Bribery Is Not Corruption

In economics, the first thing you understand is that Prices are never wrong. You may perceive the price of a good or a service to be too high, or too low. But the price itself is just an indiciator of underlying fundamentals. Its not too high or low. Its exactly what it should be at that moment.

This principle applies to what you eventually pay a bureaucrat or a govt employee as well. The 'high' price (govt mandated salary + bribe) is the price you pay for dealing with a monopoly. The price is not right or wrong. It just is. If you think its too high, you need to understand the fundamentals behind it. Not categorize the price itself as immoral.

Bribery of a government employee is a crude, yet necessary process to make a wasteful, yet powerful organization work for you, in the face of no alternative choices. Bribery is an internal pricing mechanism by which a leaky monopolistic system re-evaluates its initial estimates. Bribery is not corruption.

Corruption in my mind is fraud and theft. When the govt is paid in taxes to perform certain functions, if that capital vanishes before it reaches the workers, that is theft, that is corruption. Is then the worker to be called corrupt for working on a paltry budget and non-existent infrastructure? Are the policemen, postmen, municipal workers, army men and scores of other low and mid level govt employees corrupt for subsisting on wages we wouldnt wish on ourselves, even though the govt collects enough tax revenue from corporations and the people at large to perform said functions with ease and money to spare.

We have never honestly and fully accepted the fact we have given the govt a monopoly over our lives. Yes, we pay their salaries, so they are obligated to provide us services. But we also give them the legal stature of being the sole provider of that service. Make no mistake, as low as his nominal pay might be, your Passport approver is the ONLY man in the known Universe who can give you your passport. The same with ration cards. And driving licenses. And thousands of other services where the govt allows no private competition. The number of these services (industries) has gone down recently due to privatization but not nearly enough. Because the govt does not allow competition, even a peon has power over you. If he 'misplaces' your file, you're done for.

That is INCREDIBLE power in one hand. Bribes are nothing but the premium you pay for dealing with such power. It is inevitable, even in the private industries. Thats why private monopolies (which i personally believe cannot exist without the express support of elements within the govt), are often broken down, and competitive elements are allowed to compete. But instinctively, we have an aversion towards the theory of dismantling the government. 'Privatization of airlines? Absurd.'. Till it goes bankrupt and the govt is forced to do it. And air fares go down and quality of service goes up. Same with telecom. Same story everywhere. Competition increases, prices go down, wages go up. Little to no corruption. Except when the transition happens.

In every monopoly, the consumer has little power. The best it can do is withdraw from the market, not pay for the expensive service. But the govt is a special monoply. You CANNOT withdraw. You have to pay through taxes. And the money vanishes. Into a politician's foreign bank account. Leaving the workers with no recourse but to manually correct the price inequilibrium. They are a monopoly, daily bribery should remind you. Services HAVE to be expensive. Irrespective of what your taxpayer moral code says.

So, bribery is a crude pricing mechanism by which a leaky, wasteful monopolistic system re-evaluates its initial estimates.

Bribery is not corruption.