Is Corruption Something We Should Worry about - Assignment Example

Is corruption something we should worry about? If so why? If not why not? Introduction Corruption is a very old issuefor every country. It is the misuse of power for private gain. The power can be public and private. It can be seen in many ways and can vary from minor influencing to big institutional bribery. It has numerous effects on public and private life. Corruption is deviation or moral impurity from an ideal. The activities like embezzlement, bribery comes under corruption. It also includes dishonest behaviour of the people having power, under the table transactions, double dealing, money laundering, funds diverting, investors defrauding, manipulating elections etc. Government or public sector corruptions define the corruptions in the government agencies & political process. This involves misuse and wrong allocation of public funds for private gains. Political corruption defines the misuse of recourses or political power by police, elected political leader or government officials. Police corruptions are a particular form of misconduct done by police to have personal gains, financial benefits, career growth etc. The common form of police corruption is accepting bribes, flouting the code of conduct of police for securing the convictions of suspects. Judicial corruptions involve the corruption which is related to the misconduct of the judges. This process involves in giving improper sentencing to the criminals, receiving bribes, bias in hearing arguments etc. Union corruptions mean the use or domination of employee benefit plans or union for personal advantage or gain by using violent or illegal means. This is known as Labour racketeering. Is corruption something we should worry about? Corruption is there for a very long time and it will be present until some effective ways are discovered to combat it. Since corruption has very important effects for the growth of any nation it calls for worry. It has different impact on nations and people. In politics it influences the law and the democracy. In public organization, democratic system people may lose their right when some person among them uses the power for his personal interest. In economy it has a strong impact on both individual and community. Corruption can put any organization or nation in the extreme darkness (Jonge 48). Corruptions impacts Social - It discourages people to work together for common cause as it influences them to fulfil their personal gains. It results social inequality and widen the rich poor gap in the society. Day by day the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This results in the increase in poverty and lack of basic needs. For this violence arises in the society. People start losing hope from the social system and structures. The production capability of the nation also depends on this as it hinders the development by creating social unrest. The resources which are meant for the use of the general people are occupied by some of the powerful and influential people of the society. It weakens the institutional structure of the society. It also erodes the social norms which is established because people no longer believes in honesty as they can easily et wealthy by taking dishonest means. So they accept those new immoral works as their new norms of the society. As result the society loses its strength (Rotstein 163). Corruption also lowers the quality of public projects and infrastructure like highways, bridges, water supply system, dams etc. The company or the persons taking the projects wants to get personal benefits from the allocated resources of the project. So for that the company develops a bad product or service for the public which has a low longevity. This effect’s in the low development of the country. Underdevelopment is one of the important symptoms of corruption which lowers the growth of the nation and increases the poverty, unemployment, crime etc (Mitchell 72). Economical – There are major and minor effect of corruption in the economy. It leads to depletion of national wealth. It also increases the cost of goods and services. Higher is the expense of developing important projects like school, hospitals, water supply system etc. It also leads to the misallocation of the resources for getting personal gains. Public wealth is converted into personal wealth and property which arises inequality among the people. Unhealthy competition rises for this. Inflation is one for the important result of corruption (Cheeseman 91). Bribing has become a very traditional thing in corruption. So like others the business men also have to pay bribes for issuing necessary permits. They consider this cost as a business expense and recover this cost from the customer by adding it with the price of the product. This raises the price of the product in the market. If any investors want to set up his business then also in many cases he has to give bribes which increase the cost of doing business too high. That is why the foreign investors are not willing to set up their business in such countries where the corruption level is high. So this results in reduction of goods and services and gross domestic products of the nation (Kochan 251). Aid flows from various sources are also affected by corruption. Different donor agencies like UNICEF, USAID, and UNESCO etc donate funds to developing countries for their sustainable development. But the high level of corruption in the developing countries have made them concerned about the money they donate will that be really used in development or will go to the pockets of the corrupted government officials. So now these donor agencies before donating their money focus on the governance of the country where they are assisting. If they find it weak and corrupted then the donor agencies scaled back their assistance. Corruption also brings down the tax revenue when it is taken in the form of tax evasion. So it affects the tax collection process which results in Deficit Financing. Tax revenue is used in financing budged expenditure. With the reduced tax revenue there is a reduction in national budget which consequences in adverse budgetary. To meet this deficit the nations sometimes uses its savings which otherwise could have been used by the nation in a productive way for its growth. Loans are also taken from other countries to meet the deficit. An uncertainty in economic transactions arises for corruption. This is because corruption influences the economic environment of the society by creating high level of uncertainty and risk involving in economic transactions. Business growth and development becomes the uncertain factors which fears the reduction of the gross domestic product and the money involved in it (Dobel 51). Political – The misuse of legislated power by the politicians or the government officials is known as political corruption .They misuse their power to have some personal gains by using public property or public interest. The most common impacts of political corruption seen in the society are