CRIME, COERCION, CORRUPTION AND VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

by H K Dey

Corruption, as popularly conceived, is as old as history. In different cultures, it flourished in different forms. What was regarded as corruption in one culture could be readily accepted as its opposite in another. In that sense, corruption is culturally conditioned. In recent years, sociologists, political scientists, administrators and jurists have tried to examine the phenomenon conceptually and analytically.

The economists have relatively lagged behind and have allegedly focussed their attention more on determining what constitutes corruption than on the appropriate methods of dealing with it. Their concern for definition cannot, however, be lightly dismissed, for definitional clarity could be quite important. At least conceptually, one needs to be quite clear as to what one means by corruption. Only then can one relate specific acts to the defining characteristics of corruption. There is, however, a school of thinking that warns against the dangers of starting with a definition and favours deriving a definition from specific examples (as examples multiply so will the definition evolve). The two positions are not as opposed as they might appear. To derive a definition from specific examples, we have to identify a priori certain acts or behaviour to represent corruption before we can discover their common thread. On the other hand, if we start with a definition, we run the risk of labeling something or someone as corrupt just because we have defined it so. In either case, we start with a preconception, as indeed we must as the first step of inquiry.

What is Corruption?

In respect of definition, corruption seems to enjoy too many degrees of freedom. And this follows from the attempt to accommodate a wide range of activities which are thought to be, for one reason or other, instances of corruption. In the literature, the cases of corruption have been classified in various ways, such as bureaucratic vs. political, market vs. parochial, petty vs. major and so on. Useful though they are in appropriate contexts, they do not clearly and explicitly bring out the essential nature of corruption from the instances or from the bases of classification. For example, if bureaucratic corruption or political corruption are said to be something indulged in by bureaucrats or by politicians, one can easily (and fruitlessly) multiply the types of corruption by placing suitable modifiers before the word 'corruption'.

To be analytically useful, it is important to keep the definition of corruption free of moral overtones as far as possible. Many would be tempted to say that corruption is everywhere and to ask for a definition is like asking a fish to define water. True, many unpleasant things happen around us and many of us are adversely affected by them in some ways: arson, looting, abduction, murder, drug abuse, child-lifting, gender discrimination, copying, fraud and forgery, favoritism and nepotism, bribery and graft, death in police custody, leaking classified information to the favourite reporters, gambling, spouse-beating and so on. For each of these it is possible to find quite a few who will prefer to call it an act of corruption without ever feeling the need to give their characterization a second thought. The reason is that the phenomenon in question has long offended their sense of fairness, justice, decency or moral values in general.

Herein lies the problem. If anything that hurts someone's sensibilities about moral values is to pass for corruption, then there can be no meaningful discussion of corruption and its remedies. Apart from the well-known difficulties of too broad definitions, there is a high probability that most remedies would be at odds with values strongly held by a section of the society. Yet there is no escaping from value judgements. Why?

The reason is that for some act to be branded as an act of corruption, it is important to take into account its motivation. Unfortunately, in most cases, only acts, not their motivations, are observable. For instance, assume that a group of constables could stop a robbery, but did not. And this much is observable. Can we conclude from this that they were corrupt without any reference to what motivated them to behave in this way? Different possibilities will come to mind; they were incompetent or afraid; they just did not bother, or perhaps they were in collusion with the robbers.

Let us agree that incompetence or criminal negligence are punishable offences, but not many would be ready to equate the crime of incompetence or negligence with the crime of indirectly helping the robbers to commit the robbery. If motives are not directly observable and if, moreover, the act as such is punishable irrespective of the motive, why should we look for any motive at all? We should, because punishments have to depend not only on the nature of the crime, but also on its motivation. In this robbery example, if there are genuine grounds for the constables' being afraid (such as not being in sufficient strength relative to robbers, or being less well-armed), then the remedy should be sought in removing the reasons for their fear. Or if they are prone to panic and deficient in courage by disposition or physical constitution, then the remedy lies in reviewing the process of recruitment and training which could not (because of corruption) prevent the entry of wrong types into this demanding occupation.

