Corruption Is Always A Bad Thing

Corruption is always a bad thing
In response to ”Elizabeth Pisani: Corruption isn’t always a bad thing

A year ago (in August 2013) I listened to Ms. Pisani make an unconvincing case for “Why Corruption is a Good Thing: Lessons from Indonesia” at the Harvard Club of Thailand.

A year later, I’m afraid her line of argument, as reflected in this article, remains as unconvincing and ill-informed—and dare I say dangerous—as it was a year ago.

While there is a serious ongoing debate about the phenomenon of crony capitalism, further bringing to light the notion of rent-seeking as “bad corruption” (as prominently featured recently in the Economist on 15 March 2014), Ms. Pisani makes an argument in favor of “good corruption” in Indonesia, solely based on the fact that in certain cases of patronage part of the proceeds of corruption may be be "fed back into the local economy" or invested in the public sector.

She further confuses private and public patronage (referring to initiatives like Kickstarter) claiming that "there are signs the world is shifting back to more of a patronage economy." All this without presenting a shred of evidence, data or statistics.

Ms. Pisani is in fact late in her “discovery” of utility of patronage systems. What she refers to as “the patronage systems embedded in many cultures,” was in fact the modus operandi of all societies. In the pre modern-State era, patronage in different forms did indeed perform a social function in distributing resources. In medieval Europe it was called feudalism. Feudal lords, tribal and clan leaders, heads of families, and even Mafia bosses and drug lords, can all contribute to redistribution of resources in the absence of functioning State apparatus that collects tax and public revenues and allocates those resources transparently and based on properly-adopted government policies.

Patronage systems undermine rule of law, democracy and meritocracy and interfere with proper functioning of the modern State. To argue in favor of patronage­­­­—as opposed to good governance based on principles of transparency, accountability and public participation—goes against paramount developments of the past decades and the very basic tenets of universal human rights and anti-corruption discourse, which are reflected in several UN human rights treaties and the UN Convention against Corruption (with 172 parties, including Indonesia).

The current discourse in Indonesia confirms that the Indonesian public is far less tolerant of corruption today. This was evidenced by the fact that anti-corruption was prominently featured in campaign programmes of both Presidential candidates in recent elections.

People, everywhere in the world, whether in developing nations like Indonesia or in developed countries, deserve governments which are transparent and accountable and allow for participation of citizens in decision-making processes. Patronage simply deprives people from their basic human rights.

Shervin Majlessi
Regional Anti-Corruption Adviser
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Bangkok, Thailand

 

Popular posts from this blog

The Pacific - Nepal - Eastern Europe & Central Asia

Middle East & North Africa - Ukraine - Sri Lanka

Global - Sub-Saharan Africa - Turkey & Syria