Contributor(s): Dr Michael Muthukrishna | Dr Michael Muthukrishna shines an evolutionary light on the problem of corruption revealing that rather than a breakdown in cooperation, corruption is cooperation. One scale of cooperation, typically the one that’s smaller and easier to sustain, undermines another. The mechanisms that sustain these scales of cooperation are well understood within evolutionary biology and cultural evolution giving us new tools in the battle against corruption. Drawing on recent work, he reveals that transparency is not enough in the places with the highest corruption, and can even make the problem worse. He explains how competition between societies and between different ways of doing things - cultural-groups selection - has been responsible for the suppression of cooperation over history.
