Corruption Hurts: No, It Kills

Abstract

Abstract Corruption is perhaps best defined as ‘use of public office for private gain through violation of a rule’. Various studies have confirmed that corruption retards economic growth, reduces incomes, exacerbates inequality, and hampers delivery of public services. Countries with high levels of corruption are seen to also suffer from poor social-development indicators, such as higher infant mortality and lower literacy rates. Corruption is sometimes presented in terms of ‘cultural relativism’, that is, some cultures are more prone to corruption than others. We reject such a hypothesis. Corruption is a curse for all places and all times. However, this is not to minimize the scourge corruption represents for most poor countries: an insidious cancer of their national body politic, invasive and unforgiving as it thwarts their efforts to achieve economic and social progress. Surprisingly, though, the general attitude towards this cancer on society was more accepting, even in academic circles and as recently as the late 1980s. Corruption was often seen as a pricing mechanism (grease money) to correct some of the market failures facing a country because of its inefficient and rigid bureaucracy. Fortunately, attitudes against corruption began to harden, and tolerance of it started diminishing, at least in theory. All the effects we have talked about are what would essentially be instrumental effects. But as a society, the absence of corruption should also be intrinsically valued as being desirable in its own right.