7/10/12 DETERMINING LEVEL OF CORRUPTION....mengukur tingkat rasuah.

Synopsis

I was happy to hear that Najib want to take War against Corruption as his coming main agenda. In this articles, based on various theories of economic and social science, and based on certain emerging social phenotypes in Malaysia, I try my best to ring the alarm of the level of corruption in this our homeland. I can't exactly recall, Muhammad SAW or his sahabah, or there is an interpretation of a verse in the Al Quran which carries the meaning....don't sell my words for worldly gain(s)...which basically indicating (their) hatred toward corruption.

Preamble

Once, I heard people talking about high level of corruption in this region ie South East Asia (ASEAN). The saying, whether by truth or not I was not particularly interested but I do believe it has something to do with some International Politic and Trade Issues that the region was undergoing at that particular time. The joke spread coincidentally in the period where there was some elements of uneasiness of the subjects with their leader: Ferdinan Marcos in Philippines, Succinda Kaparayong in Thailand, Suharto in Indonesia, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, and Mahathir Mohammed in Malaysia. Interestingly no comment was made over the leaders of Myanmar, Chambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Brunei. I believe the issue in those countries at that point in time was more of poverty and depression rather than corruption.

(2) The joke was about how to know the smartest, among those leaders in concealing corruption practices in their country. Where, in one of the ASEAN Biennial Sport Event, prior to the Official Closing of the event, the Host Country invited all the five leaders, whom by special invitation had turned up for the evening, to walk across the special pool set up in the middle of the Stadium. But sure the announcement was made in full of diplomacy and encouragement in such that, it was a sport, to see who among the leaders would dare to swim or better to walk across the pool and taste the new water.

(3) Lee Kuan Yew was the first to cross; fast, swift like a bird, and completely dry and clean. The audiences gave him the sounding applaud. Then followed by Marcos, Succinda and Suharto. Marcos as he stepped in, he almost got drown but was saved by the standing guards. The same with Succinda. Suharto, he proudly swam over and than putting his thumb up showing that the new water taste neutral and safe. Then, amazing, a big announcement was made on Mr. Mahathir turn. Big applaud was addressed to him. As his usual gesture, he was cool, gave his neutral cynically smile toward Lee Kuan Yew, and walked few meters into the pond, and then he stopped. His feet was just touching the surface of the water. As if there was a miracle, Mahathir then glided to the end of the pond, without much effort. The crowd was stun and not even the sound of breath was heard as he walked back to the stage. Total silent.

(4) As I have said, whether the joke is implying the truth or not is not of my predicament. But for sure the crossing the pool event had never happened. It is I would say a mere joke, that may have something to to with the International Politic and Trade Issues of the region at that particular time.

Origin of Corruption

What is the act of corruption? In its short definition; it is all about any form of inducement to get to one interest in a non ideal way (normal procedure). Nonetheless for the benefit of readers, I had made a foot note on the much elaborated definition of corruption at the end of the articles. Readers are encourage to search for more.

(2) Talking about corruption, is there any State in this world which is free or practicing the least corruption? Is, say, New Zealand, could it be the best candidate? I'm sure Switzerland is totally out. Some may say Sweden, but on what benchmarks are we talking? The Islamic world probably can claim that Mecca and Madinah are the two places on earth where corruption is nil. Corruption and any form of bad deed is totally prohibited under the doctrine of Tanah Haram. Why Mecca and Madinah could achieved such a standard? I'll try at attempt on that later. In the so called today corporate world, I believe the more serious issues that we should discuss is what would be the KPIs of corruption? To be frank, to this moment, I can't figure out the KPIs of corruption, since it is a practice of the dark left hand, probably the dark harden heart.

(3) In this article, I would only love to present the cause and effect of corruption. If one look at the CIA Country Report, one will see that certain countries are well presented in term of the Corruption, Crime, Prostitution, and Poverty hierarchical or index. For this matter, I'm not interested to dwell on how bad say Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Somalia, Lebanon, Macau, Sicily, Greece, Turkey etc on the matters, but let me focus to some indicative phenomenal that is in the up rising in Malaysia, our homeland.

