Modernjan wrote:Even if that were true (I can't claim anything on that either way because I doubt reliable records about corruption in the 19th century exist) it doesn't disprove my theory that culture influences how much one is inclined to corruption (because there may simply have been less opportunity for corruption in 19th century Brazil, possibly because there were fewer large organizations, or maybe the corruption just went unnoticed/unrecorded). Of course it's not the only factor (history and inequality also contribute).
Well, there weren't statistics and indexes for perception of corruption back then. There are, however, numerous examples of magazines and newspapers from the time. And, when people compare them to publications from modern days, the difference is quite clear. There were no corruption scandals back then. If you take all modern brazilian publications, you will find corruption scandals every week. There was no such thing back then.
Of course, one can claim that corruption could have gone unnoticed, but that is probably not the case. Brazil suppressed censorship in the press in 1821. Unlike most of the world (especially in the Americas), we remained a politically stable constitutional and parliamentary monarchy through all of the 19th century. There were two main parties (liberals and conservatives), each with their own publications. And besides that, there were several republican and even apolitical publications. And they all criticized the governments all the time, telling what they did wrong, criticizing economic policies and legislation passed etc. The entire press was keeping an eye on all government institutions, so it is hard for corruption to have gone unnoticed.
For example it's clear from the chart in the OP's post that historically Catholic countries are much more corrupt than historically protestant countries, really the only exception seems to be tiny Ireland. Brazil and Portugal are historically Catholic countries, Denmark is historically a Protestant country. I'm saying "historically" here because the historic religion heavily influences contemporary values, work ethic, etc... even for atheists living in that society. This is in tune with the Catholic motto of "you can get away with everything, go to heaven, as long as people don't find out and you go to confession" vs. the Protestant motto of "you'll go to hell if you do something bad because god sees everything, period". I myself am an atheist but i've lived in both historically Catholic and Protestant countries and regions and found that the difference really shows in local culture and its values, even among atheists.
That is a valid hypothesis, but there are certainly exceptions, as you noted. Ireland is one. Chile and Uruguay are about as corrupt as the US (which is historically protestant as well). Belgium, France and Spain aren't that far from the UK or the US, either. Germany, despite being the place of birth to Lutheranism, remained majorly catholic for most of its history. Switzerland has been historically half catholic and half protestant as well. Austria has always been predominantly catholic. And I could go on and on with flaws in your hypothesis, but I'll stop it there, because that is more than enough to refute it.
I mean, I agree with you that corruption comes with culture, but that is political culture, not religion or anything of that sort. Countries with higher indexes are those that have traditionally had stable and powerful political institutions. That is why countries like Austria, Chile and Uruguay remained with low corruption levels, whereas Brazil and Italy remain quite corrupt. In the case of Brazil, for example, after 1889, we became a political hellhole. there were no stable governments at all, except for the dictatorial ones, which were heavily fought against and eventually fell. After the military regime was terminated here, in 1985, they went as far as creating new parties, a new constitution, new institutions etc. All of that creates political instability and leaves the doors open to corruption (and yes, I, as a Brazilian, am saying that the current corruption problems in Brazil all started in the last 30 years, because of the abrupt change of regime). There wasn't this much corruption during the military era (though it existed). And there wasn't much corruption before, either.
Now, in countries that, despite the existence of dictatorships, managed to keep most institutions intact, like Chile (which managed to do that, despite the new constitution), there wasn't a political revolution that led to a completely new elite, seeking power. So the doors were never opened to corruption, like it happened in Brazil. That's what the Corruption Perception index tells us, not that catholics are more corrupt, as you claim...
My point is that if you leave all the laws, systems, infrastructure and businesses intact in Sweden, but replace the 9.4 million Swedes with 9.4 million Italians, then the corruption index of Sweden would plummet from it's current 9.2 to something closer to Italy's 3.9.
Not necessarily. That really depends on who those 9,4 million Italians will be. Stable political institutions and the trust in the government matter more in that case than anything. But yes, I agree that you can't change things that abruptly. If you replace 9,2 million Swedes by 8,4 million Austrians, it is likely that the index would go down to near 8 a bit. But since the political institutions in Sweden are probably stronger and more stable, the tendency would be for it to go up again. It would be the same with Italians, though that would probably take longer...
Nice thought exercise, though
Disclaimer: I'm talking about culture and culture alone. I'm not claiming any of this has to do anything with ethnicity or genes whatsoever: if a Somali family adopted a Swedish baby he would grow up to be corrupt, if a Swedish family adopted a Somalian baby he would grow up to be incorruptible.
Good, that makes you just half wrong
PoFo ethnic party statistics: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8&p=14042520#p14042520
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