The evidence of the dangers of tribalism is overwhelming, as noted by the US academic Jonathan Schulz. Corruption grows like a cancer, since kickbacks are regarded not as immoral but as the highest form of virtue. An official who extracts a bung to issue, say, a permit will share that money with his faction. He is ripping off a stranger to help his kin — an act that is celebrated. You see the same with nepotism. When a politician gives a job to a fellow clansman, he may be undermining the meritocracy of society, but he is helping one of his own.
What’s remarkable is that politicians and economists are oblivious to these realities. They haven’t realised that a high rate of cousin marriage in a society isn’t just a predictor of an elevated ranking on the international corruption index, but also of weaker democracy, feebler rule of law, lower GDP and fewer voluntary blood donations.
Economists aren’t obvlivious to this, economists are pointing it out.
Sigh.
High trust society and all that….
No point in tackling symptoms, tackle the source.
Tribesmen get sent back to their tribal homelands, because airports work in both directions.
We know exactly how to deal with corruption. Reduce the activity that requires the signature of a public official (preferably to zero).
And for the 3rd time today I refer you to the Islamic Republic of Bradistan…
Anne Cryer, MP for Keighley, was howled down in HoC many moons ago in the Blair era for pointing out the many problems generations of 1st cousin marriages were causing…
Having said that, she only got elected because her sitting husband died. Labour and nepotism and pandering to an ethnic minority all in one neat package.
Funnily enough the number of window lickers buses has increased exponentially
City of Culture 2025
Did the underlying research consider whether there might be an underlying factor that is both an indicator of cousin marriage, as well as of all the other awful symptoms identified?
“They haven’t realised that a high rate of cousin marriage in a society isn’t just a predictor of an elevated ranking on the international corruption index, but also of weaker democracy, feebler rule of law, lower GDP and fewer voluntary blood donations.”