Browsing by Subject "corruption"

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    Corruption of Institutions and the Decay of Civilizations
    (Nova, 2013-02-08) Andregg, Michael M.
    CORRUPTION OF INSTITUTIONS AND THE DECAY OF CIVILIZATIONS Michael Andregg University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA ABSTRACT This chapter discusses the dangers of corruption of institutions, especially governments, and how such corruption can be exposed and partially cleansed. Theories about the decay phase of civilizations are briefly cited, and examples of corrupted forms of six professions illustrated (military, law, medicine, journalism, business and the clergy). Parallels between large organizations and the human body are shown to illustrate system consequences of dysfunction. An enduring theme is the need for constant, built in mechanisms to reduce corruption in living systems, including the largest scale of civilizations. Some solutions to these problems are mentioned, but readers are also challenged to do better since the problems of corruption of governance have been eternal and have successfully resisted many reform efforts. INTRODUCTION Civilizations are living systems, so like any living system they need at least 19 subsystems to acquire and process food, water, energy and information, to safely dispose of toxic byproducts or wastes, to avoid being eaten themselves, and otherwise to stay alive and to reproduce themselves. In one sense all these life functions are equally “essential” (Miller, Living Systems, 1978). Still I will maintain here that cleansing a civilization regularly of corruption (or empire or nation state) is especially important. Why?
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    The Developing Global Crisis: What Security Practitioners and Policy Makers Need to Know
    (2016) Andregg, Michael M.
    The Developing Global Crisis: What Security Practitioners and Policy Makers Need to Know Abstract (d7, for “Global Security and Intelligence Studies” of American Military University.) General Michael Flynn asks why we don’t win wars anymore. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claims we cannot fix the problems in the Middle East where so many of our troops and related forces have been deployed for so long. This essay attempts to explain why. We have been addressing mainly symptoms instead of causes, and since the causes continue, the wars don’t stop. The “Developing Global Crisis” involves at least six factors that are difficult for anyone to deal with. Each has military consequences, but few respond well to military force. The result is hundreds of millions of poorly educated teen aged males maturing into desperate circumstances of failed or failing states where they encounter demagogues and WMDs instead of opportunities. The factors I allude to include: 1) population growth and population pressure (not the same things) , 2) corruptions of governance that prevent solutions, 3) growing income inequalities within and between nations, 4) militant religion(s), 5) rising authoritarianism in politics worldwide, and 6) global warming. Bombing global warming cools nothing and brings no rain, but global warming can definitely contribute to the collapse of states like Syria, which then export millions of their desperate people into neighbors like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey that are in turn destabilized to some degree. Even Europe feels the stress of a million sudden immigrants, so we will consider the case of Syria in particular. But what is happening there is happening in far too many other desert states today. Keywords: demographics, failed states, terrorism, intelligence, corruption
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    Solutions for Key Aspects of the Developing Global Crisis
    (2017-06-20) Andregg, Michael M.
    This is an eleven slide PowerPoint presentation for an ISCSC conference in 2017 which systematically works through the largest aspects of "The Developing Global Crisis" with a focus on solutions.