(4) In the Economic Text Books, there are these theories about Utility Function, Maslow Pyramid, Pareto Law, and Gini Index. In a simple non-economic words, Utility Function is all about elements that feed into one's needs or wants. In my various past articles, I have written the the major differences between needs and wants. Need is about basic necessity while want is a basket of wish. To a poor guy, his need would be the five basic elements that could make him survive: food, home, clothes, health, and safety (and sex). He may want other things such as television, bike, etc. In the psychological perspectives, one's need or want will depend so much on his social status or morale standing. This is where Maslow's Pyramid then applied. Maslow divided one's satisfaction into a five hierarchical pyramid. The bottom most is all about fulfillment of one's psychological needs (food, home, sex, etc). The next level would be all about safety and security, followed by the third level which is about love and ownership, the fourth level is about self-esteem and the peak of the pyramid is about self actualization.

(5) In the ideal Utility Function condition, Maslow's Pyramid should applies, especially if one's is of high morale standing, one's actualization will no more be about getting all for himself but his focus should then be more of morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, devoid of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. But the question is then, when enough is enough? Be it materials, pleasures, social status, or power, when would one's Utility Function to plateau and his Maslow Pyramid will peak?

(6) Allah is great. First He created this world. On the seventh day, He created the Heaven and Hell, and made them distance from this Earth. He then created man. Before death, only Adam-Eve AS and Muhammad SAW have seen Heaven (and Hell). In the man, He blew His soul that enable man to think and to have desire. With the brain and heart, with His soul in man's body, man is free to think and desire for himself. But, through the angel, man was and is commanded to do good deed. Allah wants man to submit only to Him, to serve Him, to totally obey Him, to do nothing bad, but good. And, man's piety to Allah, is tested by the presence of satans. Allah had swear, due to their arrogance, that satans will be sent to hell, and thus satans swear, they will do nothing but to decept man, so that they will do bad, and thus be with them in Hell. Satans just don't want to be in Hell by themselves, but with as much men as possible. That is their satanic agenda over men. Man is given all the freedom to do whatever he want to do. His deed will either take him, hereafter, to Heaven or Hell. Through the influence of the satans, man heart turn to greed. His greed surpassed his needs. Thus, with greed, one's Utility Function will never plateau. It will never be a Convex Model. It will turns to Concave Model. By all means he will fight to make his Utility Function to forever ascend. As his greed increase, the ascendant of his Utility Function will be very steep. He careless of others needs or wants. Thus, in modern economic theory, Pareto classified such phenomena as Pareto Law of 20:80.

(7) By Pareto Law, about 80 percents of goods are enjoyed by 20 percents of the population. Or, about 80 percents of the world population only have access to 20 percents of the world goods. Illustratively, what it means, out of the 156 countries in this world, only about 30 countries enjoy good living, the rest are in the state of pariah. Out of 6,000,000,000 population of the world only 1,200,000 are enjoying good lives while the balance 4,800,000 are the poor the have not. With such wealth distribution sickness, then comes the concept what is termed as Gini Index. Gini Index is about the measurement of Income Gap between the upper 20 percents of the higher class society as against the 80 percents general population. The higher the Index, the worst is the wealth distribution. How is Malaysian Pareto Law and Gini Index? What about Malaysians Utility Function and Maslow Pyramid? How could those implies into our degree of corruption? I'll look into that later.

(8) Pareto Law, is not only about wealth distribution, but had also been applied in many other fields of social sciences and management. Based on such application, I would also love to deduce that only 20 percents of men would have ideal Utility Function and confirmed to Maslow Pyramid. As a cursory proves, look around us, how many would say Alhamdullilah, and stop eating when he says: Ah I love the food?. What did Muhammad SAW saying about eating habit? Go around especially during Ramadhan time, sure the hotels would serve the best foods at high price, not for people to really appreciate the dishes or food values, but more to cater for the waste or huge left over on ones table. The greedy eating habit of Malaysian, had triggered the Ministry of Health to release a statistic that account about 40 percents of Malaysian are obese. My estimate, in urban area, the figure might go up to 60 percents and are mostly the Malays (of all age and gender). Worst, they is a study saying about 40 percents of Sarawak Civil servants are having obese related health problems. What do these imply to our Utility Function.

