As many of my friends know, I’ve been working on my Master’s at NYU’s Gallatin School in politics and communications, particularly with a focus on studying corruption, its causes, and strategies for effective reform.
Corruption, surprisingly, is defined at least a thousand different ways (ok, I’m exaggerating a bit…but only a bit). Basically, corruption can be simply put as the subjugation of public goods or privileges for private gain. That covers breaches of the law and breaches of ethical or moral behavior, which might otherwise be perfectly legal. Most importantly, it thrives on a systemic level as much as the individual level.
It’s been quite a journey in terms of my own understanding and beliefs about the nature of the disease or corruption and the remedies used to treat it. As a general rule of thumb, after taking a number of enlightening courses that have better informed me on a variety of approaches through which one can study corruption, I tend to look at the individual and his/her behavior in order to understand the root causes of systemic corruption.
I have always been particularly inspired by something Polybius, an ancient Greek historian, wrote. Essentially, he said that the key to the success of the Roman Republic, in his mind, was a fear of the gods, if you will. He gives an example between a Greek and a Roman delivering a sum of money on behalf of their people. He demonstrates that the Greeks have a world-class bureaucracy designed to check and double-check someone every step of the way so that the total sum of money gets from Point A to Point B. Yet, he laments that despite all this effort, the courier in fact still manages to lift some of the cash without a clue as to where it disappeared to along the way. On the other hand, he points out how the Romans, supposedly filled with a sense of piety and fear of the wrath of the gods, had none of the checks and balances the Greeks did and yet their courier delivered the money exactly as instructed.
Even if, for the sake of discussion, you want to take religion out of it, the most important point that’s made in this brief discussion of Polybius’ thoughts is the significance of individual self-governance. If an individual sees fit to take advantage of a public good, all that one has left in their arsenal to combat that tendency is disincentive. All the precaution in the world will not prevent an unscrupulous person who is dedicated enough to get what they want, whether they are right or wrong. Now multiply this effect over hundreds or thousands of people, and we see very quickly how systems can deteriorate from the inside out.
Of course, Polybius isn’t the only scholar of the state who remarked on how much better the world would be if people did a better job of doing the right and proper thing when entrusted with any kind of public goods or power. Federalist #51 makes its famous argument on checks and balances with this fact of human nature in mind:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
Auxiliary precautions besides ensuring the people are ultimately sovereign? That’s what got my attention, too. See, we think of corruption as some dirty politician or major corporate executive stealing from shareholders and taxpayers to enrich themselves and some of their buddies. What we don’t give much thought about is what role John Q. Public plays in enabling that behavior in his daily life. Someone has to bribe the politician. Someone wants to make the system fairer for themselves–and only themselves. Others who are subordinate to the bigger corrupt players also might stand to benefit, like getting a promoting for staying quiet, keeping their job for staying quiet, and so on. Perhaps an aide or junior exec plays an integral role in the deal and therefore is directly benefitting from the arrangement as well. Let’s not forget that people also tend to acclamate to a certain level of corrupt practices, so much so that they consider it normal and perpetuate the abuses. In many countries, it’s perfectly normal to bribe a bureaucrat to get a permit or a license and most people don’t even bat an eye. Because of this, the World Bank estimates that $1 trillion is lost to corruption every year around the globe. Now imagine if the average citizen in those countries simply stopped paying up and just demanded the services they are entitled to without any further remuneration to the bureaucrat? Imagine if the bureaucrat, who is also presumably a citizen of the same country, did not think he or she ought to be entitled to bribes in exchange for doing the public service for which they receive a salary? What a different world it would be! And yet, it is regrettably not practical to believe that such a perfect world could come to exist.
So, as far as I am concerned, corruption is a two-way street. The public is just as responsible for enabling systemic corruption as much as a dirty politician at the top ranks of government. Now, the real trick is figuring out how to balance out these factors into a comprehensive anti-corruption reform strategy. That’s something I hope to explore with you. As I acquire a better understanding of the topic myself, I want to share more with you on what corruption is, how it manifests itself, who are the players, and what checks-and-balances of self-interests and ambition affect those behaviors. It is in the course of doing this that I hope to add some pragmatic, balanced strategies to the growing discourse in this field.