cop pocketing $ on the side of the highway, but it's not corruption when the cop confiscates $ on the side of the highway without trial, gives it to his police department, which pays out the confiscated funds as bonuses, new equipment, and other various frivolities.
At least the Soviets spit in your face when and how they wanted to and were limited by physicality. Americans make a Rube Golberg machine where saliva of their oligarchs is collected throughout the day in massive quantities and piped out of the building where it happens to land on your face 80% of the time. Then they will tell you it's your fault for being in the way of the spit pipes.
We cannot recognize corruption in the US because our corruption is mechanical, and we've precluded that mechanical things cannot be a form of corruption.
USSR corruption was more visceral and obvious, that's pretty much it. This makes a lot more sense if you understand that all measures of "corruption" don't define corruption but use the perception of corruption.
Another example. Ukraine is a corrupt country, no doubt about it. But the "anti-corruption" NGO complex in Ukraine essentially prevents certain laws from passing like sourcing laws which exist in all major developed countries. They see these laws as a form of corruption, which in and of themselves they're not. The other reality is that a lot of the anti-corruption NGO's are corrupt. The reason they argue against sourcing laws is because foreign entities stand to lose money if Ukraine has to buy a certain percentage of goods from Ukrainian factories. Foreign money buys NGO's easily there, so NGO's don't' want their funding to dry up. So everything is in stasis.
But by Western standards none of the above is "corruption" because while the people making these deals can likely speak freely, by Western standards it's really easy to hide this corruption as coincidental and unrelated business decisions.
In reality corruption itself is an industry because it's a way to make money and a tool to make money with. Corruption is not a really simple thing to adjudicate