I was talking to a guy from Argentina once about the difference in corruption between our two countries. We discussed what might be the reason for the difference (religion, class, etc.) and his answer was that it was simply cultural. Not to be ethnically insensitive, but German/Slavic/Scandinavian immigrants out here just didn’t seem interested in being corrupt or trying to get rich quick back in the day, and to large part, I think that has carried over to today. Maybe this is all due to what a society/culture values, i.e. wealth versus respect. Being corrupt will get you rich, it isn’t going to make your parents proud of you though.

Several years ago I had a great experience of interpreting cultural orientation classes for Russian-speaking foreign nationals temporarily transferred to work in the US at one of the Big Oil HQ. The person conducting the seminar was a real pro cultural anthropologist or something. She was making a few very important points (that were unfortunately lost on the students for they did not care for the subject, other then where is the nearest grocery store)

One was the size of “immediate family”. Such clannishness of a society I think is reverse proportional to the trust you are talking about. In a clannish society such trust is reserved more to clan members.

Also, if you put this in a much broader perspective that I borrowed long time ago from “Лекции по истории средневековья” Тимофея Грановского. History seems to go from more socialization to more individualization, like the transformation from pre-feudal time of antiquity to feudalism. In antiquity individual did not exist without citizenship, without belonging to a state. Economic change from antiquity to the feudal system of allotments also broke that direct link between a person and a state.

Since then humanity moved to even greater individualization and less and less clannishness. I think the reason is that association and thus trust within a clan is forced, you are born with it, associations in a less clannish society are voluntary, based on choice.

By the way, I’m sure that historically there is a lot to that Protestant vs. Catholic/Orthodox divide. As you say, though, for better or for worse, cultural inertia plays an important role. For example, Protestant looking Vermont was indeed a predominantly Protestant state. Now there are as many Catholics as there are Protestants and a full 1/3 of the population claims no religious affiliation (highest percentage in the US.) Perhaps (and this is pure speculation on my part) it’s simply the case that non-practicing Catholics are less inclined than Protestants to claim that they have no religious affiliation (23 percent of Vermonters are of French Canadian ancestry.)

In any event, what interests me is how countries/cultures/regions move from more to less corruption. Although there is a lot of emphasis on contracts and documents, one of the keys is the level of trust of a given society. How much do society members trust those who are not their relatives or friends? How much trust do you have that if you mistakenly overpay a vendor in cash, this vendors will return the difference as soon as he notices the difference? How much trust do you have that if you leave your wallet on a city bench, you will get the wallet back intact?

Overall, Protestant (especially long established) countries seem to be less corrupt then Catholic or Orthodox within just Christianity. Does it relate to tenets of the dominant denomination and how, since Bavaria is predominantly Catholic? And why is the South in the US more corrupt, while being Protestant. Could it be that the Cracker culture of deep rural areas in UK (lowland Scotland and adjacent areas of England) that generated a lot of migration to the South, still plays a major role?

I guess all things being equal, one of these factors would move a country on the scale less/more corruption. Tricky part starts when there are several factors in place. In some cases one would negate another, in some unfortunate cases like Russia, several factors compound each other.

The US is a huge country of over 300 million people and there are fairly large regional differences within it. In terms of state government and regulations Vermont and New Hampshire are quite different, but why is it that they are among the least corrupt states while, say, Mississippi, Florida and Illinois are among the most corrupt?

Good question, Evgeny. I’t much easier to bloviate on an internet blog then come up with ideas.

If you are talking about corruption, then the only way to minimize it is to make regulatory authorities less powerful, i.e. deregulate. Unfortunately both our countries are going exact opposite way right now, Russia leading by example of spawning monopolies right and left. Obama is trying to do the same.

Here is a good example of monopoly vs demonopolized market. There are two basic ways to ship a container of, say, lighting fixtures from Guangzhow to Nizhni Novgorod. 1: quick ocean freight to Vostochny, then on the railroad directly to Nizhni. 2: a long haul around India, through the Suez, to Bremen, reload on a feeder to ship to Kotka (Finland) or St. Pete, and then truck it to Nizhni.

The #1 above is 3 times more expensive then the #2. Why? Russian State Rail Monopoly vs. multiple operators competing. Government monopolism works in the same way across the board be it Customs, Rail, Gazprom or ГБР.

http://forum.tssi.ru/

Cyrill: What do you propose to improve the situation?

This has nothing to do with capitalism. It’s pure late feudalism when a regulatory authority is equipped with ability to forage off it.

And it’s everywhere from traffic cops and customs officers to almost all high and middle managers of the state monopoly pyramid including health care that is supposedly free.

And every regulatory department conveniently has a commercial “affiliate”. Regulatory entity imposes standards and its commercial affiliate inspects and certifies. Some capitalism, Sean.

Interestingly, internal migration in Russia is little studied to my knowledge. At least I don’t know of any historical treatments besides Hoffman’s and a book on Russian WWI refugees by Peter Gatrell called A Whole Nation Walking. Does anyone know what’s been published on the Russian side?

(English translation is rather shitty. It’s much better in Russian.)

“But it’s true, Vladimir Sergeevich!” – the mirthful Kostya exclaimed.
“Comrade chief inspector! The people really want to work! Do the gravity
surveyors want to work? They do. Do the relativists want to? They do as
well. I am not even talking about the cosmogonists, who squeezed in here
right over my dead body. And on Earth, another hundred and fifty are eager
as anything… Big deal, sleeping in a lift! What else, should they wait
till IBCC finishes the construction of a new station?”