Corruption

That excellent blogger, Sunil Laxman, posed an interesting question on the post about corruption in a maternity hospital in Bangalore. He wanted to know what causes corruption and what can be done about it. Here is an excerpt from a recent article of his on this subject:

Now, let's take the example of a village with around 200 houses. 150 of them don't have electricity, though the village is officially "electrified". You investigate, and find out from the villagers that the only way to obtain an electricity connection would be to pay a fairly large bribe, say some 1500 rupees. This may not seem too exorbitant, but we're talking about very poor villagers, who spend about 40 rupees per month on kerosene for their lanterns. Many of them want electricity so that they can have a couple of light bulbs at home, their kids can stay back and study in the evenings, and perhaps they can afford a fan to use in the summer months. Seems very basic, but this small change means a lot to them. And they cannot afford to pay the bribe, and remain powerless (pardon the pun). The situation was thrown open to us, and we were asked for possible solutions.

Read the whole article.

It turns out that two very good articles have been written about corruption recently. The first one is by Richard Posner, and he gives a classical economist view of the causes of corruption:

Since public corruption seems on balance inefficient, the question arises why it is so common. The answer is that corruption flourishes where the economy is heavily regulated but the legal framework is weak. The more heavily regulated the economy, the more irksome restrictions there are that will create a demand for methods of avoiding compliance with them, and bribery of the enforcers of the restrictions is one such method. The weaker the legal framework, the more difficult it will be for the government to prevent bribery, a classic "victimless" crime because bribery is a voluntary transaction; and it requires a sophisticated legal machinery to detect and punish such crimes.

Read the whole article.

Then Atanu Dey wrote about the example of Singapore:

This is what I heard. A certain minister, very close to Lee Kuan Yew [Singapore's Leader], in charge of housing (or some such) was involved in some kick-backs. The word went around that the guy will surely get off easy since he was in the inside circle. Lee asked the minister to see him. The meeting was brief. Two days later the minister blew his brains out. The message was clear: zero tolerance.

In India we hear of some high-level bureaucrat or politician robbing the public purse blind with sickening regularity. But we have never heard of even one high-ranking corrupt public official or politician ever being punished for his misdeeds. We have a free press of sorts and people get to know about how the most corrupt get away with murder. The notion that it is OK to be corrupt is internalized and soon enough we justify our own petty corruption by referring it back to those high and mighty whose corruption is legendary and who are never punished. We grow cynical and the society suffers as a whole. Our culture erodes and standards of probity and justice fall until we are a nation of petty thieves ruled by mega-robbers.

Read the whole article.

So let me explore some causes of corruption. Keep in mind that all or some of these causes might be relevant:
1. Low pay/lots of power This is always a dangerous combination. Power tends to corrupt. The lack of adequate pay tempts. Posner writes about this.
2. Too many dumb rules Posner points out that corruption can in some cases work to the public interest – initially - as a way of circumventing too many arbitrary regulations. However, he points out that this can lead to perpetual dumb rules because now you have lots of people who benefit from ignoring them.
3. Ineffective legal system You need to punish people to change behavior. But if the legal system really isn’t up to the task of meting out adequate punishment, then the incentives are wrong. Again Posner mentions this.
4. Inadequate punishment Politics might prevent the dismissal of corrupt people when they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar. If it is easy to dismiss people, it is easy to enforce rules.
5. Education matters Ignorant people choose corrupt leaders. Educated people make better choices. Case in point: Bihar.
6. It starts at the top If the big cheese stinks, the little cheeses smell bad also. You need to put some high politicos in jail to convince the minor players that it is wrong to be corrupt. Atanu Dey writes about this.
7. Founding fathers matter If your country was founder by George Washington or Lee Yuan Kew, then you have a hope of living in an uncorrupt society. If your founding father was Robert Mugabe or Saddam Hussein, then you’re doomed. Indian is somewhere in between. Again, Atanu Dey writes about this.
8. Tradition matters Once practices become traditional, they are hard to reverse. Along these lines, Uma of Indianwriting has an excellent essay about dowry inspired wife suicide/murder.

Any other suggestions?