What makes a govt form a good one?

[roquijad]

Based on a dicussion in the econ model thread, I'm initiating this topic to encourage people find out what makes a govt form and/or economic system (since they're related I'm putting them together) a good or bad one. The idea is to make possible a discussion that eventually will help models developers in their work, making those models better simulators of reality and world history.
Some open questions follow:
1) What makes a govt stable?
2) Is corruption more or less related to a specific govt. type?
3) What makes a centraly planned economy perform worse than a free market system?
4) Do multiethnic civs have a lower chance of success compared to monoethnic civs?
5) In what way culture affects the performance of an economy or a govt. type?
6) Clergy political power: does it keep a nation away from advancing technologicaly and/or economicaly?

Historians and sociologists are called!! So state your opinion now!

Rodrigo

[Lord God Jinnai]

I'll answer the ones I happen to know a little on right now that I can think of.

2) Is corruption more or less related to a specific govt. type?

In theory corruption would seem to be more apparent in monarchial/dicatorship type governments because of the fact that they hold virtual absoult power over everyone else. In practice however, this doesn't hold out since it doesn't incorperate the ideas that all people are corruptable, reguardless of their upbringing. So although it may be harder to corrrupt a system of government run by many indivisuals, most people IMO look at it through as though they themselves might want to corrupt that government, where it should be viewed that each person wants to have there influence and therefore tries to persuade as many as possible to their side.

3) What makes a centraly planned economy perform worse than a free market system?

First off there are disadvantages to a free market system. One is that prices do change and this can also affect the cost of living, esp when wages do not increase to meat this demand.

But as to the disadvantages of a centrally planned economy, one is that it does make it harder to cope with supply and demand. Also since a person/company may be resticted as to what they can produce/sell or the price they can sell it at, they will usually choose not to sell it if they can't make a profit, thus limiting the amount of goods for consumer use as well as raw materials.

4) Do multiethnic civs have a lower chance of success compared to monoethnic civs?

Can u be more specific as to what chance refers to?

5) In what way culture affects the performance of an economy or a govt. type?

A more religious culture will tend toward more mystic ideas, promote ethics, usually downgrade science. Culture can also affect how it reacts to other civs, esp wether or not it wants a isolationist policy. There's more but i can't think of much right now.

6) Clergy political power: does it keep a nation away from advancing technologicaly and/or economicaly?

It can, depending upon its influence and goals. If its goals are to keep the populous in virtual ignorance then yes it can and if strong enough it does. In more secular countries relgion doesn't really have this power.

[axi]

I am a slow poster (that's why I am stil a settler ), so please do not expect me to follow your pace in this discussion. I was not sure where to post this, but I decided to dump the political part here and post my opinion on planned economies in the Economic Development thread, some time in the future.

You know Mark, it isn't that I would like to have the penalties lifted from the totalitarian governments or the planned economies, but it is my belief that the negative or positive implications of such choices should not be awarded arbitrarily, through a certain percentile modifier or something like that. They should be applied as results of the inner workings of the chosen system and they should logically derive from them.

LGJ and Rodrigo have just made some extremely interesting comments, that touch the core of the problem, concerning the government model. The corruption of the state is proportionate to the corruption of the ruling body, whatever this is, a single dictator or the entire citizenry. The catch is that, since the whole population always follows a normal distribution curve, concerning those traits that mark a person's quality or corruptibility, then, if you pick a sample to be the rulers (so that the mean of their quality will characterize the quality of the state itself), the smaller the sample, the likelier it is for it's mean to deviate from the mean of the population. And truly enough, a dictator is much likelier to be the saviour or the demise of his nation than a parliamentary body, which will always make a fairly moderate ruler. A utopian democratic state, where the whole population participates in the government, will never be better or worse than it's people are.

Let us see now: we already have a character/dynasties model. Although in my opinion it is still quite obscure and needlessly complicated, we should try to consolidate it's links with the government and social models. If I understood it correctly, the trait "willpower" is the proper indicator for a character's corruptibility (If not, we should add such a trait). In that case, all we have to do is apply the proper modifier in the domains in which the character is affecting. If an anonymous group of people is concerned, it's corruption should be computed, using statistical methods (as mentioned above).

