Corruption Creates Inequality

Corruption creates inequality. A lot of people might say, yeah right, this is not true, it is just plain unethical. Or is it?

Starting a business is one of the most challenging tasks one can come across. When the business environment calls for the “greasing of palms” to do some level of business, it can become even more difficult! So, a few questions pop up now…

How challenging is it when you have to start your new business where corruption is rife?

How would you define corruption and can it fit into a definition?

When someone gives you information which will give you an upper hand in a specific business deal, which your competitor doesn’t know about, is this also corruption?

When someone gives you a lead and demands a “lead generation fee” and does not want this to be made public, what does this say about the ethics of this person?

Living in a society where corruption is rife, taking and giving “lead fees”, sending around inside information, meeting and greeting people who want their palms greased, it becomes extremely difficult to draw the line when the entire economy handles this as the “normal way of doing business”.

The unacceptable has become acceptable. Worse even, it has become the new standard. Have we become so blinded by society’s new norm, that we actually don’t see the wrong in it anymore?

What does corruption really create? In the book I am currently reading, “The Rise and Fall of Nations “, there is an interesting paragraph I came across.

The basic question covers inequality threatening an economy:

Inequality starts to threaten the growth of an economy in part when the population turns suspicious of the way wealth is being created. If entrepreneurs are creating new products that benefit the consumer or are building manufacturing plants in putting people to work, that form of wealth creation tends to be widely accepted.

However, when a tycoon makes a fortune by cosying up to a politician in obtaining a contract from government or, even worse, by capitalising in on Daddy’s contacts, then resentment will surface within the nation and the focus will shift to redistributing wealth rather than creating wealth.

In short, by doing corrupt deals or even just participating in corruption, taking bribes or packaging with a new name, we are actually creating inequality which inflicts pain to everyone, including the creators of the corrupt relationship.

So, while I may have only posted questions in this post without answering them, I believe that many more conversations need to be initiated on this topic before we can actually answer these questions.

What do you think?