(9) In term of food, we are indeed very greed adverse. The spicy curry, the sweet an sour, the fatty cheesy, the tasty budu, tempoyak, pekasam, sambal belacan, etc are all sliver draining. We are greed adverse as far as food is concern. If we look at other elements of lives, we would detect that we are equally greed adverse in term of material gain(s), pleasure liking, self interest, social status, power, etc. Look at the cars on Malaysian roads, earlier specified as luxury item, now is a needs, but a never ending needs. Look at all those accessories be it for women, men, kids and even the elders. Huge money are being spent on all those cheap, use and throw away products. Study the figures of our expenses on handphones bills and credit cards. How much do we spent to take Starbuck, Pizza, KFC or McDonald as against cucor kodok by the road side?. They are huge. But what is our actual true income? Is our personal CashFlow in balance? We are indeed, great in massaging our ego and to me those are of satanic nesting in our heart.

(10) Greed is the source of wanting more than needed. Greed outgrows ego. Ego makes one lost his true cause. All these in fact began in Heaven. Once Adam was created, Allah commanded angels and satans to take him as their leader. Angels submitted, but not satans whom creation was from fire not such dirty earth body of Adam. Satans were greedy. They turned egoistic. They turned deviant to submit to Allah's command. Thus, Allah cursed them to be the inhabitants of Hell. Satans then turned zealous, and thus swear to do nothing except to decept Adam and to take him to Hell. Thus, when Eve was created, in their romance in Heaven, they were surrounded by Satans and kept whispering for them to take on the refrained Khuldi Fruit, so that they can be much knowledgeable. Eve was greatly lured and made them took the fruit, which in the Bible was said they then earned knowledge of shame over their naked bodies. Probably, due to their shameful knowledge which today, we called sexual knowledge and desire had turned many men and women to lust and out of cause. Even on earth later, the sons of Adam-Eve AS, Qabel refused to let his brother Nable to take on his twin sister as his wife by virtue of his twin sister was much more beautiful than the twin sister of Nabel. He was too proud of his beautiful sister, and wanted her only for himself. Qabil killed Nabel. The first of human bloodshed on earth, all was because of greed, ego, the poor piety, Iman. In Islam, indeed, when our Iman is weak or weakening, we are adverse to bad deeds and this includes corrupted practices.

(11) In today knowledge, all those are as what I have earlier described as Utility Function, Maslow Pyramid, Pareto Law and Gini Index, just that they are not succinctly relating those to piety, Iman in view to clearly separate religion from economy. In fact that was the profound cause, why we are on the imbalance lives paths, once we separate religion from this worldly beings, definitely just a matter of time we will slipped off our straight smooth path. Judaism and Christianity, they had succumbed to such demand due to their oppressive historical survival game especially during the early Roman times. But in Islam, though the Al Quran remained intact, but our societies choose to align to the Western's Trapes. The Western's Cultures which takes into as Amendment No 1 of the American Constitution, the Exist of the Corruptors, the basic Human Right to the freedom of existence had made this world into very much greedy as we get deeper into emulating Democracy, Capitalism, the Free Market, which lead to nothing but monopoly and self interest.

(12) In another words, as long as we choose to remain secular, democratic the western way, truely practicing New York corporate lifestyle in our management, corruption will flourish.

