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People of Dubious Character Are More Likely To Enter Public Service (economist.com) 109

Posted by msmash from the not-the-onion dept.
A new working paper from researchers at the University of Hong Kong has found that Chinese graduate students who plagiarized more heavily in their master's theses were significantly more likely to pursue careers in the civil service and to climb the ranks faster once inside.

John Liu and co-authors analyzed 6 million dissertations from CNKI, a Chinese academic repository, and cross-referenced them against public records of civil-service exam-takers to identify 120,000 civil servants and their academic work. Those who entered the public sector had plagiarism scores 15.6% above average. Customs and tax officials fared worst -- their scores ran 25% and 26% higher than private-sector peers respectively. Within the civil service, those who plagiarized more were promoted 9% faster during the first five years of their careers. The researchers validated their plagiarism metric through an experiment involving 443 job applicants who were asked to roll dice for rewards without monitoring. Those who had plagiarized more also reported improbably high rolls.
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People of Dubious Character Are More Likely To Enter Public Service More

People of Dubious Character Are More Likely To Enter Public Service

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  • Repent (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:25AM (#65903051)

    master's theses

    It's called main thesis nowadays, you racist nazi.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by greytree ( 7124971 )
      You, sir, are a main of political comedy.

      • Missed the joke. Was it yours or the AC's? Don't see how it could have been the vacuous Subject. Perhaps you care to explain?

        My original reaction to the story was to wonder about the relationship of "plagiarism" to "dubious character". There are various reasons for and definitions of plagiarism. I can actually see where a lack of originality might be a good thing for most of the people in the civil service. Most of them are supposed to be following the laws and rules as written and too much creativity can e

  • Frank Herbert pointed this out WAY back in 1965 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BeemerBoy ( 24030 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:27AM (#65903055) Homepage

    All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

  • Fuck "Eat the Rich" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:27AM (#65903059)

    Not all "rich" people got rich by cheating.

    But when people who work hard all their lives, and achieve modest, barely-there success see people who skate and fake-it-'til-they-make-it raking in dough hand over fist, and holding positions of power... ...it makes even the most saintly of law-abiding citizens bite their tongue and grin n' bear it, instead of skinning the motherfuckers alive in the town square.

    I hope this sentiment plays a large role in our next election. Or our next civil war, whichever comes first.

    • Re:Fuck "Eat the Rich" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:40AM (#65903109)

      Adjacent to that is this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/0... [nytimes.com]

      From the article:

                      The study found that the Supreme Court has become deeply polarized in cases pitting the rich against the poor, with Republican appointees far more likely than Democratic ones to side with the wealthy. That is starkly different from the middle of the last century, when appointees of the two parties were statistically indistinguishable on this measure.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sabbede ( 2678435 )
        And here's why that study was meaningless - "We are not going to consider the impact of the principle being decided. Rather, we just want to know who got the money in the case in question." That is, they ignore the single most important factor and focus only on the least relevant - the private fiscal implications of the ruling.

        There may be something of interest in the findings, but in regards to the nature of cases being heard, not the relative finances of the claimants.

        • And here's why that study was meaningless - "We are not going to consider the impact of the principle being decided. Rather, we just want to know who got the money in the case in question." That is, they ignore the single most important factor and focus only on the least relevant - the private fiscal implications of the ruling.

          There may be something of interest in the findings, but in regards to the nature of cases being heard, not the relative finances of the claimants.

          If it's the principle that's driving the decisions, not the affluence of the beneficiaries, across a sufficiently-large set of cases we'd expect to find no correlation between the political leanings of the justices and their votes benefiting wealthy vs poor people. Which is what the article said happened for many decades.

          Unless, of course, the principle being applied is "Who benefits?"

          It's worth pointing out that although gtall framed it as the Republicans siding with the wealthy, it's equally true tha

          • There are other, larger issues involved. Consider the FDR era, before the "stich in time". There were a number of cases that would have been marked by these students as rich winning over poor, but what was happening was that FDR was pushing a number of blatantly unconstitutional programs that the Court was striking down. It wasn't that the Court preferred business interests, it was that the acts in question weren't constitutional.

            So, this kind of study may be able to show some interesting things about

            • The Court doesn't care about the finances of the parties involved unless it is a significant fact in the dispute.

              Well, it shouldn't, anyway. I'm not convinced that the current SCOTUS is anywhere near as non-partisan as we historically expect. As in, I think we might get very different rulings on issues of presidential power depending on who the president in question is. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about that. If I'm not, and if an energetic and unconstrained Democrat gets elected to the White House we're going to have a civil war when that Democrat begins swinging the power of the presidency for progressive ends just

              • Are you mistaking ideology for partisanship? They are fundamentally intertwined, but not identical.