influence padding, bribery, embezzlement, patronage, extortion, graft, nepotism. Manipulation of votes in the election and other imperfect electoral process corrupting in election reduces the political growth of the nation. If wrong political leaders are elected it hampers the policy making system of the government. Lack of transparency in making decisions is by the government or political body are frequently observed. The power concentrates in the hands of such decision makers who are not accountable to public in practical sense. Financial management process of the country also suffers for political corruption. The political party funds are often secured through non transparent channels which are termed as black money. Rule of laws is also compromised for this. Often political parties’ influences make the judgement bias according to their needs. Corruption in public administration often leads to ineffective & inefficient services. It erodes the ruling capacity of the government. The democratic values, tolerances and trust are reduced. All this gives rise to violence in the country. Business – Corruption leads to tamper the business recourses and efficiency of the people engaged in the business. With the inefficient resources the business can’t achieve its growth. Corrupt professional activities are often covered up by employee ranks. The cost of this increased employee ranks is recovered from the consumer in the form of higher price of product and services (Heidenheimer 147). Competing firm can take advantage of this and fix their product price in such a way that the corruption affected firm will face a significant decline in their market share. Strong corruption can also results in the consequences of closing down the business. Business Funds misappropriation, company officials misusing the office, bribery, and dishonesty involved in financial matter are some important corruption process involved in business. The resources which could be used in an effective and efficient way in strategy implementation are not used or used unproductively for corruption .sometimes customers also get influenced by this and loss faith in the organization (Koehler 18). The report of corruption in a company can cause the investors and the shareholders to lose their confidence and trust in the business. It also discourages the interested entrepreneurs and potential innovator from investing in the business as there is a strong fear of failure. It dents the picture of the organization. The general public may get a negative picture of the firm and loose trust from its products. This will make a huge impact on the business. It can lose its reputed partner and clients. The business will take a long time to rebuild its client base & reputation. Environmental – Corruption has a strong impact on environmental sustainability. It leads to poor governance which affects in bad policy formulation, enforcement, management etc which apparently becomes a problem of environmental sustainability. A number of sectors of environment like protection of endangered species, forestry, water supply, fisheries, oil exploitation etc are famous for corruptions. Timber trafficking also comes under the impact of corruption. A large amount of deforestation, cutting of unique old trees and selling them illegally are often observed in many regions. Sometimes the timbers are illegally moved across the border by doing fraud paperwork. This deforestation causes irreversible damages of the environment, increase of forest carbon emissions, loss of biodiversity, significant climate change. These also deny income and livelihood of the local people and restrict the access of lands and resources. Corruption also influences socially sub-optimal environmental governance. Environmental regulatory is reduces and it undermines the effectiveness of the managing system. This happens because corruption reduces economic and social cost of ignoring the established rules. In a corrupted environment private benefits get more priority at the expense of social outcome. These also affect the balance in the air. Deforestation leads in lowering the oxygen level in the environment. So the air balanced gets disturbed and impacts the environment with many problems, and climatic changes. Conclusion All this above explanations gives evidence of the consequences of corruptions on social, economic, political, environmental aspects of a society or nation. This analysis shows the effect of corruption on empirical and normative dimensions at the cost of sustainable development. All types of corruption no matter it are in which forms hampers the society in a large extent for a long term. So it forms a negative relationship between corruption and long term growth of the economy. The Features which helps to increase corruptions are indigenous weak business, greed, unequal distribution of money, misuse of power, serving personal interest by using public property or resources. Corruption has an unambiguous effect on economic growth. The most important cost is not in bribes but rather it is the underlying distortion in the economy which insists the people to take bribes. The effect of corruption is very wide. It affects administration, social, financial terms and weakens the base of the government. It slowly destroys the laws, rules, regulations of the system and increases criminal activities. Many big opportunities are lose for this (Stapenhurst 37). It creates a bad image of the state. It is an intractable problem. It is not possible to completely remove corruption from all levels but it is possible to take control of it. Honest and dedicated person in the government can help in taking corruption control measures. Corruption has become a global problem which all the countries have to confront and find solutions to overcome it. Works cited Cheeseman, Gina Marie. How Much Does Corruption Affect Business. 16 June. 2009. Web. 05 November. 2014. < http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/06/how-much-does-corruption-affect-business/>. Dobel, J. Patrick, “Corruption of a State”. Journal of American Political Science Review 72 .1. (2008): 958–973. Print. Jonge, Alice de. Transnational corporations and international law: bringing TNCs out of the accountability vacuum. London: Edward Elgar Publishing. 2011. Print. Mitchell, Charles. A Short Course in International Business Ethics: Combining Ethics and Profits in Global Business. USA: World Trade Press. 2009. Print. Rotstein, Robert. Corrupt Practices: A Parker Stern Novel. Los Angeles: Prometheus Books. 2013. Print. Kochan , Nick and Goodyear, Robin. Corruption: The New Corporate Challenge: Business & Economics. 2011. Print. Heidenheimer, Arnold and Johnston, Michael. Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts: Transaction Publishers. 2011. Print. Koehler, Mike. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a New Era: Edward Elgar Publishing. 2014. Print. Stapenhurs , Rick, Kpundeh and Sahr John. Curbing Corruption: Toward a Model for Building National Integrity: World Bank Publications. 1999. Print. Read More