Corruption in America

In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria Al Gore stated that he America has become ‘functionally corrupt’.

Gore noted that ‘because our elected representatives now have to spend most of their time begging rich people to give them money, begging corporations and special interests to give them money, they spend more time worry about the effect of their actions, votes and speeches on these big donors, some of them anonymous, than the time they should be spending thinking about how to serve the interests of the publics they represent.’

What Al Gore was highlighting is that corruption has become institutionalized into the American system. Corruption harms the poorest people in particular because it diverts funds away from providing services they need the most.

The 2012 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranked the United States 19 of 34 OECD countries.

Corruption lowers the public trust. The lack of trust fed by corruption is considered critical in that it undermines government efforts to mobilize society to help fight corruption and leads the public to routinely dismiss government promises to fight corruption.

Reinforcing this is the role of the media in America. With one network in particular blatantly fabricating their own statistics and “facts” to pursue their own political agenda.

The fiscal effects of corruption are difficult to measure but are huge sums. One of the main ways in which corruption reduces state funds is through its negative effect on tax income by opening up loopholes in tax collection.  Tax policies in corrupt countries often favor the rich, well-connected and powerful to begin with. Tax evasion through corruption as well as poor tax administration where some of the revenue “disappears” before it reaches government coffers reduces the tax base and adds to the progressivity of the tax system.

The private sector often has an ingrained relationship with ongoing corruption of the state. The private sector can essentially capture the state legislature, executive and judicial apparatus for its own purpose. These broad forms of corruption highlight that the rot of corruption can spread throughout society impacting all levels.

An ongoing problem when tackling corruption stems from how it is defined. The widely accepted definition is the abuse of public office for private gain. However, there are key differences in the definitions used in the official laws of America and how it is defined by public opinion. Corruption is not just confined to the executive and legislative branches of governance, it is a social act and its implications are better understood when factored into the social relationships between people in specific settings.

Since corruption can be a symptom of many ills of a society, the fight against corruption has to be multi-fronted. If America is to become serious about fighting corruption they must pay attention to reforming the role of government in the economy, particularly those areas that give officials discretionary power which are hot beds for corruption. Additionally, attention must be focused not just on the bribe-taker, but also the bribe-giver.

Though the war against corruption has to be fought on a national level, the important battles will be fought locally. Individual citizens, the small towns, the NGOs and other concerned citizen’s groups, large and small corporations, individual public and private organizations, local governments, national governments, international bodies all have to fight against corruption in their spheres of activity.

The anti-corruption discourse would benefit from an engagement with alternative understandings of corruption. Addressing what corruption actually means in different spheres of America, in different communities, and what needs to be done to engage leaders and citizens in consideration about the substance of the public good, and the pursuit of collective ends. Ultimately anti-corruption must be normative and be defined by the ethics of individuals and the broader community.