                From where I sit, it looks like lower courts have been issuing a number of absurd and entirely partisan rulings, and they have been rightly overturned.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This can only happen in a nation where people are in denial of the class struggle. People still vote like conservative versus liberal has nothing to do with rich versus poor.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "Not all "rich" people got rich by cheating."

      Because "cheating" is the wrong metric. All "rich" people "got rich" by exploiting, or by inheriting wealth obtained through exploitation.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Who said every great fortune is based on a great crime?

        However, I actually think there are (at least) two ways to get rich. Yes, crime, but also major luck. Someone had to win the lottery, even if it is just the lottery of being born in a rich family.

        New problem is that in recent years it has become increasingly popular to "fix" the crime (and post facto legitimize the fortune) by bribing the cheapest politicians to revise the laws to legalize the crime. Not completely new, but much more brazen about it tha

      • Luck/Good Fortune and a dose of hard work and focus are more important in my experience. Of course being good at managing your money is pretty important as well.

        Sure, some people inherit money, but history says at least half squander the money away within two generations.

      • exploiting the labor of others is very scalable.

      • If you work for money you are exploiting someone. This isn't a rich person thing.

  • This is what has come to my mind:

    Is being a president a "public service" ? What about Secretary of War? Attorney General? FBI chief?

    • Re:Is being a president a "public service" ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wyHunter ( 4241347 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:32AM (#65903073)
      I suppose congressmen and senators who are making 175K and are suddenly worth tens of millions is okay to you?
    • Not "a" public service, that's things like law enforcement and mail delivery. "Public service" means "working for government", so while in office Trump is a public servant, but neither he nor Hegseth are career public servants. Career public servants are just bureaucrats. Anyone from the person at the desk at your DMV to Anthony Fauci.

      China's government is famously corrupt, so it's no surprise that it attracts the already corrupt.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yes. All of the above.

  • Cultural effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:34AM (#65903085) Homepage

    Look, corruption is one of the most cultural specific activities. It is tremendously affected by the morals values taught to people. It is possible to teach people to be more ethical or less so, particularly with regards to which type of behavior is 'the worst'. You can teach people that murder and rape are evil and should be dealt with by execution, while theft is not so bad and gets a slap on the wrist. Or you can do it the other way around.

    In addition, it is effected by the economic structure tremendously affects WHERE the criminals are. If you have a capitalist society the money focused criminals are going to go into private business. If you have a communist society, the money focused criminals will go into government.

    So it is not surprising to me that Chinese plagiarists are going into government.

    This does not necessarily apply to other cultures.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      So it is not surprising to me that Chinese plagiarists are going into government.

      indeed. in other cultures it might be warmongers, outright criminals and genocidal sociopaths like in the us and israel. and rotten total dumbfucks like in europe.

    • Yes, it's culturally-specific, but it has nothing to do with communism. China has essentially always had high levels of corruption and cheating in the civil service, including essentially the entire Nationalist and Imperial periods.

      It's a product of their tradition of exam-based advancement in the civil service.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      > If you have a capitalist society the money focused criminals are going to go into private business.

      Why? Those private businesses are regulated by Congress and so forth on down the line to local city councils. They are the gatekeepers, and punishers.

      People who go into congress suddenly have their wealth explode. Why is that? Certainly nothing corrupt! Lol. Right. Sorry but politics is *very* corrupt. And that was even BEFORE Trump! Now, there are so many illegal acts at so many levels of government in s

    • I'd give you mod points if I could. The insight about *where* criminals go, is especially thought-provoking.

    • There is no such thing as "capitalist societies" (however, there are communist societies). Stop using "capitalist" in this context (or at all). See this article why you are wrong https://dagens-fel.livejournal... [livejournal.com]

    • Even in a capitalist society, the government is no match for the public sector. The federal government controls $7 TRILLION in spending a year. There isn't a single corporation in the WORLD that even does a trillion in revenue a year. With Walmart and Amazon coming closest at almost $700 billion. There are only four companies in the WORLD with more than one million employees (Walmart, Amazon, State Grid Corporation of China and China National Petroleum Corporation). The US Government has 5 million direct em

  • People falling into the classic trap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:40AM (#65903111)

    I think it was Margaret Mead who warned about the issues of taking observations from one culture and applying them to a different one.

    And, this being Hong Kong, you've got significant added political implications. Given the current political climate there, I could easily see where toadies might be far more likely to enter government service there right now. Unfortunately the article is paywalled, so I don't know what time period is covered by these observations. Was it pre-crackdown? Post? A mix of the two? Those would be important bits of data to have when trying to unravel this.

    • True! We can, however, extrapolate from it some anecdotal support for the theory that the civil service, due to the inherent power, attracts the corrupt.

