How much corruption can a system tolerate?


 You’d be surprised by how long a corrupt system can survive.

The final half century of the Qing dynasty in China was the Empress Dowager Cixi. And she was fabulously corrupt. Ruling from 1861 to 1908, she was also fabulously wasteful. But her corrupt officials found creative ways to work around this…For instance, each meal, Cixi wanted a thousand different dishes prepared. A massive banquet, which she would then largely ignore, choosing only among a few select dishes. Most pots would remain closed. So her palace eunuchs began preparing only those dishes afresh each meal, and leaving the others rotting in their pots for a week before throwing them out. Still hugely wasteful, but somehow less so… which allowed them to pocket more of the state budget for themselves.

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