- Anil Rajvanshi
- Phaltan
- India
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Debate: Is corruption a moral or a legal issue?
Too often the corruption debate and discussions all over the world are focused on how somebody broke a law. By that definition Mahatma Gandhi was the most corrupt man since he periodically broke British laws!
By dictionary definition corruption relates to doing things which are not ethical.
Hence how should the corruption be defined and fought for greater good?
Topics:
Ethical Greed Legal cooruption moral issue society
Rajendra Hunma
The above link would take us to an article I published recently in the local press on this issue of corruption ... I shall be pleased to read your comments. Thank you.
Jesse Bryant
Max de Hoyos
Those beliefs, however, are greatly influenced by that which is legal in our societies, and what we internally represent as moral. Our two primary motivators are pain and pleasure, but we have a greater need to avoid pain than to seek pleasure. In order to fight corruption and evil (a laudable intent), we must change negative beliefs, and instill certain empowering ones.
For example, in order to stop robberies from happening, it must become more painful for a person to rob than not to. In other words, all of the guilt, misery, humiliation and legal consequences must be more real to the person than the accomplishment of acquiring certain material objects (which in turn reward the person emotionally).
I define corruption as an action which the perpetrator is aware of as painful or unjust to others (and is recognized by society as such), but continues to do so to elicit a certain reward -- generally emotional. Let's look at the Watergate scandal, under Nixon's presidency. He believed that gathering certain intelligence (at the cost of justice and honesty, and whatever you decide was at stake) was more rewarding than just leaving it alone, and not taking action was more painful than following through with his plan. (I KNOW IT'S REALLY CONFUSING.)
I think in order to battle corruption, we must hold those who are in power hostage by way of democracy, because they wouldn't make unjust laws if they were subject to them. Their beliefs need to shift not only to "corruption is bad," but "contribution and honesty is good." There must be some sort of training to make that experience real to them so that they may allow those principles to affect their life and leadership positively.
bart hsi
Also, as far as I know, there are countries where bribe-taking or bribe-giving is more or less implicitly permitted by the the prosecutors in most legal system. And in some systems, the formal salaries of certain officials are not sufficient to support a family, thus the bribes are treated as part of one's pay anyway.
In summary, the morality or the legality of corruptions is determined basically by the value system of a particular society at a particular time, determined by the evolution of the value system of the majority of the members in the society.
Elizabeth Gu 30+
It could be both moral and legal issue, but ultimately, it's definitely a moral issue, I think.
Corrupt people with power can legitimize their wrongdoing.
What Robin Hood does is illegal but I wouldn’t concur with the view that he is corrupt.
For him, "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor" is a way to serve justice—equality. That is, his intention isn’t corrupt. His resentment for greedy, rich people isn’t out of corruptness. Provided laws should belong to ethics, even illegal things could be moral in some cases.
It’s all about one’s intention and the methods—with rationalization—he use.
(But there is a line. If people do all the illegitimate things by justifying that it’s for justice, a society gets anarchic and the law abiding spirit(which is ethical) disappears. And justifying anything willy-nilly would provoke another version of corruptness. )
Jarred Figlar-Barnes
How would you define corruption? When someone breaks the law, or when a employee covers up a bosses misdeeds not only because he was told to but in hopes of climbing the corporate ladder? One could say that all of us are corrupt. All of us act on our own beliefs and feelings, but are those feelings and beliefs not influenced by other peoples ideas and beliefs? In my opinion we all our corrupt, we all act on our own prejudices and beliefs, which are made by our interactions with our surroundings. Our surroundings corrupt us. Obviously, this type of corruption is not inherently bad. The true question should be, how far is too far? And who or what is to make that determination.
So, is greed good? Is corruption better and does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Think long and hard on this. In our species evolution, did these attributes help or hurt us, and without them would we be who we are today both as a species and as an individual?
Rajendra Hunma
Zman Kietilipooskie
I think corruption is the compromising of ones duties and or moral/ethical obligations for personal gain. Corruption would be, in my opinion , regarding people in politics and people who have the potential to harm others with their corrupt actions.