The logical way to proceed is, therefore, to make explicit whatever value judgement about motivation goes into the making of something an act of corruption. Explicit value judgement has the merit of making the notion of corruption conceptually precise. We can no longer call an act which is in some ways repugnant to someone an act of corruption, unless its underlying motive conflicts with this (and just not any arbitrary) explicitly stated value judgement. While this will make the notion of corruption conceptually precise, it will not, however, solve the problem of motives not being directly observable. One can hope that in many instances circumstantial and indirect evidence will be enough to clearly indicate the motive of the action.

In this discussion, we define corruption in this way by explicitly stating the nature of the underlying motivational value judgement. A person (acting individually or as member of a group) is said to be engaged in acts of corruption if he

1. enjoys any power or position which has been acquired through explicit contract or through solemn promise (stated or implied) in order that by virtue of them he can best protect or advance the goals of those persons or institutions on whose behalf he is required to act, but
2. deliberately abuses his power or position to advance his personal or parochial interest.

An act of corruption thus involves the willful abuse of power to serve personal or parochial interest of the person concerned. The value judgement in this definition is quite explicit. It says that the exercise of power acquired in ways described above for personal end is bad. Components (i) and (ii) of the definition are both necessary conditions (individually neither is sufficient). For example, if Mr A employs his physical prowess to stop his opponent from taking part in a contest, his is not an act of corruption by this definition (though it may otherwise be distasteful or illegal), for his action does not satisfy the part (i) of the definition. On the other hand when a doctor of a rural health centre uses the medicine meant for one village in the treatment of people from the neighboring villages and if he has nothing to gain personally from this, he may be accused of flouting his instructions, but not of corruption.

Some Stylised Cases and Corruption

We now examine some familiar cases of so-called misdeeds that we see around us in this country and elsewhere to see if they fit our definition of corruption.

First, let us consider the case of tax assessment of a businessman who thinks he is quite honest and, as a good citizen, quite willing to pay his fair share of taxes. He believes he has kept his books well, but the taxman finds fault with his accounts and says that he is liable to pay a much larger amount. Not sure of the other courses of action open to him (e.g., challenging in a court, seeking departmental redress through formal complaints etc., which nonetheless entail considerable costs in terms of time and money) the businessman decides to pays whatever is demanded; the money goes into the treasury.

Though this is not a very plausible scenario, it is instructive to see whether we can call it an act of corruption on the part of the official. It is not, if the official has reasons (even if unfounded) to believe that profits have been under reported. To his mind he has only tried to do his duty (preventing tax fraud) using the authority (including the discretionary powers) vested in him by his employer. To the businessman who too honestly believes that he has correctly reported income, this may seen to be an act of harassment or extortion. But since the claim has been challenged and the truth is determined, it remains very much an open question. We can however say that the act is not an act of corruption, if we can assume that the official has not used his power for his personal or parochial interest. The appearance of 'if' in the previous sentence is due to the problem of non-observability of motives. How can we be sure that by making the businessman pay more the official has not served his personal or parochial interest? One can mention the possibility that he has been bribed by a rival businessman in a bid to eliminate unwelcome competition. If this is true, this must be treated as an act of corruption (extortion) induced by a prior act of corruption (bribing).

The above scenario is less plausible than the one in which the businessman is keen to pay as little as possible no matter what is true tax liabilities are. The duty of the taxman is to prevent him from doing so and he has presumably been equipped with the requisite power and infrastructure to do this. If instead he chooses to help the businessman to defraud the state in exchange for bribes, his will be an act of corruption.

What if the taxman does not take the bribe but nonetheless allows him to avoid paying the right amount? Before we answer this question, we must ask why he might behave in this way. He might be negligent, incompetent or may have been under pressure from some influential quarters (e.g., politicians). This is not an act of corruption whatever the motive, though the last possibility is indicative of corruption elsewhere in the society.

