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I want some of that
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Is it idealistic? My country in western Europe is pretty corruption free as far as anyone can tell. Seems perfectly achievable to me.
Just because your country legalizes its corruption and bribery does not make it "not corrupt". Your pirate ship being honest with its mode of operation, its objectives, and distribution of its loot does not negate its existence as an enterprise of plunder.
Consider: The wealth and living standard that western europe is sustained by is done through the exploitation of the developing world. Which means, as a bloc, those countries corrupt their own and their client states to accede to these exploitative relationships. What do you think ECOWAS and France are for if not for the exploitative relationship between France and its former colonies to maintain relationships of exploitation; what corruption do you think France makes their client states in ECWAS foster to undermine their own democratic processes in favor of the exploitation by France (and to a greater extent the entire Western world).
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.
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.
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...)
C'mon tell us where are you from so we can dunk on your chauvinism even harder
they're located in the netherlands, a country that, frankly, shouldn't exist. ridiculous language and ""culture"" that has contributed nothing to the world.
Hold on, the One True Democracy Enjoyer lives under a fucking monarchy?
Lmao very accurate username.
lol seethe more gouda eater
I wouldn't be here if I wasn't having fun. Gouda is overrated though. Prefer Edam.
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.
Right, that’s why you have this standard of living, not centuries of colonial exploitation of the Global South
We were prosperous long before that and are prosperous long after that.
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.
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?
After? It's ongoing
What do you think China is doing now?
Arresting one man instead of changing the system that lead to his corruption in the first place. Classic.
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.
ahh but the system that legalizes corruption and bribery -- that's ok and doesn't need changing because it protects your interests.