David Fendick
also, legality has little to do with morality. the two often meet, but you can have laws that conflict with morality. an example: slavery laws. at a not to distant point in history, it was against the law for a black man (or woman, child) to sit in a white section. if he did so he would be a lawbreaker. this does not make him immoral. another example: nazi germany and their laws regarding harboring jews. the people that helped jews escape from persecution were law breakers, but no one can call that an act of immorality. laws are created by humans, often for evil purposes. our consciences, however, are part of a universal collective... and if we are tapped into that, we don't need an explanation of what is moral... we know based on these universal truths.
Piotr Misiuna 10+
I would suggest another idea, parallel that might give a hand when dealing with those instances:
To have a functioning democracy you need a set of rules that works and rules that does not, and everyone has to realize it.
Sid Rugh
Aster C Linn
On a par with the level of (inadequately and unsuccessfully addressed) unemployment in South Africa, (both petty and heinous) crime in South Africa has spiralled out of all control.
And, therefore, as I believe it was incumbent upon the new South African government to immediately institute (and implement) an "emergency aid and relief plan" for the provision of essential food, clothing and shelter to the millions of unemployed (of all race groups) in 1994 - which it did not do then - and still has not done to date.
Corruption on a personal, individual level is clearly an initial, moral issue which, where crime of any description is also involved, then becomes a legal one. However, as it appears that many in our judicial system (and police services) are also morally corrupt. Decent, civilized, law-abiding and peace-loving citizens in South Africa are presently faced with a very real (apparently insolvable) danger and dilemma.
Shawn Paul Boike
Shawn Paul Boike
Surendra Sharma
It can be moral, legal or ethical.
Moral corruption will be which relates to moral issues. One may be legally correct but morally wrong.
Similarly in legal corruption issues which are forbidden legally will fall in.
Lastly ethical corruption shall encompass those issues which a particular society forbids ethically.
But it is the human mind which is momentarily encouraging to do certain things which will be called corrupt practice. A control on that fraction of a moment shall help the urge to get into corrupt practice.
Helen Hupe 30+
Jou Pabalate
Todd Levesque
Santokh Saggu
In India the prime movers of corruption is "Duniyadari" and "Vyahvarikta". To run duniaydari you have to be "Vyavharik" ,"Be practical". And duniadari involves dealing with family and society. And to run the family and deal with the society , momey is needed . Life is short , and no body wants to go through the lengthy process of making money.
Andrei Vorobiev 30+
Look, the government structure can be corrupt from top to bottom and EVERYBODY there might work not according to the written law, but according to "informal law" (the understanding of how the things really work). Then, the "understanding" is the real law. And if the population agrees with it, fine... If, however, only SOME of the people in the power structure are corrupt, especially not the top boss (the president or equivalent who is usually elected by their "boss" - the people - who don't want corruption) then it is just a managerial problem: all that is needed is that every manager from the president down effectively monitors that his subordinates are not cheating, stealing, or breaking the laws in the myriad ways they can... Don't you agree?
I'll tell you more: the normal pyramidal structures on which we rely from the times of pharaohs are not made for effective monitoring/management. They are long obsolete even in the military, which has been emulated by bureaucracies. Instead, these power pyramids are very well suited for supervisory incompetence of bosses and wrongdoing by subordinates. The agency theory, properly understood, will lead you to the same conclusion. (See my quip on it in the Financial Times: http://on.ft.com/dnSJAa )
Change the subordination/management structure to a much better one, and you'll wipe out corruption in a blink of historic eye... As manager, I've done it in organizations in the matter of weeks and days. You can do the same everywhere and be a new mini-Gandhi - clearing away legal gunk of the past and profiting, too.
Best,
AV
www.CorruptionManagement.com/how
Chantell Hartley
Isabel Field
Brent Baldwin
Corruption is civil, legal, community oriented and socially defined by society as a collective. Morals are internally grounded and based on personal core beliefs that define our humanity and individuality.