Acid Test on Malaysia

Nobody will be happy if I say, Malaysia is a corrupted State. If I traveled oversea, and if someone says so, I'll be most disturb. Well, thanks, at least, that means lots of us don't like to be associated with this evil deed of corruption. But, are we free of corruption? Let us do or take some acid test

(2) First, asked ourselves, why lots of development in this country are not to the actual cost? In certain case, exorbitant in fact. In some instances, once the project awarded, after certain degree of implementation, we then will see lots of abandoned projects. A very classical example is the Kota Bharu Flyover. Can we just be pointing fingers to the political power? What had the civil servants, the private citizen, and society at large had not earn form such cost inefficiency? The Coffee Shop operators, the small leaders, the societies on the ground, could they just accept the fact that for every project implemented especially those big one, they need no hu ha functions?. Are those hu ha not a mean of corruption? Did we subscribe to what Allah had suggested: when we do good deeds, let the left hand doesn't know what the right had had done. Or would the officials assigned to supervise the Projects are happy if in their working trips they are not treated well by the contractors?

(3) If a political representatives come to our tahlil and or weeding functions are we not expecting them to handout thick envelop. We did, in most instance but why? I can understand in the case of death, but why should that be a practice in other not emergency celebration? Even today Aidil Fitri visits, Angpow becoming a tradition. Are we not slowly educating our people (kids) to always expecting return on their services? Sure some will say: Hey man, that is once in a year!. But what did the Malays proverbs say: Alah bisa tegal biasa,; Sedikit-sedikit lama-lama jadi bukit; Anjing kalau tak makan najis, hidupun cukuplah

(4) When we voted in any election, what was our prime principle? It is because of good cause of the State or we had been given lots of goodies or promises? Among so many political candidates, I'm sorry to observed, the rural folks, since they are naive to Political Games, their hearts still being traumatised by the long history of colonialism, communism insurgency, poverty, and all sort of lives disadvantages, playing with such sentiments always made them to choose what they being spooned feeds. The Roman art of political debate made lots to be eloguently impressive to be decisive. Are these not corruption?

(5) Try to do business in what ever area that we choose or good at? How easy or difficult is it? Will not there be 80 percents of the business controlled by the 20 percents of the societies? Why? Go to any institution in the country, try to get some business, be it in the government, semi government and private sector, will there be no talks or acts of the need for kick back? This is no more an unavoidable culture, it has spread into norms. Why? In Indonesia, long time ago, my friends termed this as sharing of rezeki. Goodness, my understanding, rezeki is good reward from Allah, but these guys, they defined inducement as rezeki yet they never missed their prays. What a contradiction?

(6) How efficient are things being done, be it in the services or production sector, especially in the public sector, in this Country? Lots of things are still done at a very slow pace. If not, why must Najib keeps shouting about those deliveries transformation. What exactly the reasons for all these inertia? It is due to system problems, or internal conflicts, or some personal interest? For each of these issues, it have to have it own remedies. That the reason, why the Japanese introduced the concept of QCC and TQM, which in Islam is all about muhasabah. Business persons, or any interested persons, in their urgent needs always made them tempted to induce, in what ever forms, an abnormal practice.

(7) I'm sadden seeing civil servants (most) really enjoying themselves when treated to dinner or what so ever by contractors and so forth. This sometimes goes to the community leaders. Ramadhan break fasting in fact now becaming a fiesta for such treatment. I believe it never stop there. There are lots more sponsorship for all sort of event within the Organization either for Buka Puasa, Aidil Fitri, recreational clubs, etc. It seem, we love to mix madu dan racun in our drink>. Let just ask ourselves, where do those contractors getting the money to pay for the treatments and or sponsorships? It is not from the high mark up of the project cost that he got? If so then, how much unnecessary expenditure did we have to cater for all such purposes? Who pay for these costs? In the last 2013, though I didn't see the details, I was a bit puzzle to note our Operating Cost is four times larger than our development cost? Why, where do most of these Operating cost goes to? Why? I assume if more money are spent on Operation, our economy will not progress healthily. To me a Balance Budget is not only about managing the debt issue, but must also be taking care of growth and maintenance areas. It is unhealthy in deed to have much more money to be spent on security and safety matters, where more enforcement work has to be financed. If this country is internally not secure, it is, I believe not about security issue, it must be cause by other non security issue. To me, heavy expenditure on security matter is among the non productive growth area that Mustafa Muhammed should alert Najib. Accordingly, if we have to be guarded by lots of security personnel, than, this country is not healthy. See what happen in America, Britain, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Russia, etc where more money goes to security what happen to their economy?