Here we should raise anothe question: What is a character's effects on the government in which he participates? This has not yet been thoroughly discussed, but here are a few of my thoughts:

a) According to the totalitarian/egalitarian outlook of the government (represented by the repartition of political power through the classes), the effect of a character in office should be greater in an authoritarian state, while that of a character that simply is a professional should be less. Par example, a good general (a MC member) should be more effective in a military junta (MC rule) than in a theocracy (RC rule).

b) Although the effects of most characters should be local and quite specific, the effects of the ruling character should be wide. The ruler should be able to make or brake a nation. This would cause interesting fluctuations in a civ's potential, since a great leader will not last long and, after his death, the civ's path to glory will come to an abrupt end. What is even more interesting is the player's position, when a charismatic leader knoks on his door: should he grant him dictatorial powers, in order to take full advantage of him, or make a milder use of him, by embedding him into the existent political system? The first choice yields more, but it leads posthumously to political instability and it might get him stuck with a series of corrupt despots, since dynasties (of any form) are bound to decline. If we would make the drawbacks of a really bad leader much more devastating than the respective advantages of a good one (an assumption which I believe to be a fact), that alone would prevent the player from sticking to the totalitarian way.

c) On the other hand, due to the nature of a one man rule, or an oligarchy, there are some things that any such ruler is susceptible to do, as opposed to a more democratic regime. First, an authoritarian regime is likelier to produce discontent among the non-ruling classes, leading to waste, inefficiency, low morale and rebellious spirit (I believe that this is covered by the government model). Conforming to the general unpopularity of the regime, is should be more likely that characters should come up with more negative alignments and there should even be a better chance of a radical, emerging to tear down the established order. This should happen even in the case of a charismatic leader, since people would then be ever more jealous of his position.

d) We should consider implementing the opinion that power is a corruptive force, which was held by many philosophers throughout the ages and also consists the cornerstone of anarchist thought. This does not mean that an all powerful leader should cause him or his nation to be wasteful or inefficient in a scientific, economic, or military aspect (The 3rd Reich was none of the above, although it was founded on power-worship and corrupt to the core). Corruption comes in a cultural aspect, making the regime (and ultimately the whole civ) more aggressive, militaristic, diplomatically untrustworthy, culturally insensitive, barbaric. This kind of attitude, especially if it impresses itself on the civilisation itself, could prove to be disastrous both in the internal and the external political front.

Before we go on discussing the above points, I feel that there are two existing model elements that need to be readressed:
a) From the government model: The role and substance of the Principle Class. I feel that it should consist of a distinguished part of one or more of the other classes rather than being a class of it's own. We should also consider the cases where one or more of the classes utterly vanish, both from the power and the population chart (E.g. there are no RC or UC in communism). How can we reach this situation? Under what circumstances can an extingushed class reappear?
b) From the Characters/Dynasties model: The whole traits system, which should be sorted out, in order to provide us with a few solid and well understood modifiers to interact with the other models.


------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[roquijad]

LGJ: multi/mono ethnic civs: The main question in my mind is what exactly makes unstable a large civ. Is it the difference in the culture of peoples under the same regime? Other factors may help, such as bad communications, but, Can different cultures under the same govt influence unstability?

On axi's point c):
I don't agree. A one-man ruling will make people more Anti or more Pro only in a degree given by his acts and not by the fact of being a dictator. Hitler in Germany and Tito in Yugoslavia are examples of dictators with wide support from the masses and the "jealous" factor does not convince me at all. If the ruler does what the people want, the Anti feeling shouldn't go up much.

On Mark's Chinese example:
I'm not sure corruption should include such effects like that you mention. The emperor decision there was simply a bad decision. A player in Clash can take bad decisions and those bad decisions can happen in a democracy (vietnam) or in a dictatorship. Saying that corruption penalties reflect also bad ruling decisions is like saying a priori that the ruler/player is a bad ruler.

A simple proposal: I like what Axi is saying about getting models more related with each other to reflect things like corruption and how your civ's people affect the govt. What about not considering chars affecting govt, but using social model's meta-agents? Agents represent the culture of a particular group. Meta-agents are agents for greater (added) groups. Suppose you have an attribute in agents like "corruption tendency". The meta-agent will also have a value for that attribute built using agents values. That value we can use to acount the culture factor on corruption and with it (and possibly using other variables we believe are important) determine corruption penalties for the econ and govt models. This is good from the point of view that some players don't like chars and because it's a way to include the cultural factor in corruption.

Another simple way to simulate corruption is axi's power corruptive force: If the ruler/player has a large pol.power, we can lower public funds to simulate the dictator getting some money to himself. So, each turn, if tax collection totals X, the player is only left with 80%X to play, FE. The number (80%) may depend on the magnitude of ruler's pol.power. Having less money to do things would make a dictatorship harder to play.

Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Axi:

Thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking post. Although I'm not quite happy with the extent of my analysis of it so far, I think at least my thought processes are such that what I say won't be completely incoherent! So I will bravely charge on with my thoughts about it at this point.

First, your point about not having model affects arbitrarily assigned is a completely valid one. But I have what I think is an equally valid counterpoint. I think at this point in the design it would not be prudent to require that the character model be used for vital and central functions of the government model. In a few words, some players won't Like characters. They will want to turn them off. If characters are absolutely required to balance the government model this will be impossible. So, at least as I see it, that is one fundamental problem with your proposal.

My second major point, is that in your write-up you treat corruption as if it exists in a vacuum. And that a person is either corruptible, incorruptible, or somewhere in between depending solely on themselves. I think that the culture and environment that a person grows up in are Absolutely Critical to determining the corruptibility an individual. Therefore, if we were to use the character model to generate corruption levels for different government forms, there would in my opinion need to be a feedback between the existing governmental form and culture when the character grew up and their tendency toward corruption.

My third difficulty with your proposal, is that I was using corruption as a stand-in for other additional factors. Specifically, even a totalitarian leader that is not corrupt in any way, can still through honestly held beliefs, seriously derail the progress of his or her society. One example of this was the closing off of oceangoing trade by a succession of Chinese emperors, I IRC in the early 1400s. I believe these emperors acted in good faith on the behalf of their people, believing the biggest threat to them was from the pastoralist nomads of the steppes. However, these emperors did not see that the true threat to China lay in its ossification and insulation from the outside world. My views on this subject are fairly well mirrored in the excellent book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy. A more pluralist society in China, would very likely not have embarked on such an extreme course, and history of the last 500 years might have turned out rather differently because of that.

I believe that the above pointis a big problem given that the player knows how history is likely to unfold. Specifically, if the totalitarian leaders in history always had a clear vision of the future, totalitarianism would work Much better than it does in the real world. This is also true, but to a much lesser extent, for less authoritarian systems. The totalitarian leader is much better able to harness the complete resources of the society in a particular direction. This is just another case where I want the system to avoid being biased In Favor of totalitarian regimes.

I also have some reservations about how your proposal would actually work out in gameplay. I think it would be very frustrating for the player to have huge swings in the capacity of absolutist government over relatively short period of time. We will already have the somewhat with characters, for instance when the great conquering general disappears, and I think putting such swings into the capabilities of the whole civ, in a strong fashion, will result in the game that's Not Fun. I want to stress, that I don't think this is unrealistic, but I think it will make for a very frustrating game experience. Of course, we could arbitrarily tone this down if it turned out to be too bad. But in toning it down, I think we would need to put back in an "arbitrary bias" in order to preserve what I think are the real-world problems of absolutist systems.

I do especially like in your point b about the difficult choices that this would present the player with. However, I think with the current dynasty model that such choices are already there, if perhaps toned down a bit from what would result from your model.

I completely agree with your point c.

[axi]

Concerning Rodrigo's remark on point c) of my previous post:
A dictator, like any other ruler, represents the player, and as such, he always has to face the consequences of his actions. There are two ways for a corrupt dictator to persist on his ways, in spite of the Anti feeling that his behaviour provokes: One, he could be a character with exceptional charisma, able to sway the opinion of the masses and evoke fanatism. Two, he could make use of force, to liquidate all his enemies and to impose a reign of terror.

Hitler, in Clash terms, is an extremely corrupt, althow somewhat efficient ruler, with an exceptional charisma ( corr 1/20, effi 13/20, char 19/20 or sth like that). He made extensive use of force and all the anti-Nazi elements (socialists, communists, etc) were the first to visit his concentration camps, so it's not that the opposition didn't exist, they unfortunately didn't survive . He made use of his charisma to make fanatic dupes of the German LC. He treated the UC the bait of uncontrollable profits through the exploitation of the subject races. He gave the MC all they ever dreamed of: guns and conquest. He kept a strict understanding of mutual non-interference with the RC. Finally, he severely victimised the Minors Class (represented by minorities like Jews, gypsies, homosexuals etc) which had the least political power and could not react.

Tito on the other hand was rather good as dictators go, quite efficient and moderately charismatic (so I give him say corr 11/20, effi 16/20, char 14/20) and btw was one of the few who managed to make the best of a multinational state with a long history of nationalistic struggles (hence the whole chaos and turmoil over Yugoslavia, which originated from the void that his death caused). So his actions went in favour of him concerning the people's opinion. Nevertheless, even he had to revert to coercion, in order to suppress nationalistic feeling throughout the country and also to neutralise the early opposition (chiefly a guy named Michailovic).