      More importantly, it directly supports the allegations that China's government is very corrupt. I don't know if they also tested for agreeability, which would identify "toadies".

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      That's true. In a western, democratic capitalist society, the sociopaths end up running for office and very successfully tricking the normal people into voting for them, probably because normal people want no part of the toxicity that surrounds the halls of power. The civil service seems to, at least until recently, attract fairly honest, altruistic people who want to serve their country and fellow citizens.

  • Its a feature not a bug!

  • Research paper finds water is wet /s

  • Obligatory Douglas Adams Quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by wikthemighty ( 524325 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:50AM (#65903143)

    “The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”

    - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

    • The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

      To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

      To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

      To summarize the sum

  • "In China".

  • No one gets a job with the government because they like hard work.

  • Also more prevalent in large corporations (Score:3)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @12:20PM (#65903239) Homepage
    The book "Snakes in Suits [wikipedia.org]" shows that about 3% of senior management is a psychopath, which is about three times the population average of about 1%. So it's not just in government.

    • I suspect it's actually a lot higher in the higher levels of management:
      "In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses(3). They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bossesâ(TM)s scores either matched or exceeded thos

  • As a former public servant (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @12:26PM (#65903257)

    I can provide anecdotal support for these findings.

    Most of the career-successful people I worked with/under were bull-shitters who were good at social networking but frequently marginally competent at best. Supervisor level and upwards, this was disappointingly common. Some long term people felt safe and entrenched by the end of their careers and dropped the social networking for open rivalries.

    There was an additional population of people whose sole goal was the public sector salary, job stability, and eventual pension. They tended to be lazy and/or incompetent. Occasionally they couldn't hold on and would burn out badly enough to lose their employment.

    Finally, there was a third category of those who believed in public service (but were quite pleased with the salary, stability, and pension).

    I'm not in China, but I would expect this to be a typical outcome anywhere the public service pay is attractive.

  • I assume this makes them worse public servants, but is there direct evidence of that.

    I'm not sure I would want a president that was 100% rule bound, I don't think that applies to the DMV though

  • They're only focusing on plagiarism, which I think is as more a measure of ineptness than dubious character. Since this was their master's thesis, one has to ask...how much did they plagiarize?...was it just some filler or did the plagiarize the core pieces? EVERYONE has cheated in some class because they either needed to in order to pass (some of my 400-level hard sciences classes where the professor didn't cover the exam material) or in some cases, the class is total bullshit and you're doing enough
  • The tradition of cheating on competitive Chinese civil service exams [britannica.com] literally goes back millennia.

    And when I say "literally," I actually mean "literally." It's been going on since the Qin dynasty in the 3rd century B.C. Massive cheating is an expected and in many cases tacitly accepted part of the process.

    Is it any wonder that it continues in its most modern iteration?

  • The upper echelons of the corporate world and finance also attract sociopaths. But as private actors they can't force people to buy their products of give them money at the point of a gun the way governments can.

    Government and its sort-of monopoly on violence being a necessary evil, we limit its power, divide its authority, and structure our society so that government is not in series with essentials like food and housing.

  • Top 10 Jobs That Attract Psychopaths (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MTEK ( 2826397 ) on Monday January 05, 2026 @02:02PM (#65903549)

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2013/01/05/the-top-10-jobs-that-attract-psychopaths/

    1. CEO
    2. Lawyer
    3. Media (Television/Radio)
    4. Salesperson
    5. Surgeon
    6. Journalist
    7. Police officer
    8. Clergy person
    9. Chef
    10. Civil servant

    And organizational psychology tells us that narcissism, not competence, is often the strongest predictor of who emerges as a leader in unstructured groups. Groups led by a narcissist do not perform better-- they just think they do. This happens all the time in business, government, and politics. Simply put, HORRIBLE judges of character cannot distinguish narcissism from confidence nor Machiavellianism from principled, ethical leadership. So good news if you're a malignant narcissist and you want to be president of the United States-- just turn that shit up to 11.

  • In his book, the actual leader of the universe turned out to be oblivious to it. His thinking was that anybody who aspires to the role should under no circumstances be permitted to have it.

    I've been saying for a decade or more that the altruistic public servant is an extinct species, and people entering politics now should immediately be suspect. It attracts poor quality people.

  • I guess it's inevitable that data confirms it.

  • Is the data more readily available in Hong Kong? I suspect this is the same all over, if you're going to cheat it's best to work in an environment that won't penalize you for it, and the perks are pretty good.
  • Nurses nurse. Engineers engineer. Teachers teach. Etc. If one doesn't have an aptitude or strong desire for something, then what's left to pursue? 'Focused more on the climb than the ladder, perhaps.
  • Academics are saying academics who cheat will do blahblah... Maybe they're full of shit?

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