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Notes -
I think there is an additional distinction to be made here though. Towards what end was the rule broken?
Rule-breaking to achieve the true honest to god objective more effectively? Good.
Rule-breaking to accomplish apparent/personal objectives (that are often orthogonal or antithetical to the true objective). Understandable, but bad. Think of fluffing up meaningless KPI's and other forms of underhanded rent seeking.
In my observation, non-westerners (including the elites) don't have a strong cultural taboo towards the second kind of objective. (And what's the problem as long as you and your family is richer off in the end?). Westerners don't either, but a higher enough proportion of them do, for it to be worth something.
Ofcourse if you are observing a system with a birds eye view, it's obvious why the second system is worse.
It's hard to quantify this but it just feels to me that placing an utmost devotion to the honest to god objective even at the cost of one's own status and wealth is a very.... Christian/Western notion. Other cultures do that as means to an end towards personal status/wealth, not vice versa.
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