About Legalizing Corruption
Published by Ravikiran Rao March 10th, 2004 in GovernanceRavages asks about my argument for legalizing corruption, “And if corruption were legalized, would you have a law that says how much of corruption is within the limit?”
Actually, if I remember correctly, the Supreme Court has answered that question in atleast one case. What happened was that a company claimed the bribes it paid at the Octroi naka as business expenses. It argued that approximately 15% of its sales revenue was spent on such bribes for which naturally it could not produce proof. But it wanted to claim deduction for tax purposes. The Supreme Court upheld that argument.
That is not quite what I meant by “legalizing corruption”, but there you are.
In some sense legalising corruption is like legalising theft. When a governemnt official who has the power to change your lfe (say a policeman) asks for a bribe, it’s akin to “your money or your life.”
One can sympathise with the bribe giver. I don’t consider the bribe giver in such cases as part of the problem or of being corrupt. In your Supreme Court example all the court agreed on was that paying the bribe can be considered as an expense. I don’t see any comment on what happened to those received the bribes.
My solution would be to introduce competition. Also #1 or 2 in your list helps.
I don’t get it. How would legalizing corruption help? How would it make our lives better? Then would’nt there be even a madder rush (and fee) for places of power - which rake in more moolah - leading to even more sapping of the junta?
Then would’nt the best business be being part of the bureaucracy - leading to overall decline in the lure of businesses in general?
All will be explained.
I want to know how 1 and 6 are different. I think eliminating the “anti-corruption” law and the department inherently means that we have made corruption legal.
In which case, I dont understand what “law” is being talked about in 4 and 7.
I think I understand the difference between the words “function” and “law” as used in the below post. And my minds view of the 9 points can be summarized as “Eliminate the law; Retain the function; Change the authority”.
I need to know whether I understood the writer as he intended to be understood. And if yes, I want to know why I am confused! :-)
1 and 6 are different swami. I want to eliminate the department in which corruption occurs, not the law and regulation that prohibits corruption. I mean that if there is an unnecessary law that expects me to get a certificate from some department that I am not violating the coastal regulation zone rules when I am setting up a hotel in a hill station, we are better off scrapping that law than trying to police it to ensure that there is no corruption in its implementation.
Actually, I haven’t known what breach of law corruption does violate? Can you answer me?