(8) Those are the few, but definitely there are much more, not exhaustive. But why most just being mum? In an Organization, definitely there are people who know corruption are going on, but who dare to ring the bell? Most, I would say behaving just selamatkan diri, jaga periuk nasi. Did we not? Why? The guys who are clearly corrupted, surely they are, but guys who are coward to stand to the good deed, are they not equally corrupted? Definitely, by what ever standard, they are the culprit of the whole system. Tell me, how many ustaz and ustazah are there in the Malaysian payroll? I believe tens of thousand of them? How many of them dare to stand to the call by Muhammad SAW to fight corruption to their bone. To this day, I don't hear any. Why? All are about fasik, coward to stand by the truth. To me public service ustaz and ustazah, are what the Al Quran saying ...they knew but they concealed.... It is well known, a truthful guys will never survived long, but what has the Al Quran proved to us? Did not Abraham AS survived the burning fire? Did not Hajar-Ismael, survived from the jealousy of Sarah? Did not Joseph, survived the cruelty of his brothers? Did not Moses, survived the oppressive of Pharaoh? Well, if one have to die for the good cause of the Country and ummah, so be it, and if he is redha will he not be one of the martyr

Grand Effect to Our Livelihood

In many development economic literature, Economic Growth is reversely correlated to corruption. Accordingly, the degrading of the Quality of Lives will also be directly correlated to the degree of corruption, Mexico, Greece, India, etc are great examples. If such prolong, definitely social unrest will occur. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yaman, Syria, Greece, etc are the recent examples. The fate of Ferdinan Marcos, Fuji Mori, Suharto, Chuan Lek Pai etc were not as far. Under normal circumstances, where corruption is rampant, the nation economy either will slow down, stagnant and or recess. But it doesn't mean that, once a State is achieving a high economic growth it is clean of corruption. India, China, and now Indonesia are good examples. What we should be looking is about sustainable growth, at least on the medium term basis.

(2) Malaysia for instance, in the mid 1980s to mid 1990s, our economic growth was very impressive at the range of of 7.0-10.0 percents. Our development progression at such time was also very out reaching that made Malaysian were so proud and loving of Mahathir like what. Everybody seem enjoying good economic opportunities. But then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, our economy began to slide downward. We hardly can reach the 5.00 percents growth target. Of course there are multi-facets to the problem. May be we should not also be forgetting, the drum of mega-corruption was also began to be beaten at such period. The Malays proverb says: Kalau tiada angin, masa pokok boleh bergoyang. Our economy get to the worst after Mahathir step down. We are struggling to wake up to this day. Why?

(3) At the initial text of my articles, I had said, the uprising of crimes, prostitution, poverty etc are social illness that come along with corruption. In all high level corrupted countries, check on their crimes and prostitution level. Definitely we will see direct correlation. New Mexico, Boenos Aires, Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, Monaco, etc look at the crime and prostitution report of these cities. Alarming. But sure some will say, Kuala Lumpur is indeed clean, but my question then is, what benchmark are we using? I do believe there are lots of Organized crime and prostitution going on in Kuala Lumpur. With the open cyber world, lots of businesses could be done on direct selling on the net basis. Those being busted are only the tip of the ice berg. Accordingly, our poverty issue in Malaysia, will no much of the rural issues. Poverty in Malaysia is shifting to high cost of urban lives. With such, lots of other social illness will come along. Thus, security became our coming number one issue. But, as development economist, that actually should not be of our major concern. We should keep our development be balanced. Corruption must be stopped.