On the other hand, I totally agree with your remark concerning the Chinese example.

As for your proposal, I believe that it is a way to make things easier for us, and to solve the problem of the optional use of the characters model. It would be great to have a meta-agent to represent each power group. You have studied the models extensively - I have not.

As for the last point, you're kidding, right? 20% of MY country's public funds is approx 8 billion $. What the hell would I do with all that money on my own?

Now, to adress some of Mark's points:

I think that Mark's second point is very interesting, right in the spirit of Clash. I am pondering that this effect, streched into a fair amount of game time has even the chance to lead to 1984 type worlds, or, in the other end, Utopia itself. Yeees, veeery interesting...

Concerning the gameplay worries, I believe that there is a major decision to be taken here, which will affect the whole game outlook. I peronally dislike the stability of the civ2 and ctp games and would not like to see this repeated in Clash. I believe that the fluctuations in a civ's capacity will actually enhance gameplay, by bringing up sth new every 20 or so turns. Anyway, if a player is good at picking his crew, he won't have any problems with that. A good solution for him will be to go more democratic, so that the characters effects will be reduced (evened out). If anybody has a real problem with that, well he should play characterless.

Taking the cue from the above remark, let me raise a new question. Will the AI civs be exactly identical in function with the player civ? I am afraid that for simplicity they have to be characterless, and maybe devoid of other (mostly internal) functions as well. I am also afraid that this question belongs to some other thread...


------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Paul Crocker]

I apologize to LGJ if he actually made these points in his posting, but I had trouble interpreting his thoughts (you might want to clarify your ideas a little more if I missed the point - sorry, I just don't always understand your short-hand ).

Regarding point #2 (corruption), certain gov't forms certainly DO have greater corruption than others. It's not just a question of people all having the ability of being corrupt, but it also depends on the vulnerability of the system of gov't itself to corruption. The less efficient (read: bureaucratic) the system, the more likely it is to be corrupted. I would argue that this is exactly the cause of a lot of problems in American gov't today. Firsthand experience has shown me the problems inherent in a system that relies so heavily on bureacracy to accomplish the day-to-day work of the gov't. Petty politics and ambitions strip efficiency out of the system through every level of business. There ARE benefits to the system as well, as there is some security in diluting the power base, but you lose a lot of the accountability in the process (pro or con...hmmmm)

Disadvantage of command economy vs free market = loss of initiative to improve on anything. #1 disadvantage in my book.

Also, I disagree that religion is ALWAYS averse to the development of science. That is often the case, but hardly always. Otherwise, if I understood you correctly, your other points seem on the mark with everything that I've read/learned.

[F_Smith]

Hi:

Can I spend my 2 cents here?

I believe a 'planned' economy loses to a 'free' market system specifically because of flexibility.

The theory for 'planned' economics is that a single, powerful person can more effectively focus/deploy the resources of any system/organization. In practice this has always lead to one of two flaws.

1. No one has all the answers. This is the biggie, Stalin proved this perfectly. No one leader can always correctly know what next direction/product/goal/research is needed. A 'free' system, in which people with different ideas are allowed to try those ideas, can therefore better respond to the ever-changing real world. No one knows what will be required for success ten years from now.

2. Micromanaging everything from the top is impossible, inefficient, and a stress nightmare!!!.

The 'curse of beauracracy'. People at the bottom become afraid, unwilling, unable to make decisions that must be made on a day-to-day basis without orders from the top. A 'one-size-fits-all' approach dominates the organization, which causes the system to serve only needs that a mass of people share. Very little or no 'market-segmentation' is possible.

I also believe that the more power concentrated in fewer hands, the more corruption will affect the system.

There will always be corruption. In all systems. The entire goal (genius?) of our 'beauracratic' system is to limit the damage any single corrupt person can cause. But all govt systems will have a large level of corruption, period. As long as people earning $80k a year control millions in assets/contracts/etc. It's the nature of the beast.

Altho that said, I agree with Mark that culture will greatly influence this. Living here in Texas, the Mexican culture completely accepts/glorifies the mordida/payola system. As a culture, the ideal is to get a piece of the graft, not to stomp it out.

But even a utopian culture will have corruption.

Thanks for letting me ramble. I don't get much time to do this kind of thing anymore.
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited January 03, 2000).]

