From a global perspective, generally speaking, the poorer a country is (or the lower the level of development of the productive forces in a country is), the more seriously corrupted the national government of the country is. From a historical perspective, as the level of development of the productive forces in a society increases, the work division in the society gets finer and finer. My explanation to the phenomenon of government corruption is: Because in the human society as a whole, the level of development of the productive forces is not high enough, politics as a kind of work(or a profession) can’t be divided from other social works(or other professions). Therefore, generally, the governments in developing countries are more corrupted than the ones in developed countries.

What does politics being divided from other professions mean? Simply speaking, when a work is divided from other works, the work has boss or clients and it has someone to pay and supervise according to performance of every worker in the work division. But politics as a kind of earliest profession in human society has never been divided from other social works. Take China as an example. It cannot solve supervision of each government and the supreme authority in history. It is the problem that who is the boss or clients of the emperor. Napoleon saw this problem so he said “All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The supervision can only come from the people, namely the citizens. Multiparty election system makes the supervision a reality, turning social management into a closed-loop stable structure. And Li Shimin, the emperor of Tang Dynasty in China, also saw this problem. However, under a family rule system, it can only turn out that “The water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up.”That is the changes of dynasties by destroying and rebuilding and building and destroying.

In many countries with a long history, take China as an example, social evolution method is from a family rule and a party rule to multiparty election(e.g., Taiwan). That is what Sun Yat-sen said “The might world tide goes forward with great strength and vigor. The person who observes flourishes; against perishes.”

But social evolution is similar to biological evolution and they have anamorphism (for example 100 years ago United States changed from one party to multi party and US did not consider it evolved.) and mutation (for example the former Soviet Union).

Meanwhile, eliminating government corruption phenomenon can’t be implemented by ruining the social productive forces, e.g., social infrastructure, in large scales and establishing a new national government. Therefore, for each country, the best way to diminish government corruption is to improve governmental and social institutions, in my opinion. But improvement cannot only depend on the government but also rely on the people much more. Mahatma Gandhi of India saw the problem so he uses the method of “Non-violent resistance”.

“Non-violent resistance” of India and United States more than 100 years ago belong to the anamorphism. The reason why “mutation” of the former Soviet Union led to the division of the country is that the Young turk were soft-handed and they were hesitate to start, which made the state power in a vacuum in a period of time.

Xuefei(Michael) Peng