We now move to the sphere of law enforcement and administration of justice. A dacoity is committed and the police make some random arrests. The relatives go to the police station, make payments and have them released. Whatever the case, taking money or its equivalent is clearly an act of corruption; it involves the abuse of power for the furtherance of self-interest. Even when the culprits are duly charge-sheeted but with lesser crimes or by leaving loopholes to make prosecution difficult, the acceptance of money must be treated as an act of corruption.

In criminal cases, the police must provide sufficient evidence for successful prosecution. In this country, it is common knowledge that many organised crimes (like abduction, ransom, murder, collection of money under threat of violence etc.) go unpunished. The perpetrators are either not arrested, or, if arrested, cannot be successfully prosecuted for lack of sufficient evidence. And to the extent that the lack of arrest or evidence is due to police complicity with the criminals, the police must be said to be engaged in corruption. Even in respect of granting bail, there is scope for corruption on the part of the presiding judge.

A public procurement contract should go to the lowest bidder, given other things (such as specifications). When it does not, because another firm has bribed the appropriate authority, it becomes an act of corruption involving abuse of power and trust (the committee and the contracting firms gain at the cost of the state). Even an award in favour of the lowest bidder may involve corruption, if the firm has paid the highest bribe to bring this about. The scope for exchange of money remains because normally there are ways in which the lowest bidder may be eliminated on technical (e.g. specifications, quality) or procedural (e.g. the ways the documents have been drawn up) grounds. In this latter case, the tender-committee members gain at the cost of the bidding firm, not the state, at least in the short run. In the long run, the state is the likely loser because the contracting firm may try to recover the bribe to the tender committee by again bribing the supervisors to take a sleepy attitude toward the quality of work done, services rendered, or materials supplied.

Another important set of activities involving corruption is related to cross-border trade by land or through the sea ports. Here smuggling, over-invoicing and under-invoicing, false declaration with respect to the content to avoid customs and sales taxes are specially noteworthy. In all of these, it is the state which is the loser (in terms of revenue lost, capital flight, threat to public health or morals); the gainers are the importers (legal or illegal) and those officials and personnel whose collaboration is enlisted; they are by definition corrupt.

Recently the question of default of bank loans is hitting newspaper headlines almost daily in our country. Is failing to repay bank loans in time an act of corruption? It is not, if we want to steer clear of pronouncing any normative (and hence to a large extent arbitrary) judgement about what constitutes proper conduct of a good borrower. In fact, the question does not address the real issue in so far as corruption is concerned. Why is he a defaulter? There is no simple answer but some would easily come to mind. (a) He has not been doing well in business whether for bad management or bad luck. (b) Even though he has been doing well, he has failed to make provisions for loan repayment or may even have transferred profits or capital to other ventures.

If (a) is the case, then there are well-established methods for dealing with the defaulter. On the other hand, if (b) is the truth (in many cases this is what must have happened), and if, in addition, this behaviour has been encouraged by the belief that he can totally avoid payment (or can put it off indefinitely), one needs to go into the basis of this belief. It is quite possible that in many case proper procedures have not been followed and precautions not taken deliberately in sanctioning and disbursement of loans in exchange for bribe or some form of illegal gratification. By this act of corruption both the borrower and the bribees gain at the expense of the financial institutions, almost all of which are in the public sector. It is quite possible, however, that in many cases the loans have been sanctioned and disbursed under political pressure as a form of political patronage which the officials of the financial institutions may not have been able to withstand. In this sense, these institutions have been used for implementing corrupt deals in the political arena.

We shall now consider a few cases of corruption which might appear insignificant individually compared with the cases discussed earlier but could be quite worrisome if they prevail on a large scale and across many trades and corruption.

