We all know that corruption is inevitable-and it exists on all levels of government. My question: what is the optimum level? Obviously, too much and you have a situation like Nigeria-bribes must be paid to everybody to get something done. However, if government were 100% honest, everybody would have to adhere to 100% disclosure…and getting approval for such things like building permits, liquor liceces, etc., would be very time consuming. So, there must be some level where “favors” can be bought…what is that level? And, how much SHOULD you have to bribe public officials?
When you have to bribe public officials to get things done, something is seriously wrong.
Why should a 100% honest system necessarily be inefficient? Surely corruption increases inefficiency, by ensuring that government processes don’t work as planned - resources don’t go where they’re needed, but to where a corrupt administrator wants them, that sort of thing. The optimum level of corruption is surely zero - may be unattainable, but that’s what we should aim for.
Logically, the optimal level is zero. There’s no particular reason why getting a liquor license should be overly difficult.
A lot of red tape in any bureaucracy or business is designed to minimize or prevent corruption. It stands to reason that, in the absence of corruption, a lot of the red tape should be unnecessary, and disappear. Thus, there’s no acceptable level of corruption.
Perhaps you could put it another way: what are the benefits of X amount of corruption in a system?
A lot of red tape in any bureaucracy or business is designed to minimize or prevent corruption. It stands to reason that, in the absence of corruption, a lot of the red tape should be unnecessary, and disappear. Thus, there’s no acceptable level of corruption.
Perhaps you could put it another way: what are the benefits of X amount of corruption in a system?
A lot of red tape in any bureaucracy or business is designed to minimize or prevent corruption. It stands to reason that, in the absence of corruption, a lot of the red tape should be unnecessary, and disappear. Thus, there’s no acceptable level of corruption.
Perhaps you could put it another way: what are the benefits of X amount of corruption in a system?
sigh
Its one thing to try to have a 100% honesty and totally bog down the system with legalities… its another to attempt close to zero corruption thru various means.
If getting a building permit or a liquor license is overly time consuming, the solution is to streamline the process, not to circumvent it via bribery! If public officials are allowed to profit from overly burdensome government regulation, they won’t have much incentive to correct the problem, now will they?
One problem with this question is, what is corruption?
After all, there are several things that are obviously corrupt, such as taking bribes, extortion, no-show jobs, and the like.
But then, we get into a grey area.
Is giving a job to a relative corrupt, even if they do the work?
How about giving a job to a relative of a party figure, even if they do the work?
Then, there’s the granting of government contracts to party officials. If they didn’t pay anything in outright bribes to get it, would it be legal?
And the list could go on from there.
Slightly tangentializing things, but wasn’t there a government bureaucracy set up within the ultrasophisticated galactic government of Keith Laumer’s Retief series, whose sole purpose was to sabotage the work and thwart the ambitions of other bureaucracies within the same government. It helped keep down the growth rate of these voracious social institutions. There’s a bit on it here, but I guess to find more, you’d have to read the books.
I’m going to have to agree with the above posts, and say that I don’t think red tape is there to decrease corruption, but rather:
a.) To Cover Their butts
b.) To Provide justification for cushy jobs
Take building permits - a streamlined process could be in effect, and if there’s no corruption, the inspector could be trusted to show up (on schedule), inspect the building, and give a fair and valid evaluation.
Its when the inspector cannot be trusted (can be bribed to ignore violations) that more ‘red-tape’ is necessary.
Take a look at political campaign contribution. What’s optimal depends on how much you have to spend and what you want.
Corruption exists either way, but the corrupt gain power through regulation. Hernando de Soto, a famous Peruvian economist, did a study and found that in South American countries, the enormous amount of beaurocracy essentially requires business starters to bribe government officials:
I don’t have the exact figure here for how much money it ends up taking in bribes and permit fees to start a business in Peru, but it is quite a lot, and is available in Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (look in the index under “de Soto”).