[Paul Crocker]

F Smith: Regarding your thoughts (rambles? ) on bureacracy...Well put! You phrased it better than I ever could. I was just trying to make the point that all governments (contrary to the civ model) experience some form of corruption, and that democracies are no exceptuion. I really hope that we can factor this into the Clash models in some form or another.

[Mark_Everson]

Well, I Have To Defend Myself on the "China Question"

Perhaps my problem was that I did not pick a sufficiently boneheaded example! For those who haven't read the whole thread, my point is that totalitarian rulers are capable of doing some particularly stupid things that no governmental form with a broader base "at the top" would ever do. And that if we did not account for such effects by hobbling the player who runs a totalitarian regime, we risk presenting the image that totalitarianism is a better form of government.

I'm only going to give three examples because I'm pressed for time. Examples of boneheadedness in totalitarian regimes that Far exceed any stupidity I can think of that has come out of a democratic system:

China: The Cultural Revolution & the Great Leap Forward (Backward)
Cambodia: Massacring a Substantial Percentage of Population, and Deindustrializing the Country
(feel free to add your own...)

I too think Rodrigo's approach of at least partly using the culture to indicate corruption is a good one. Perhaps we can work something out that will keep everyone happy.

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited January 03, 2000).]

[roquijad]

A. I'm not sure we're using the same definition for "corruption", Axi... It seems to me you include in corruption such things as using force against people.... am I wrong?

B. I think you're going to far, F_Smith. A centraly planned economy is not ment to be managed by a single person, that's simply dictatorship. In communism the govt is supposed to determine econ activities, but in no way that govt should be ruled by a single powerful person. I do agree communism has a huge lack of flexibility, but to state that's because of a single guy is really mixing dictatorship with an economic system.

A simple survey for you all on the corruption issue (considering corruption only as stealing govt money and going above the law like in mexican "mordidas") follow. I'm trying to see if we agree on some points. Please respond yes/no:
1) Does culture affect corruption (increase/decrease it)?
2) Is the size of the State (beauracracy) an important element to determine corruption levels?
3) Is the level of investment in the justice system and law enforcement another important element?
4) Does poverty encourage corruption?
5) The fewer the people with power, the more
corrupt a govt is?
5) Would you say the above 4 are the MAIN variables determining curruption?

[Lord God Jinnai]

1) Does culture affect corruption (increase/decrease it)?

Yes, but only slightly. Religion is what mainly affects it so if you consider that part of culture then it would a lot more.

2) Is the size of the State (beauracracy) an important element to determine corruption levels?

Generally no because each person would have a certain level of corruptablility and it would just be evened out at differnt levels. Besides a low man on the totem pole is just as likely to take a bribe (or not) as a higher up offical.

3) Is the level of investment in the justice system and law enforcement another important element?

Yes, so long as the system itself isn't corrupt. Well maybe not on justice system since it could very well be biased to serve a particular person/group(s).

4) Does poverty encourage corruption?

This one is tough. I'd really haveto say no because they wouldn't have the money. Instead it encourages crime. Sure there still will corruption at that level, esp if there is a welfare like system, but i don't think it encourages it.

5) The fewer the people with power, the more
corrupt a govt is?

No, just the more evident it is. When there's just a few people its easy to point fingers and hard to hide behind anyone else. The thing is the people in charge of a democracy are just as human as those in a communist government.

5) Would you say the above 4 are the MAIN variables determining curruption?

Well since i argued against most of them no.

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LGJ: multi/mono ethnic civs: The main question in my mind is what exactly makes unstable a large civ. Is it the difference in the culture of peoples under the same regime? Other factors may help, such as bad communications, but, Can different cultures under the same govt influence unstability?
-----

Sorry i didn't answer this sooner. Usually what makes a civ unstable is several variables. Major conflicting religions, major conflicing cultures (by major i mean basically polar opposites in several areas or and low toleration), high class divisions (few rich rule lot poor) but only if the poor think they're being treated unfairly, Major debts a civ is unable to pay off, continous barbarian invasions that can't be easily coped with (Rome is a good example of that). About the only things that could keep some of these coherant for a while (such as polar opposites) would be a common powerful enemy or suppression.

