Corruption, Assimilation and Debt

Thieves of State

"Thieves of State" is about a particular form of society - sadly perhaps the most common form of society - a kleptocracy. "Thieves" goes into a lot of detail about how individuals are drawn into (assimilated into) this form of society ("dragon"). The examples allow us to drill down to get a close-up view of how assimilation takes place, how it is almost inevitable and why it is so difficult to resist.

It's hard to find an example of a social form that doesn't feature a "strongman" (usually but not always male) with built-in mechanisms that draw group resources to the strongman and his immediate family. This is as true of a Canadian "first nation" as it is of the Trump administration in the USA.

Chayes describes how this phenomenon permeates the whole society in a kind of fractal structure, with layer upon layer of mini-strongmen paying up to the strongmen above them while extracting resources from humans below them in the pyramid. We may think of this structure as the skeleton of the dragon. Its joints are made strong by the bonds of mutual protection and flow of resources up and down the structure.

Mid-level strongmen (who may be humble officials such as border guards or policemen) are bound to the system by being laughably underpaid (making bribes necessary for daily survival) and the debt incurred by buying the position in the first place (There is an echo here: the theme of "debt strangulation", where 99% of the population is in debt to the top 1%). The exchange involved is not just for money. It involves the tacit assumption that anyone in the structure will be protected by all the others. For example, the corrupt border guard can be assured that nobody in the police force will prosecute him for his involvement in smuggling drugs. In mature kleptocracies, protection of corruption is burned into law, especially protecting individuals from prosecution, stripping debtors of rights, making corrupt courts accessible only to the corrupt. "Freelance corruption" can be framed as "crime", allowing the kleptocracy to attack its rivals with the full force of law.

I wonder if these structures arise out of almost physical or mathematical necessity out of the way that basic human needs are met more efficiently by larger and larger groups of humans. Within these groups networks of control, obligation, power and wealth quickly lead to kleptocracy. Another interesting question is whether the same conditions work in a "free" society to produce dramatic inequality. "Capitalism" tends to give free reign to these forces. Debt is the lifeblood of capitalism, creating "legal" bonds that may be structurally identical to those in more "primitive" kleptocracies.

"Socialism" can be seen as a counter-force against the natural tendency for power and wealth to concentrate whether or not the society can be described as an overt kleptocracy. On the other hand, there is a distressing tendency of even "socialist" governments to be captured by networks of obligation, mutual assistance, and general desperation. From this point of view, we may see all of politics as corruption versus socialism. We see that socialism requires extensive state intervention and strict rule of law since the natural order of society (unregulated) is to slip into kleptocracy. In the US, the key difference between Republicans and Democrats is the Republican insistence that all regulation be dismantled (most recently the EPA and consumer protection), while the Democrats see more and more programs and regulations as needed to create a just society.

This question would seem to be something that could be addressed empirically and historically - perhaps in the form that "Thieves of State" takes. Are there countries that successfully counteract the natural tendency to become "kleptocratic"? In "Thieves", Chayes points out a range of policies (all ignored) the US can employ to avoid support of corruption in states it is trying to "stand up", like Afghanistan. Is there a set of similar policies that could be adopted as part of a political platform of a socialist party, such as the Canadian NDP? Such policies would focus on issues such as undermining the power of the banks and freeing people from the chains of "rents" that flow up the pyramid to the rich and powerful.

I provide a related rant on money and debt in another post.