Is there A Solution

If we care, it is not about the economic growth that matter most. In New Zealand, the economic growth is hardly above 2.00 percents, but their people quality of life is superb. The same with Switzerland and Israel. It is all about people wellbeing. In the era of Muhammad SAW and his sahabah, every single cents in the State treasury was spent to benefit the ummah. Their concern, really focused on the wellbeing of the ummah, because they knew, as a matter of Islamic principle, all wealth are to be shared equitable among the ummah. In today scenario, even the lower middle class population are living in hardship. Things are no more cheap. There are almost nothing that need no payment, even to ease oneself it may cost from 20-50 cents. As living cost becoming costly, while the income could not meet the rising cost, that is where corruption come into being. Who care, people need to survive. In time of desperation, even the Quranic verses, people would twist around especially in the concept of dharurat, life threatening, will not they will say rasuah is halal? If such is happening, then we better not to have the Al Quran around anymore. We are totally corrupted and surely we are in the verge of our extinction.

(2) The development economists will sure be saying, let push for high growth? Will high growth contain corruption? Not necessarily. It might spur more corruption. How? As more projects being implemented, will there not be more breeding grounds for the crocodiles? Sure there is always a way to contain corruption. Well, for the time being, we should be happy with the policing strategy, but it wouldn't sustain. Employing more police force, immigration, custom, anti-corruption agency intelligennts, post and border enforcement, whould it help? Did it work well in America? It failed indeed for such a police state. Thus we must move on to the much strategic approach. What? How?

(3) How did Muhammad SAW and the sahabah were able to refrained from any deed that would not bring harm to the community, ummah? Firstly is about piety Iman. They believe by scarifying the most in this world, they will gain the best in Heaven. Thus, they focused their struggle to impart the greatest Iman among their followers. Secondly, they practiced the Islamic Adeen. Any practices that was contrary to the Islamic teaching, they will put all effort to stop or destroy it. Thus in today scenario, the best strategic approach toward fighting corruption and all other social illness are through implementation of Islamic Education, Financial and Legal System. I strongly believe, why Mecca and Madinah are able to nurture serene living conditions are all due to the steadfast implementation of the concept of Tanah Haram. Good deed are generously rewarded hereafter, while bad deeds must immediately severely punish. Can't the concept of Tanah Haram not being implemented outside of Mecca and Madinah? If any say no, then do we really understand the meaning of Allah saying: ....I don't differentiate among the ummah, except by their Iman and deeds...all in this universe are My creation, I bless good to good..... Allah knows better, I'm just visualising.

(4) Najib dare you to sacrifice your (and family) worldly gain to ensure the sustenance of your bangsa Melayu? Do you dare to work hard and fast to make Kampung Baru as Pusat Kecermerlangan Pendidikan, Kewangan dan Perundangan Islam Nusantara, as a strategic mean to make the Malays to be significant in the development of the Islamic civilization? I would also love to suggest, don't merely walk around to trail Abdul Razak Husein's footpath, it is greater to trail his soul in his struggle for the Malays. Muhhyiddin Yasin, Khalid Nordin, Rais Yatim, and Nong Chik dare you guys to really work hard with all the Malays in Kampung Baru, to build the Malays' Monumental Development here on earth and the pahala they can tape hereafter? Dare you guys? I strongly believe we must establish the environ of Tanah Haram of Mecca and Madinah right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur ie Kampung Baru to cure all the living distress that we are now facing. Probably great to give a hand to Nik Aziz Nik Mat or vice versa. May Allah gives us all the wisdom and strength to be great. SubhanaAllah.

Kuching, Sarawak
23-25 Oct., 2012

Footnote:

Wikipedia defined, in philosophical, theological, or moral discussions, corruption is spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. In economy, corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery, kickback, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh. In government it is when an elected representative makes decisions that are influenced by vested interest rather than their own personal or party ideological beliefs.

(2) Further elaboration was made by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy saying; the causes and effects of corruption, and how to combat corruption, are issues that are increasingly on the national and international agendas of politicians and other policymakers. For example, the World Bank has relatively recently come around to the view that economic development is closely linked to corruption reduction (World Bank 1997) and there have been numerous anti-corruption initiatives in multiple jurisdictions (Heidenheimer and Johnston 2002; Preston and Sampford 2002).

