Article: Why is Spain so corrupt?

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deweyzeph

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Just read a fascinating article about corruption in Spain, and though that it had great relevance for South Africa too.

What do you guys think?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2009/03/why_is_spain_so_corrupt

THE provocative title of this posting is not my own. It is the headline from a thought-provoking, if not completely convincing, opinion piece published today in Spain's best newspaper, El País. The author, Víctor Lapuente Giné, is a Spanish political scientist transplanted to the chilly, rigorous world of the University of Gothenburg's Quality of Government Institute.

Against a familiar backdrop of multiple scandals in Spain, many of them involving property deals and local government, Dr Lapuente Giné asks why countries like Spain, France, Italy or Portugal "have for years shown levels of corruption and governance closer to those of developing nations with authoritarian governments, than advanced capitalist democracies, which have belonged to the OECD for decades".
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But Dr Lapuente Giné calls cultural arguments "dangerous and intellectually unsatisfying", because they muddle cause and effect. A growing number of studies show that countries develop a culture of distrust between different branches of society as a consequence of high levels of corruption, he writes.
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as we've all said to the few
 
Greece is also very corrupt from what I have heard. My Greek friend in Cape Town told me that Greeks are lazy fcks that just want and want and want and dont want to do the work. Because of them and their lifestyles that Greece is in so much crap. And he is Greek himself....well. ..... South African greek anyway.
 
Ockie said:
Greece is also very corrupt from what I have heard. My Greek friend in Cape Town told me that Greeks are lazy fcks that just want and want and want and dont want to do the work. Because of them and their lifestyles that Greece is in so much crap. And he is Greek himself....well. ..... South African greek anyway.
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Did you notice how their economy imploded?
 
I am surprised to see France mentioned. I would not have thought France is corrupt ... or at least as corrupt to be mentioned with those other countries. Italy I kind of new about.
 
Every country is corrupt. Some more than others obviously.

The perceived 'clean' ones just know how to cover their tracks well.
 
I agree with the OP article, the causes corruption are structural and situations like in Spain that sound similar to ours where the political parties wield so much power over the civil service is a recipe for corruption if there ever was one IMO
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Yeah, just mentioning 'cos your post is almost written as if this is all new information. :D
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Oh OK :-) Well ...reason why I thought about it now also is because my friend was here a few months ago and we went for dinner with his friend that lives in Joburg and his mother. All Greek. They slated Greece so badly at the dinner table that I kind of almost started to feel a little bad for Greece lol.:o
 
Ockie said:
And he is Greek himself....well. ..... South African greek anyway.
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shame ockie, poor guy
imagine if you had to get up at the 1st light of day to start shaving your mother's back & when you where done just after sunset, it was already growing back again.
Now he has to spend the rest of the evening shaving his mustache, then back to mom as the sun comes up again - poor bugger is going to want to take a shortcut or two :D
 
grantza said:
shame ockie, poor guy
imagine if you had to get up at the 1st light of day to start shaving your mother's back & when you where done just after sunset, it was already growing back again.
Now he has to spend the rest of the evening shaving his mustache, then back to mom as the sun comes up again - poor bugger is going to want to take a shortcut or two :D
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Surely you must know by now how I am bound to respond to that kind of post :p
 
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