[Bizmut]

First thing first, me...
I'm Buddhist, then Democratic/Communist...
(Just a question of allowing you guys/girls to understand better the vagueness of some of my following statements(YIKES! That was 'vague' enough! )

--------
THE GAME
--------
I don't want to repeat what someone else has already said, but here is it anyway:
This is a game, it's not reality. The game can simply NOT be a copy of reality so just stop trying to make it a copy of reality...
Instead, just make rules that will make a fun game and then gives name to the things in the game so that it looks like a copy of reality, but in any case DON'T DO IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND... (That is getting a list a things similar to reality and then patching rules around to make everything work together...)

----------
CORRUPTION
----------
Simply, corruption is not a question of government, it's a question of 'free-will'...
The more 'free-will' an entity has, the more it is/can-be corrupted...
If an entity has no 'free-will', that entity simply CAN'T be corrupted!

Maximum 'free-will' for everyone = maximum potential corruption
Minimum 'free-will' for everyone (including ruler(s)) = minimum potential corruption

But then, there is corruption AND efficiency(and also a bunch of other things)

----------
EFFICIENCY
----------
Perfect Efficiency = The best way to do something while include all factor(which are reality in it's sum)

Perfect efficiency is impossible, and, actually, everything the man has done so far could be compared has an hamster in an hamster's wheel: 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000001% efficiency... (and even there, I'm making it look better for man that it realy is)

On a more mundane scale, efficiency can me compared to 'brain-power' (human's that is)
The more one task has 'brain-power' the more efficient it will become... Each entity has a certain amount of 'brain-power' that allows it to learn ways of doing a certain task... The more 'free-will' that entity has over that task, the more 'brain-power' it can use on it...

Total 'Free-Will': Max. Potential Corruption, Max. Efficiency.
No 'Free-Will' (including ruler(s)): Min. Potential Corruption, Min Efficiency.

----
LAWS
----
The laws are the wisdom of the community...
By themselves, laws ARE 'Brain-power', maybe not intelligent, but at least knowledge.
If the law system is 'universaly perfect', then that law system is providing perfect efficiency by itself, so there is no need for individual 'Brain-power', thus no need for 'Free-will' and at same time 'corruption'...
But that's a 'perfect' case...

As a general rule, the more a system has good laws, the less 'free-will' it's entity should have...
(Because increasing 'free-will' over a certain point will increase 'corruption' more than 'efficiency')
Sadly thought, our law systems are still very poor, so we still need to use most of the 'brain-power' that we can get... That's the reason why anarchy based system (capitalism/fachism/etc.) are working better right now...

That's all I have to say (for now)

Bismuth(Iannick Daniel)
idaniel@biosys.net
PS.: Could anyone copy me the Civ2 Map Editor (I have Civ2Tot and I can't edit a damn map, it's driving me nuts)
[This message has been edited by Bizmut (edited January 05, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

Hi, again:

roquijad--
I believe that a centrally planned economy puts entire industries in the control of one person (or at most a committee). Like the U.S. publicly managed education system. And the lack of flexibility in those systems is nigh unto legendary.

1) yes, culture affects corruption. Esp religous/moral/philosophic cultural attributes.

2) not in my opinion, no. The size of the state is not much of a factor. The term 'banana republic' comes to mind.

3) yes, law enforcement and justice system quality must be a factor.

4) no, not poverty. Not for corruption, really. Unless you mean poor govt officials -- then yes.

5) absolutely yes. The smaller and more powerful the govt officials, the greater the payoff for a payoff.

Bizmut--
I consider myself a secular Taoist, if that makes any sense.

Personally, I believe that one job of a game designer is to make games that are as 'realistic' a simulation as possible, and to then make rules that are as real and playable as possible. A great game is one which is both playable and real. One of my favorite things about gaming is to vicariously live out a reality.

But that's just me.

And I'd still say that corruption is a function of $80k a year govt managers controlling tens of millions of $$$ in contracts/rights/regulations/etc. As long as that is true, corruption will be a fact of life.

How many here, if elected, would turn down that free ski trip to Colorado the tobacco company offers as a 'conference'?

[Lord God Jinnai]

Bizmut-
My main point I wanted to know is if Efficency is attributed to one person or as a whole because the larger the state that must be governed, reguardless of free will, the less efficent it will become.

F_Smith-

Wow! Until I met you I was the only one I knew who considered himself a Secular Taoist.

Anyway the point i wanted to make with you is in response to number 3.
-----
3) yes, law enforcement and justice system quality must be a factor.
-----
This is only the case if the judical system is not under the direct control of corrupt leadership, such as the US system, where the judical system is independant. Throughout history though, courts were usually biased toward religion of some sort, or were in control of leaders, both of which would convict or release people for their own means.