Why Corruption is China's Secret Weapon

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The high salary - low corruption theory is completely incorrect if you look at Brazil. Here, politicians make from 10 to 100 times the national average and we’ve got some of the nastiest corruption scandals ever, in every single branch of the public sector you can think of.

China's bureaucracy is something to marvel at. Outside it looks like a highly centralized system, with the premier having absolute power but inside it looks a lot more like a cartel with independent departments rivaling each other.

The graph at around 1:45 really does not demonstrate any kind of trend you can draw conclusions from. The amount of spread (range) on that X-axis is too little to support the trend line drawn.. You can probably get a better demonstration if you'd pick a random x-variable such as 'amount of rainfall, mm' or 'number of goats'. That's to say, the data doesn't support the premise being made.  It is fine to speculate and to have hypothesis, reasons and such- but to misconstrue a trend when the data doesn't support one.. ah. Otherwise, seems like a good video.

Regarding the statement at 12:16 about "millions of officials using public funds to play blackjack in Macau": While the general spirit of the statement is correct, if this guy really knew anything about Chinese people, he'd know that the kind of official who's going to Macau to gamble away public funds is going to be playing baccarat.

1:47 the X-axis might be a tad broken

9:30 - "All corruption is bad. But bad to who, when and how." - Hu, Wen and Hao: *visibly angered"

What you described is basically how China operated for two thousand years. Public servants have almost always been paid less and given other privilege compensations. It has been this way for many dynasties, it is just that the current government does a better job at maintaining positive feedback.

Hi guys — I've seen a lot of pushback against the graph trend line at 1:52. It's taken directly from a book we read called "China's Gilded Age" by a professor of economics named Yuen Yuen Ang. My mistake was to emphasize the trend line, when the relevant data is how much of an outlier China is compared to every other country. I shouldn't have shown the trend line here when it wasn't directly relevant. I encourage anyone still doubtful to check out the book (it really is good) for the full methodology, or even just check out some of Yuen Yuen Ang's talks online where she explains her research with much more context. -Evan

Interesting theory, and I'm not against it. But some of the data need double check or clarification. For example, "2015, 2% population paid any personal income tax". Personal income tax should be salary/wage income not overall personal income tax if you dig deep enough. Also public servants' income = basic wage + official allowance + unofficial compensation. official allowance > basic wage can be true based on position and location of the city, and these two are big parts. Unofficial compensation on the other hand is only minor benefit.

"He who wouldn't steal from the state, is he who deprives his family." - A common saying in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era.

I really like most of your videos and you often bring original and good points but be careful on this one. It feels like your whole video relies on the graph shown at 1:45 but this graph actually doesnt tell us anything. First because it uses the Absolute change in GDP which doesnt mean a thing when we want to compare every country together for that specific analysis and also this is really not significant as a trend. It could as well only be noise. I recreated the graph with the relative change instead of the absolute one and there's not much here either. I don't usually care that much about those types of mistakes as I do not expect every youtubers to be Experts in statistics but since this the main "reason" of the video is to prove that China goes against the trend (while there is actually no trend), I felt like you had to be aware of that so that you become more careful in your next videos Otherwise I really enjoy your content, keep it flowing!

Very informative. I'm a civil servant from the Philippines and though my salary isn't as massive, it is at least 20% higher than the minimum wage from the private sector. On my level just being a clerk, there's hardly any corruption (unless you're stealing office supplies.) But when you get to like chief of office levels, who already have significantly higher salaries, that's where I see the corruption come in. Make no mistake, at my level, I know people that handle funds and supply distribution. They can make funds and supplies disappear if they want and no one would notice but they never do. The higher ups, though, they got there because they want to siphon tax payers money for themselves. Sometimes I just ask, what are they going to do with all that money? They already have so much. Aren't their salaries enough?

Access money corruption can work for a while and can create huge growth like we see now in China, but it highly encourages monopolies so eventually there's no competition (because all of the access has been bought up). Then the economy no longer expands.

Been watching your channel for many years. Having studied China, you make great points. I think something that gets missed in the discussion is how unique China''s system is in how it functions. Not many would care to understand how land managemenet bureaus can basically pay for their staff's rent as a form of compensation, provided enough tax is retained. The US civil servants meanwhile don't get paid very well in DC, but private sector firms that deal with the government will hound them with salaries upwards of 4x what they made on the inside, often with less benefits overall but the salray is enticing. Quite the difference, imo.

"Paradoxically, this incredible economic growth was made possible by--" me: skillshare "--millions of officials..." Oh

Serious problem at #2:00 because *there is no trend line*. Nothing about this data cluster shows any kind of obvious correlation. Sure, you can pretend there should be one, and run the numbers, or PCE, or SVM, or any other classifier, but this is a text book example of a data set where trying to force a trend means you're trying to make the data tell your story, instead of the telling the data's story.

1:41 there is no trend on those data points, what the hell?

Having just taken the AP comparative politics test and the AP statistics test I’ve had to look at a lot of data and find trends in it but I have 0 clue how you find that trend line from your graph at 1:46

One of the earlier comments mentioned that this is how China has been operating in the last 2,000 years. Actually, it is quite true. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, every court appointed official was given a relatively modest salary. However, he is also expected to conduct his work using this salary (e.g. pay the salaries of public servants under him, carry out his day-to-day administrative duties, etc). As such, the salary is never enough. As a result, corruption occurs. It should be noted that by the Late Qing dynasty, there were even guidelines on corruption (陋规 or ugly rules) that were widely practiced (i e. how much money to take for what type of favours). Not all corruption was due to personal greed. There are also well known cases of corruption for good reasons. If I recall correctly, one member of the royalty, Prince Zaize, was overseeing reforms but as the court did not have enough money, he had to raise his own. So he had a rule where any court official who needs to meet him has to pay a bribe. If you don't pay, you don't get to meet him and will not be able to fulfill your administrative duties. But Prince Zaize would take every cent that was given to him and put it into the imperial coffers so that he can carry out his reforms. Another well know case is Zeng Guofan. One of his subordinates wrote in his diary that he would only take 20 taels of silver even though he is entitled to take hundreds of thousands of taels. Zeng just took the extra that he needed for his family to get by.