At the booking counter, there is long queue and it moves slowly. Some people are seen getting the job done without standing in the queue. Those who are allowing this to happen in exchange for money are corrupt, because they are abusing their power to earn money (affection or goodwill) at the expense of the people whether in the queue or not. Or suppose that you are trying to purchase an air ticket to London. The booking clerk may tell you that all tickets have been sold out; but the travel agent can procure you the ticket if you are willing to pay something in addition to the regular fare. Is this act of corruption? Yes, it is, but not exactly in the sense it applies to the tax assessor where if you do not pay you are liable to penalty and legal action. Here there is no such compulsion. You may choose not to buy the ticket if you like, though you cannot wish away your tax liability. However, if the trip is really urgent and you must make it, you may agree to pay the extra money. It may look like an extortion to you, but not to the booking clerk who may feel that he has not compelled you (like any free market transaction). Now compare it with the situation where you pay an 'exhorbitant' fare to rickshaw-puller to take you home from the railway station at dead of night when there are few rickshaws around. The rickshaw-puller is not corrupt, but the booking clerk is. Why? The scarcity of rickshaws is perhaps not of his own making. It is your plain bad luck that the train landed you there at inconvenient hours. The so-called scarcity of tickets is in the above instance artificial ( if genuine, you do not get the ticket anyway); the clerk has abused his power to pay you more, even though he could spare you the extra payment.

An invigilator in an examination hall is reluctant to catch examinees in the act of cheating or copying, even though he plainly sees it happening. He is not doing his duty for which he is there. Suppose he fears that he will be in trouble subsequently for reporting the incident (the fear may be real or fancied). We might call him incompetent, coward, lacking in public spirit or whatever; but he is not corrupt by our definition. Contrast this with the behaviour of another teacher who earns a lot from private coaching. He manages to get appointed invigilator in the hall in which some of his private students are appearing for the examination. He indictates answers to them (perhaps to a few others as an act of insurance). His is an act of corruption, because he has abused his position for his personal gain.

Is cheating an act of corruption? Again it depends on what we meant by cheating and the context in which it takes place. Suppose I know that my milk cow is terminally ill. You, my intimate friend, want to buy it but I do not divulge the state of her health. So you buy it paying a price which a comparable healthy cow will fetch in the open market. The cow dies in a week. This is an act of cheating by breach of trust. Though perhaps morally reprehensible, this is not an act of corruption. By the same token, if a salesman cheats me by claiming that a fake camera is a genuine one, we will not call it an act of corruption.

Let us now consider another kind of cheating based on the same asymmetry of information (and, of course, something more). When I go on pilgrimage to a neighbouring country by land route, the customs official at the border check-post claims that I must pay customs duty at the rate of 200% of the purchase price of my camera while in fact the rate is much lower. Not being quite sure, I remonstrate, but he sets my doubt at rest by saying that I will be given a genuine receipt for the amount paid and the money will go to the treasury. I get a receipt which turns to be a fake one. This act of cheating is also an act of corruption because it involves the abuse of power on the part of the official.

From the examples above it should be clear that in defining the notion of corruption, our emphasis is not so much on the nature of the activities themselves as on their method or motivation. This definition undoubtedly covers fewer cases than what popular perceptions will encompass. However, in absolute terms, it is not as narrow as it appears, because often a misdeed, while itself not an act of corruption, can nonetheless be traced back to one (or more) which is. We have given several examples of this earlier. Let us refer to the dacoity example. The act of dacoity itself is not an act of corruption, but if this could happen because the police on duty acting in league with the dacoits turned a blind eye to the incident, then the latter act of the police is an act of corruption. Similarly, adulteration or forgery is not an act of corruption; it is, however, quite possible that it can continue because those who are charged with the reponsibility of keeping a watchful eye on it are themselves willing accomplices. In that case, the watchdogs are undoubtedly corrupt.

Why is Corruption Possible?

Let us start with the question: Why would a person want to indulge in corruption? He may have a feeling that an act of corruption is an illicit act and perhaps unfair by his sense of morality. Besides, it may call forth punishment and social disapproval if he is caught or exposed. These considerations should keep him from an act of corruption. But ranged against these are his pecuniary and other gains if he can carry on. If this latter urge dominates (whether due to poverty or greed) he becomes prone to corruption.