(2.2) Moreover, the very recent Global Financial Crisis has revealed financial corruption, and spurred regulators to consider various anti-corruption measures by way of response. By contrast, the concept of corruption has not received much attention.[1] Existing conceptual work on corruption consists in little more than the presentation of brief definitions of corruption as a preliminary to extended accounts of the causes and effects of corruption and the ways to combat it.[2] Moreover, most of these definitions of corruption are unsatisfactory in fairly obvious ways.[3]

(2.3) Consider one of the most popular of these definitions, namely, ‘Corruption is the abuse of power by a public official for private gain.’[4] No doubt the abuse of public offices for private gain is paradigmatic of corruption. But when a bettor bribes a boxer to ‘throw’ a fight this is corruption for private gain, but it need not involve any public office holder; the roles of boxer and bettor are usually not public offices.

(2.4) One response to this is to distinguish public corruption from private corruption, and to argue that the above definition is a definition only of public corruption.[5] But if ordinary citizens lie when they give testimony in court, this is corruption; it is corruption of the criminal justice system. However, it does not involve abuse of a public office by a public official. And when police fabricate evidence out of a misplaced sense of justice, this is corruption of a public office, but not for private gain.

(2.5) In the light of the failure of such analytical-style definitions it is tempting to try to sidestep the problem of providing a theoretical account of the concept of corruption by simply identifying corruption with specific legal and/or moral offences.

(2.6) However, attempts to identify corruption with specific legal/moral offences are unlikely to succeed. Perhaps the most plausible candidate is bribery; bribery is regarded by some as the quintessential form of corruption (Noonan 1984 and Pritchard 1998). But what of nepotism? Surely it is also a paradigmatic form of corruption, and one that is conceptually distinct from bribery. The person who accepts a bribe is understood as being required to provide a benefit to the briber, otherwise it is not a bribe; but the person who is the beneficiary of an act of nepotism is not necessarily understood as being required to return the favour.

(2.7) In fact, corruption is exemplified by a very wide and diverse array of phenomena of which bribery is only one kind, and nepotism another. Paradigm cases of corruption include the following. The commissioner of taxation channels public monies into his personal bank account, thereby corrupting the public financial system. A political party secures a majority vote by arranging for ballot boxes to be stuffed with false voting papers, thereby corrupting the electoral process. A police officer fabricates evidence in order to secure convictions, thereby corrupting the judicial process. A number of doctors close ranks and refuse to testify against a colleague who they know has been negligent in relation to an unsuccessful surgical operation leading to loss of life; institutional accountability procedures are thereby undermined. A sports trainer provides the athletes he trains with banned substances in order to enhance their performance, thereby subverting the institutional rules laid down to ensure fair competition. It is self-evident that none of these corrupt actions are instances of bribery. Further, it is far from obvious that the way forward at this point is simply to add a few additional offences to the initial ‘list’ consisting of the single offence of bribery. Candidates for being added to the list of offences would include nepotism,[6] police fabricating evidence, cheating in sport by using drugs, fraudulent use of travel funds by politicians, and so on. However, there is bound to be disagreement in relation to any such list. For example, law enforcement practitioners often distinguish between fraud on the one hand, and corruption on the other.[7] Most important, any such list needs to be justified by recourse to some principle or principles. Ultimately, naming a set of offences that might be regarded as instances of corruption does not obviate the need for a theoretical, or quasi-theoretical, account of the concept of corruption.

(2.8) As it happens, there is at least one further salient strategy for demarcating the boundaries of corrupt acts. Implicit in much of the literature on corruption is the view that corruption is essentially a legal offence, and essentially a legal offence in the economic sphere.[8] Accordingly, one could seek to identify corruption with economic crimes, such as bribery, fraud, and insider trading. To some extent this kind of view reflects the dominance of economically focused material in the corpus of academic literature on corruption. It also reflects the preponderance of proposed economic solutions to the problem of corruption. After all, if corruption is essentially an economic phenomenon, is it not plausible that the remedies for corruption will be economic ones?[9]

(2.9) But many acts of corruption are not unlawful. That paradigm of corruption, bribery, is a case in point. Prior to 1977 it was not unlawful for US companies to offer bribes to secure foreign contracts; indeed, elsewhere such bribery was not unlawful until much later.[10] So corruption is not necessarily unlawful. This is because corruption is not at bottom simply a matter of law; rather it is fundamentally a matter of morality.

