Why America keeps building corrupt client states

https://www.economist.com/international/2021/08/22/why-america-keeps-building-corrupt-client-states

by amai • 5 years ago

23 20 5 years ago

Ah empires primary tool is its army. And a army can be ordered around comfortable, without any resistance but those of supply physics.

Is it really that miraculous, that politicians and secret services expect the same behaviour and control interfaces from the puppets they install? They go for what they know and what they know results into always the same outcome. If they do not obey there masters, they crackt he financial whip.

Imagine, if the afghans voted for swiss style direct-democracy, with every Kanton a small country. No control interface, but - oh sweet irony, a government model proofen to work in a mountainous region, famous for its mercenaries throughout Europe.

PS: Swiss had the last county to ratify womans voting rights in the 1990s, what is it with mountains that makes some men go macho.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...

donpott• 5 years ago

what is it with mountains that makes some men go macho..

I remember reading a hypothesis on this phenomenon in Steven Pinker's "The better angels of our nature". If memory serves, it was because mountain societies, like that of the appalachians, tended to be naturally more honor-based. So keeping one's family's reputation was very important. This resulted in more conservative societies.

I'm definitely not making justice to the argument, but I found it interesting. Can recommend the book for a delve on this.

Bellamy• 5 years ago

Corruption is usually defined as the abuse of public office for private gain.

Who do you think when you read this definition?

AussieWog93• 5 years ago

I think of the politician I voted against in the last election, but not the one I voted for.

inglor_cz2• 5 years ago

America runs on money and thus tries to solve problems with money. The USSR ran on propaganda and thus tried to solve problems with propaganda. Taliban runs on Islam and thus will try to solve problems with Islam. Mongol Empire ran on quick cavalry and cavalry was their way of solving problems too...

And it applies domestically as well. I would argue that, e.g. American education system is one huge corrupt client state and you can't even withdraw from that one and leave it to random mujahideen to run.

FooBarBizBazz2• 5 years ago

America runs on money and thus tries to solve problems with money.

Thought experiment:

What if you just accepted this and went all-in on it, with a dash of MMT and tech, as follows...

Give every Afghan a smartphone.

Lock it way down. Provide a social networking platform that you can monitor. Include a "Fed.ly" banking app. You can control account balances.

Also build stores that accept Fedbucks, to ensure they have value. Basically, Fedbucks would be backed by food, and stuff from China.

Next, require some time consuming activity of Afghans, which is not too obnoxious, but which can't be faked. It needs to produce trustworthy proof-of-work.

For example, it could be like Pokemon Go, with GPS trajectories being proof of work. Or CAPTCHAs. Or taking photographs or videos of different places. Or any combination of these activities. Actually, if you do the GPS waypoint thing, you could have them carry passengers while they're at it.

(You could also imagine using Jira tickets for this, but the interface is a little too clunky.)

Then, on receipt of proof-of-work, deposit money into the accounts.

People will be too busy with these activities to fight you. That activity -- which provides them with food and flip-flops -- will be much easier than fighting. And it will also be easier than whatever they had done before to earn a living. So they will do it.

And if ever you start to see resistance, just increase the wages. Eventually people will comply.

In a way, this was the model behind the Afghan Army. It was UBI in exchange for bullshit. But it kept those men out of trouble, so long as the US was paying.

My proposal is that this model be rolled out, indefinitely, across the entire country, and made attractive enough that even members of the Taliban will do it.

If you insist that this system actually produce economic output, you could organize activities in support of mining or other sectors.

The key is that it has to be much more profitable for an individual to play along, than either to grow poppies, or to fight back.

If you hype it properly, you might even be able to fund it with Softbank money.

inglor_cz2• 5 years ago

This sort of expects that the population is literate.

tonyedgecombe3• 5 years ago

We could have just poured in more aid instead of arms. Afghanistan is the poorest country in the world. We should have been offering a helping hand before it got so bad.

powerslacker• 5 years ago

Interesting idea. I think you're underestimating the commitment of the people of Afghanistan to Islam. Their culture and religious values are more important to them than flip flops and food. Certainly there are some Afghans who would rather eat well and live comfortably, but I wouldn't call it a majority. Violent Islamists aren't just fighting the West because it is a profitable endeavor, they have an entirely different set of values about what is right and what is wrong. Even those who are not violent have a fundamentally different viewpoint about moral, spiritual, and political values than what is typical in the USA and Europe. Your thought experiment is remarkably similar to the politicians in the US who thought they could bribe people to take the COVID vaccines. People do respond to incentives, but only to a certain extent — there are huge numbers of people in this world who have a value system that takes 'profit' out of the equation.

rodp• 5 years ago

You have basically described most economies.

anm89• 5 years ago

Proposing to destroy your own currency in a misguided attempt to redistribute wealth to your own citizens is understandable.

Proposing to destroy your currency to redistibute wealth from your citizens to another country's citizens is a profound failure to understand the incentives that policy makers face

tonyedgecombe3• 5 years ago

It seems to be general problem for the West. Not just for states but also individuals. Somehow we have trained ourselves to reach for the credit card to solve every problem.

amai• 5 years ago

But not every client state turned out to be so corrupt that it collapsed immediately. Japan and Western Germany after the second world war for example did quite well despite being occupied by the US. Other examples are South Korea and Taiwan. What did they do different at that time? It seems the US somehow lost the know-how on how to create stable client states after Vietnam.

distances• 5 years ago

I'm no historian, but both Germany and Japan were industrialized, highly educated, stable societies with strict hierarchies and a culture of following orders. I don't think Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan can reasonably be compared.

MichaelZuo• 5 years ago

Also both countries had at least one very big reason to not be corrupt sitting close by.

Proven• 5 years ago

And which state is not corrupt?

It's easy to solve this problem: use real money and the ability to destroy by waging wars disappears.

The UK and EU are also corrupt client states - or kingdoms or unions, as the case may be - whose elites benefit from that corruption. That's why it continues to go on.

tonyedgecombe3• 5 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

jhanschoo• 5 years ago

The article's discussion of corruption reminds me of a podcast about corruption that distinguishes between three kinds https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-how-corruption-w...

haspoken• 5 years ago

https://archive.is/awixJ

Why America keeps building corrupt client states

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