His willingness is obviously not enough. Opportunities must exist or be created for the fulfillment of his desire. In many cases, these opportunities do indeed exist or can be created. The tax assessor mentioned earlier has some discretionary powers delegated to him by the authority (discretion is necessary, since often it is almost impossible to cover by law all possible contingencies). True, he has to act within a framework of rules and procedures which, let us presume, are fairly well-known. But for many tax payers, it is often impossible (or very costly) to follow the rules and procedures in their entirety. For example, think of the businessman who does not (or cannot) keep his books in strict accordance with the provisions of law (which may sometimes be given convenient interpretation). The assessor can question the authenticity or legitimacy of many transactions and ask him to provide 'satisfactory' evidence. In short, in many cases, he can find fault with the tax payer's statement of incomes and expenditures, the deductions claimed, question the value of the assets, and harass him in many ways if he so desires. Needless to say, this power is not absolute, for the agrieved tax payer can approach higher authorities or challenge the taxperson's claims in court. To the extent that the taxperson is acting alone his power of arbitrariness is limited. But legal redress is costly in terms of time and money. More important, the verdict is unlikely to be favourable, if the tax payer has some lapses (however minor) in the observance of rules and procedures. Should that be the case, the tax payer may find it wise to shy away from legal redress. In other words, the taxman, if he so desires, can often transform the quasi-monopoly power he enjoys into monopoly rent in the form of bribes paid voluntarily or reluctantly (extortion).

The same story of using the quasi-monopoly position to harass or bully for private benefits can be told of the policemen who arrest innocent bystanders at or around the scene of crime on questionable grounds, the nondescript booking clerk at the airline office, the invigilator in proctoring duty in an examination hall and so on.

One can ask: Why shouldn't the state do something about it? To answer this question, it will help if we rephrase the issue of quasi-monopoly powers (of the bribee) in terms of principal-agent relationship. The state as the principal engages the tax collector as agent for collection of taxes from the eligible tax payers. The agent is supposed to act in the best interest of the principal. Now if the principal cannot effectively monitor (or if the monitoring cost is too high), the agent can take advantage of this weakness to pursue his own agenda. If the superior officers are also similarly motivated, engaging in corruption becomes much less risky than otherwise.

A further irony is that when the principal is the state (as in the above example) the idea of the principal is quite fuzzy. The taxman's superior may be the principal so far as the taxman is concerned, but his superior is also an agent and so on. In other words, in the hierarchy of officials each combines the role of a principal and an agent. Who is then the ultimate principal whose interests are supposed to be protected by the whole series of lesser principal agents? It is the state run by the government, which is a set of institutions (like the revenue department), and managed by a set of people (the politicians in power, the bureaucracy etc.). But the government itself is an agent of the citizens of the country who are the ultimate principals.

If an analogy should help, one can mention the case of a public limited company in which the professional managers are agents of the shareholders (principals). We should note however two important differences of degree. Firstly, the company shareholders are not as numerous as the citizens of a country. Secondly, the managers of a country are not as tightly disciplined by the impersonal forces of the capital market as are company managers (who risk losing their jobs if the firm faces takeover or merger attempts when its share prices plummet).

The implication of the first is that the ordinary citizens do not have an active interest in what the agents are doing. The harm done is spread over a large number of people and sometimes over a long period of time. As a result, the impact of corruption escapes notice, and when it does, the individual citizen does not feel sufficiently affected to make a sustained effort to resist it. As for the second, one can say that there are other political parties which are trying to capture the reins of country's governance and that the ruling party has to face periodic re-election constraint. These will no doubt have some disciplining effects, but these may not always be sufficient, especially in many developing countries with underdeveloped political institutions.

In short, the diffused nature of the principals (citizens) equips the agents with a good deal of discretionary powers to enable them to pursue their own independent objectives to the neglect of those of the true principals.

