You know, I have always thought there is some weird relation between corruption and religions which are prominent in some societies, while they are non-existant in other. For example, we all know that most of religions, specially those Abramic ones (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) teach people not to lie or not to corrupt themselves, always to seek to do good to others, in short.
So we could assume that the most religious a country is, the less corruption we are supposed to find, right?
Still, we see that in Latin America (where Christianity is very prevalent) corruption is widespread, I am not sure why. I have never been in a country whether the other of those religions are the majority, so I cannot say whether it is different in Saudi Arabia or Israel.
A good example of the inconsistency of this is also how many Mafia members and Mafia bosses in Italy are very religious (Catholic) and yet, they willingly participate in organized crime. I do not understand whether all this is just about hipocresy or something else.
What are your thoughts?
Because just moral guidelines based on belief aren't enough to build a society. Religious values aren't optimal for removing corruption, in fact quite the opposite. Churches are part of scandals all the time. And even if there would be good moral teachings some people would follow, forgiveness loophole gives you an excuse to do anything in the end.
Rules and regulations forced by law and transparency are way more effective. But that doesn't suite everyone as that more accountability also means more surveillance and less privacy.
At least by current standards. Things could change when we crack scaling of zero knowledge proof to be used in IDs and contracts. I know that won't suite everyone either, but removing corruption has cost something.
We could argue on the difference between the centralization of transparency between a government and a church, by the way. In our society where the information and the transparency is supposed to be handled by a government we are supposed to trust is not that different from the trust people may have on religious authorities for them to guide the life of those who attend to pray.
It would be easier if decentralized systems were the norm and anyone could verify the information about anyone, regardless of their position within society.
The Blockchain does not give preferences to the rich or the poor, anyone can verify in the same manner. But we should wonder as well, how we would be supposed to handle privacy, since we all have the right to it.