(2.10) Secondly, corruption is not necessarily economic in character. An academic who plagiarises the work of others is not committing an economic crime or misdemeanour; and she might be committing plagiarism simply in order to increase her academic status. There might not be any financial benefit sought or gained. Academics are more strongly motivated by status, rather than by wealth. A police officer who fabricates evidence against a person he believes to be guilty of paedophilia is not committing an economic crime; and he might do so because he believes the accused to be guilty, and does not want him to go unpunished. Economics is not necessarily involved as an element of the officer's crime or as a motivation. When police do wrong they are often motivated by a misplaced sense of justice, rather than by financial reward. Again, a person in authority motivated by sadistic pleasure who abuses her power by meting out cruel and unjust treatment to those subject to her authority, is not engaging in an economic crime; and she is not motivated by economic considerations. Many of those who occupy positions of authority are motivated by a desire to exercise power for its own sake, rather than by a desire for financial reward.

(2.11) Economic corruption is an important form of corruption; however, it is not the only form of corruption. There are non-economic forms of corruption, including many types of police corruption, judicial corruption, political corruption, academic corruption, and so on. Indeed, there are at least as many forms of corruption as there are human institutions that might become corrupted. Further, economic gain is not the only motivation for corruption. There are a variety of different kinds of attractions that motivate corruption. These include status, power, addiction to drugs or gambling, and sexual gratification, as well as economic gain. We can conclude that the various currently influential definitions of corruption, and the recent attempts to circumscribe corruption by listing paradigmatic offences, have failed. They failed in large part because the class of corrupt actions comprises an extremely diverse array of types of moral and legal offences. That said, some progress has been made. At the very least, we have identified corruption as fundamentally a moral, as opposed to legal, phenomenon. Acts can be corrupt even though they are, and even ought to be, legal. Moreover, it is evident that not all acts of immorality are acts of corruption; corruption is only one species of immorality. Consider an otherwise gentle husband who in a fit of anger strikes his adulterous wife and accidentally kills her. The husband has committed an act that is morally wrong; he has committed murder, or perhaps culpable homicide, or at least manslaughter. But his action is not necessarily an act of corruption. Obviously the person who is killed (the wife) is not corrupted in the process of being killed. Moreover, the act of killing does not necessarily corrupt the perpetrator (the husband). Perhaps the person who commits a wrongful killing (the husband) does so just once and in mitigating circumstances, and also suffers remorse. Revulsion at his act of killing might cause such a person to embark thereafter on a life of moral rectitude. If so, the person has not been corrupted as a result of his wrongful act.[11]

(2.12) An important distinction in this regard, is the distinction between human rights violations and corruption. Genocide is a profound moral wrong; but it is not corruption. This is not to say that there is not an important relationship between human rights violations and corruption; on the contrary, there is often a close and mutually reinforcing nexus between them (Pearson 2001). Consider the endemic corruption and large-scale human rights abuse that have taken place in authoritarian regimes, such as that of Idi Amin in Uganda and that of Suharto in Indonesia. And there is increasing empirical evidence of an admittedly complex causal connection between corruption and the infringement of subsistence rights; there is evidence, that is, of a causal relation between corruption and poverty. Indeed, some human rights violations are also acts of corruption. For example, wrongfully and unlawfully incarcerating one's political opponent is a human rights violation; but it is also corrupting the political and judicial processes.

(2.13) Thus far, examples of different types of corrupt action have been presented, and corrupt actions have been distinguished from some other types of immoral action. However, the class of corrupt actions has not been adequately demarcated within the more general class of immoral actions. To do so, a definition of corrupt actions is needed, specifically for actions of corrupt institutions (Miller 2010).