Power and Corruption

'Bringing back Public Trust' the blog mentioned on Twitter, caught the attention of Rohit K Sharma‏ @srohit19, who sent a reply to my tweet.

Rohit works for IBM these days. He is my former student of over 12-13 years of standing. Inside the classroom as well as outside of it, he was a 'teacher's delight' in terms of his curiosity and diligence. I could not have ignored his comment. What followed was a wonderful interaction on Twitter and I reproduce the whole of it below:

Rohit:

Thanks for writing and I disagree with central premise that lower bureaucracy does not have power. What explains corruption then?

Mukul:

Corruption is a matter of individual attitude though power may make it more intense.

R:

Power corrupts, no power would mean no basis of corruption, if the person has no power can't execute even after a bribe. They have power. 

M: 

Greatest power of people that no one has is power to reject and power to raise their voice. If they don't use it for selfishness. .. 

R:

Solution is less power to bureaucracy and more freedom to people.

M:

Why would you need a toothless bureaucracy and what would it do? 

R: 

Too many teeth already to bite. 

M: 

Sure.. disband bureaucracy. .. but even to achieve that...  need to reject it and raise voice against it... unable to agree with you.  

R: 

You have not provided any argument sir, only contentions.  

M: 

Thanks for pointing out the deficiency.  I will try to improve  

R: 

Thanks for engaging, always enjoyed your classes and your Socratic method. Let's agree to Disagree.  

M: 

Happy to engage with you in your usual style. Please allow me to carry forward this conversation to the blog itself.

Well, the above interaction shows some reactions that other people reading the blog could also share and therefore, it would be appropriate to reply to them collectively.

Corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a person often to acquire personal benefit. When such a person is entrusted with a position of public authority, his conduct is likely to be under scrutiny and discourse. The dishonest or unethical conduct would have the other party who would normally be seen as a victim of corruption. Morally and ethically, the so called victim is equally corrupt. A state of helplessness of the victim is the usual argument extended to legitimise such corruption.

But what is the usual helplessness of the victim – it could be coercion by the corrupt to impinge on personal liberties like personal safety, freedom to carry on with life of one's choice, ownership of money and other economic resources, social reputation, vanity and self-esteem. Any threat to personal liberties is inconvenient and the victim engages in dishonest or unethical conduct like bribing the corrupt to escape the threat of inconvenience.

The threat of attack on the personal liberties of the victim by the corrupt that are in a position of public authority is real. The moot point is that a person is corrupt attitudinally first, and then his place in a position of public authority makes his threats real. Power can enable or catalyse corruption but it cannot cause corruption.

Then there is a symbiotic corruption. The so called public servant and the presumed victim are in collusion for mutual benefit. Plying of unlicensed transport vehicles, unauthorised street hawking, illegal parking, selling counterfeits and other similar activities flourish through such nexus.

Institutionalised corruption by businesses is a very different game. Here the victim is the person in position of public authority. This bureaucrat needs to fall in line or could be made to fall out of the position.

Dishonest or unethical are contextual terms. Rosario island-group off Cartegena de Indias in Colombia is a famous tourist destination that I visited some 13 years back. There was one Rosario who came from Spain to Colombia and parked himself in these islands. Rosario kept attacking the port of Cartegena from these islands until he succeeded in capturing it. Rosario is called the Pirate and these islands are also called pirate islands. Interestingly, Rosario is remembered as Sir Rosario in Spain. Colonel Todd, a British historian, in his famous books on British history describes Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev as terrorists while we adore and worship them as selfless martyrs. Evaluation of the work of the intelligence services in terms of honesty and ethicality is completely based on the contextual perspective.

The highest level of corruption is treason or sedition and a traitor is such a conduct is driven by an attitude and a desire for selfish benefit. The current malady of fake news is also corruption.

The power of the state is the summation of the power that its citizens forgo from out of personal liberty in lieu of the responsibility that the citizens have delegated to the state for conducting their lives and on their behalf. If every individual can look after one's own life and takes complete charge of it, there is no nation and there is no power in that state. Everyone is completely free and there is no corruption. But then there is also no community, no society and no nation state.

The contemplation (meaning - deep reflective thought) about more empowerment of the junior bureaucracy   is through the delegation of power from the senior bureaucracy. The argument (meaning - a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory ) in support of the contemplation is the boundary level problem that the junior bureaucracy faces during their interface with the citizens wherein they are unable to deliver public service for lack of power but the citizens expect them to deliver.

Finally, this blog is about ideas (meaning - a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action). Disagreements can be caused by differences in - facts relied upon, definitions used, personal values, information processing methods, default beliefs and self-interest. Logical fallacies and motivation behind signalling disagreement can also be amongst the causes for disagreement.

Thanks Rohit, for motivating me to write this post. Lack of agreement does not reflect the weakness of the idea.