In the examples given earlier, the emphasis has been on acts of corruption by isolated individuals. But we know from experience that the people who engage in corruption are often informally organised along horizontal as well as vertical lines. In this way corruption spreads and acquires institutional form. Without such an organisational network, corruption cannot live long or, at any rate, cannot be practised on a large scale. A person engaged in corruption faces many risks and uncertainties despite his quasi-monopoly power. In a hierarchical organization, he has superiors, subordinates and comrades. He cannot long carry on his trade without being detected and punished, unless he can enlist the support of those who harbour similar ambitions or the protection of influential persons.

Is All Corruption Bad?

Corruption is generally bad for the society. For example, it increases the costs of public projects, leads to harassment of the innocent citizens, gives rise to black money, leads to capital flight and significant misallocation of resources when the black money cannot be invested in accordance with the priorities indicated by the market or the public decisions. Many would, therefore, be shocked if a question like the above is put to them. To say that corruption is not bad may sound like contradiction in terms. Let us recall that we have not defined corruption in absolute moral terms partly to avoid this problem. Usually two criteria are applied to judge whether there are instances where some corruption is better than none. One of these is efficiency (in resource allocation) and the other is equity (in income distribution).

Most corrupt deals involve transfer of purchasing power from one individual or group to another. For example, when poor farmers have to pay bribes (or pay higher prices in the black market), the purchasing power flows from the poor to the not-so-poor. Many would regard this (market) outcome as undesirable. On the other hand, some would argue that stopping bribes in the public fertilizer distribution system may not necessarily help the farmers. It may happen that, deprived of the possibility of the bribes, the employees may lose interest in the very distribution itself, may drag their feet and may even dump the stuff into the river. The efficiency argument here is essentially this: if you cannot prevent the bribe-deprived employees from doing the undesirable things mentioned above, then it is more efficient (welfare-increasing) to allow bribing.

The idea is that the fertilizers will then be distributed in time and will go to those who need them most (assuming a large excess demand at the official price). The merit of this (second best) efficiency argument may be questioned, but who can deny that in our country (and many LDCs) the public-sector employees enjoy such a high degree of immunity from punishment (whether owing to labour laws or trade unionism) and job security that the pace of a large chunk of activities that take place in our government bureaus and departments would have been much slower had it not been for the incentives provided by corrupt practices.

But major cases of corruption with adverse consequences for the welfare of the current and future generations are those which are popularly known as corruption in high places. These involves major decisions such as those with regard to constructions of airports, hospitals, large bridges and long roads, exploration of minerals, laying of gas or oil pipelines, disinvestment of public enterprises, regulation of industries, setting up or dismantling of universities or specialized technical institutions, major administrative changes and so on. The decisions with respect to any of these are taken at the highest administrative and political levels often in an environment of substantial uncertainty with respect to the methods of implementation as well as their likely consequences. Therefore, misjudgements and wrong choices may result because of ignorance, incompetence or sheer unpredictability.

But then the cases of judgements being motivated mainly by serving personal or group interest are not rare. The motives behind these self-serving decisions are often well-concealed and in many instances their ill consequences do not come to light until after a lapse of many years. For example, if a contract for oil and gas prospecting is awarded to a foreign company on terms made favourable to the company by underhands payments of huge amounts of money (perhaps in hard currency to be deposited in foreign bank accounts) to relevant persons, the country loses revenue or suffers in other ways (e.g., dumping of harmful waste materials ) for a long period of time, more so because it is often impossible or very costly to reverse the decisions taken earlier (e.g., because of huge sunk costs).

How to Deal with Corruption?

Dealing with corruption is undoubtedly difficult, because the forces which give rise to this are such that they had tend to raise their heads when vigilance is relaxed. But who can we depend upon to keep effective vigil on corruption? Two forms of corruption may conceptually be distinguished here, because they have bearings on the ways corruption might be dealt with: corruption which expresses itself in coercion and extortion and corruption which finds expressions in voluntary exchange.

