I think loyalty is the root of all corruption. If it's not it's pretty close.

There is also self-serving corruption.

Loyalty is required for any systematic, organised, group-based corruption, however.

Typology of corruption: http://corruptioncontrol.com/Types_of_Corruption.html

Secrecy - and its many forms, such as (but not limited to) ignorance, subterfuge, deceit, etc. - is the root of all corruption. Societies and institutions, groups of people which keep secrets, are fundamentally corrupt. You cannot deceive and be dishonest when the truth is available for all and sundry.

You can freely be dishonest, and weaponise that dishonesty, and thus profit from it, in conditions where secrecy is elevated as a norm. The nations with the greatest secrets are also the most corrupt.

And fear based discipline. Whistle-blower retaliation.

And that, right there, is why the hideously corrupt hate Wikileaks so so much. Wikileaks publish. Always. Their reputation on it is rock solid.

If you're corrupt or involved in a cover up you gotta hate that. And do everything to destroy it.

Wikileaks was like that before it got infiltrated in 2016. Then it changed rapidly, not publishing when it does not serve Russian interests. One very prominent example: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

This is such utter nonsense. How can any honest intellectual consider this to be anything other than the result of a calculated agitprop campaign by the utterly corrupt US military industrial complex ..

Assange is not a Russian agent, and Wikileaks is not a Russian operation, and never was. It just so happens that the majority of dire, desperate corruption that Wikileaks revealed, was indeed committed by Western entities. This does not mean that Russia doesn't have its problems - but it has not committed war crimes and other very real crimes against humanity at anything near the scale of the criminal Western war coalition and the member 5-eyes nations.

Please, inform yourself as to the nature of the very real agitprop campaign that has been waged against Wikileaks, and in so doing - have the courage to see Assange for the hero he really is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgw6FoFPhjo

> “The problem with the Trump campaign,” Assange said at the time, “is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second day.”

That seems really reasonable. Beyond the obvious thing that seems not to been mentioned; you can't publish what you don't have.

Separate to that FP note themselves in this very article the concrete support for exactly what Wikileaks claimed. The previously published trove was published later in full, elsewhere to zero interest, including zero interest from FP. Beyond some anti-Assange spin seen here. The author of this piece doesn't have their heart in it though, do they? They want us to know all that so wrote it quite clearly for everyone to see.

But yeah, spin it all to something nefarious because the existence of Wikileaks is kryptonite for corruption so everyone needs to unite against it. /s

Oh and Biden is a racist, misogynist, corrupt, senile idiot. Just like Donald. Congratulations democracy. But make sure you don't notice that because failure to pick a party and see no evil in it means you're a Russian asset. Just ask Hilary.

You are absolutely correct - people whose personal identities are highly dependent on associating with the untouchable West will have a much harder time accepting the truth of Wikileaks immensely valuable, important contribution to modern discourse over the nature of the West's coalition of the willing/5-eyes criminal state than those who do not have an American/UK/British/Canadian/NZ/etc national identity that will be bruised by the revelations of their nations' absolute, evil corruption, war crimes and real crimes against humanity.

Personal loyalty. You can have loyalty to a cause or a country that isn’t corrupt.

If you notice the way trump talks, it’s always about loyalty to him personally, not the country.

I agree that there are ways in which loyalty manifests itself in positive ways for society and/or civilization as a whole, but I wonder whether or not unbounded loyalty to anything always comes with negatives.

I'm not sure what you're arguing. Rewarding loyalty to the company typically takes the form of profit sharing, wherein employees would be incentivized to ignore management abuse (for instance) because they know raising the alarm will detract from the company's profits and, thus, their own profits.

Are you advocating for profit sharing/wealth redistribution in a really indirect way?

> Are you advocating for profit sharing/wealth redistribution in a really indirect way?

Why not? I would support mandatory stock options based on the number of employees. In reality though, I think it would be defeated by creative accounting just like taxation.

How would stock options change anything in that regard? If you blow the whistle, the price decreases and your options are worth less money. You still have incentive to keep your mouth shut.

I’m not arguing either way but would point out:

1/ Drawing a salary is profit sharing.

2/ Keeping your job is a reward.

> I’m not arguing either way but would point out:

> 1/ Drawing a salary is profit sharing.

People still get paid when companies don't turn a profit.

Salary is a maximally derisked profit sharing scheme. You get much less money that you could've earned in times of company's success, in exchange for a stable income even if the company is not successful.

It feels like we’re splitting hairs a little. In the context of my comment on the parent, profit and revenue are the same thing. After all, if you share 100% of your profit in another sense your company makes no profit at the end of the year.

The point is: once your livelihood depends on being part of an organisation, your judgement about that org can’t be completely impartial.

That's a pretty narrow definition of loyalty. You are assuming that it's just a thing bought with money.

You can be loyal to the values that your company represent or the values you expect it to hold.

A company that behaves callously doesn't reflect well on the employees that represent it.

These employees may have higher expectations of what their company behaviour should be.

You don't need to reward people with money for them to defend that.

Another way to reward loyalty to ethically challenged manager: promotion, more interesting projects, public praise, not abusing you like the others and so on.

This is a very, very HN comment.