October 11, 2009
Britain's Central Planning Death Panels
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Free Market M.D.
October 11, 2009
Economies of Scale in Compliance
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Balan's Challenge
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The Pleasure of Telling Others What to Do
October 10, 2009
Gonick the Great - and How He Could Have Been Greater
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More Scott Sumner
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Not From The Onion
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Thoughts on a Second Stimulus
Indeed.
My take on this paper might be to explain the difference between more- and less developed countries position on the left to right spectrum in terms of education.
For uneducated people - who cannot understand the abstract functioning of markets - the solution to corruption is paternalistic: to have strong, honest government. For medieval peasants, the hope was for a good just king like Richard Lionheart instead of a wicked corrupt king like King John - in the Robin Hood stories.
Naive people also think that corruption is caused by competition and greed, which they (correctly) associate with capitalism.
Since corruption is wicked, the solution is seen in terms of strengthening moral good. The state - as repository of the national culture is seen as good, parental - and so gets the jobs of fighting corruption.
The idea that corruption might be suppressed by economic growth/ a smaller state (ie. that does not so much influence the economy) is not supported by un-educated intuitions, it is an evolutionary novelty - known only by abstract analysis which you have to learn, and you have to have the intellectual capability of learning.
The voters might regard the amount of government intervention on behalf of the rich as constant, which would mean any increase in government intervention would be on the side of the poor.