As mentioned earlier, some cases of corruption do involve coercion and extortion (traffic police demanding money for no fault of the driver), where one party gains at the expense of the other. This sort of incidents are unlikely to be seen for repeated phenomena, since they usually set the stage for later acts of corruption. For example, if the driver has to pay for no fault of his own, he may think it rational to pay for making profit by violating rules with the willing cooperation of the police. In other words for repeated phenomena extortion tends to lead to bribery.

When corruption takes the form of extortion (when usually the victims have to pay to avoid harassment or costly litigation, not for violating any law, nor for the privilege of doing unlawful things), it is expected that they will offer resistance. Indeed where such resistance can be organised (traders' association, for example), extortion tends to be less arbitrary, though payments may have to be made at the organisational level. However, in many cases, the victims are unknown to each other and are unlikely to face the situation repeatedly. They can hardly organise themselves and suffer a great deal of arbitrariness at the hand of the extortioners.

In other cases (like bribery) both parties to the deal (e.g., the importer and the customs officials) gain. The loser is the state (e.g., in terms of being deprived of revenue or being flooded with harmful drugs). In other words, the people in general have ultimately to bear the burden of corruption. As we have mentioned, the people cannot act directly (they may not have the incentive or the capacity) and must act through their political representatives who happen to rule the country (assuming a functioning democracy). Besides, the print and electronic media, and the citizens' groups can bring their concern to the notice of the political representatives and people high up in the administration. The government then has to act through its various organs.

If the government is sufficiently determined, committed and fair, and can enlist popular support for fighting corruption, containing corruption becomes much easier. But each of these is a strong condition; in reality, the government can seldom be fair and transparent in dealing with corruption (and crimes generally), if its passage to power is dependent on money amassed through corruption. So what it prefers is to be selective; to the extent that containing corruption is the popular will, the government in power can derive double benefits from cracking down on corruption of political opponents. On the one hand, it gives the appearance of responding to popular demand and, on the other, it helps to keep the political opponents in check. Even in this limited goal, the government may not be able to go far enough for lack of enthusiasm for prosecution, lack of evidence or due to pressure from many influential well-wishers. The result is that the accused often can escape due prosecution. People, having witnessed this to happen regularly, grow cynical about and lose faith in the fairness or the capacity of corruption-fighting institutions. Even in the few cases where the government is sincerely willing to limit corruption and cronyism, immediate success is unlikely, because the institutions on which the government depends for this purpose are themselves plagued by corruption. Only sincere and sustained efforts are likely to succeed. There are persons in the administrations and other spheres of public life who are incorruptible and who can contribute a good deal in the fight against corruption, provided they are given necessary protection and support. In many cases, however, the scope for corruption can be limited to a great extent by appropriate market reforms, simplifying the rules and procedures, relaxing controls and narrowing the scope for discretionary behaviour on the part of the employees (e.g., by taking advantage of modern innovations in technology and public administration).

Concluding Remarks

In a money-metric society where material acquisitions count for a great deal in the calculus of life's achievement and success, and where social disapproval for the 'unethical' means of amassing wealth has become almost irrelevant, the urge to depend on corruption to get rich quickly will remain strong, and may even grow stronger. That being so, containing corruption essentially means reining in that urge (so that it becomes difficult to give expression to it). For this we have come to depend increasingly on technology and innovation in social institutions (burglar alarms, lie detectors, DNA tests, concealed cameras, market reforms, vigilant groups etc.). All these involve costs and also bring benefits, implying that total elimination of corruption is hardly a realistic goal. While there is great deal to be said in favour of technological fixes for social evils, can we be sure that it is really a war of technology against greed and avarice? Only vigilance, heightened social awareness, organised will for resistance, a conducive legal framework and political will can create condition to make corruption a cost-increasing activity for either or both parties and thus unattractive to practice.

H K Dey