Sady Machado Neto
Vidyardhi Nanduri
Say Body, heart, Mind
or permissive Limits and cross-over to in-discipline - a state of mind .
Desirable highest Discipline index
What steps are needed for social reforms to develop Identity Index /
Jelena Radenkovic
we can see that this problem is not "young" or "brand new". Old movies as "Godfather", "Scarface" represent it as a normal in high layers of society. So we can use a field of ethic, and ask,
why is that normal in high layers of society?
Who are the people that leading country, and
Why are they corupted?
Colleen Steen 500+
I agree with your insightful comments. Corruption is a global challenge with wide deep roots, which is not a new challenge in our world. One really important statement you make, which I see as a big part of the challenge, is that we often perceive it as "normal". So, in some respects, we accept corruption as a "normal" part of being human. How or why would we change something that on some levels we believe is "normal"?
You ask some great questions that might help us understand and deal with corruption...why do we consider corruption in any way "normal"? Why are some people corrupt and why do we continue to accept it?
Jelena Radenkovic
And there is an answer to the question "why do we act as it is normal". We act like that, because, it is impossible to act in a different way. If we want to stop corrupition, we have to have, as good relations, deep roots, as corruptive groups. And, in XXI centory, they are too clever, and we are too predictive.
I think, change is possible, only if we change the order. At all.
Elizabeth Gu 30+
I think people are pretty smooth when it comes to justifying themselves. As we see from many politicians, businessmen and brokers, glibness works, and even has positive effects on others' perspectives. So the word 'normal' we use to rationalize corruption is a clever yet, pathetic excuse, but isn't morally right. It just does not ring true in our minds. A number of people tend to believe what prevails among them is ‘normal’. Some might argue it isn’t, but the way people use this definition: ‘normal’ highly depends on a majority’s thoughts. And they start to differentiate between what’s right and what’s normal. So in that case, even if something is a right and moral thing to do, if it’s such a rare case, corruption could be justified by its frequency, which we call ‘normal’. I assume one way to solve this common misconception of corruption is to narrow a gap between moral duties—if you will—and social interactions in reality. Provided people think moral standards are too high to meet, and regard it as ideal goals, they give themselves a room for compromise, further, corruption in excuse of ‘inevitable’ reality. Some sincere religious people with strong convictions would succeed in maintaining their integrity by not being involved in corruption. Their strong religious ethics would be plausible factors that prevent them from any corruption. On the other hand, quite a few cleverer corrupt religious leaders take advantage of their moral standards to justify what they do. In that case, corruption gets uglier and more repulsive. People can be selfish, manipulative and unconsciously self-deceiving, and that could be normal. Corruption is the dirtiest outcome of these chaotic traits with rationalization and wrong interpretation. We know corruption is a bad thing. And we also know we can avoid being corrupt as long as we pursue transparency and justice. So, it is normal to think that corruption is not right. Thinking that corruption is normal is self-deceiving.
Colleen Steen 500+
Again Elizabeth, you hit the nail on the head!!! Many corrupt actions are "normalized" and therefor accepted over time. Also, as you say, many leaders take advantage of their positions as leaders to justify certain corrupt or immoral actions....we've seen that too many times throughout history.
I agree that corruption is not in any way, shape or form good for our local, national, or global societies, thinking corruption is normal is self-deceiving, and the way we can change corruption, is to pursue transparency. Each and every one of us can be mindfully aware as we decide what is normal and/or beneficial to ourselves as individuals AND beneficial and productive to the whole of our global society.
P.S. I would like to give you MANY thumbs up for your previous comment, and unfortunately, I've maxed out for you this week! Sending you a smile and a hug:>)
Anil Rajvanshi
If we reduce our own greed then corruption can be reduced and nearly eliminated from this world.
Cheers.
Shelby See
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" - John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
georgeena thomas
Luiz Ramos da Silva Filho
Beata Stasak
http://beatastasak.hubpages.com/hub/Has-Capitalism-destroyed-human-compassion