Grease is the Word

The great lubricant is equally the great corruptor. It siphons off needed capital for growth, perpetuates poverty and polarized class separation, kills infrastructure development, concentrates vast power and wealth into the hands of the elite few, decimates the environment and often results in brutal repression and sustained hopelessness. But in too many countries – not completely excluding even the United States – it is simply “the way we do things.” Government insiders pick and choose who gets access to which wealth-generating asset, government contract, overseas deal-making authority… and as the wealth grows, those with enough accumulations often simply issue orders to their governmental “partners.”

It is the clout that follows bribery and corruption. It’s the old “whom you know” with money as the enabler, and it is has been with us since the dawn of civilization. Monarchs of old handed out exclusive rights to various activities (“patents”) and doled out lands and castles to favored subjects – executing, torturing, imprisoning or banishing those who did not play the game – creating titles and entitlements with their cronies. Dictators and even elected politicians today hand out exclusive rights to various activities and dole out lands and business opportunities to favored subjects – executing, torturing, imprisoning or banishing those who did not play the game – creating titles and entitlements with their cronies. Nothing seems to have changed.

Yet somehow, with the rise of populism and democracy – and the two are not remotely always congruous – most ethicists and social architects still rail at the thought of this corrupt notion of entitlement. We have lots of strict laws that impact how Americans (or those subject to American laws) may deal with foreign governmental officials (and their contractors). The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has a pretty rigid circle of permitted and forbidden activities – with strong criminal and civil sanctions – when Americans do business overseas. The Brits comparable new statute even proscribes bribing private sector corporate officers to gain favors. Almost all nations have laws that control bribery and cronyism within their borders, but enforcement laxity often undermines the intention of these statutes.

We like to think that we are relatively free of the kind of corruption we read about in other countries, despite a rolling litany of politicians on the take (is there really a governor’s cell in the Illinois prison system, or a New Orleans jail unit for ex-mayors in Louisiana?). But we also pass or create laws to enable influence peddling activities that are prosecutable offenses in other democracies. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United permits the wealthy to wield their power at the expense of the less affluent, the recent ten-fold increase in permitted political contributions (to a level only affordable to the rich) before the latest Congressional recess cause greater social harm than a lot of the cases of direct bribery of governmental officials, but they’re OK because they are technically legal in the United States?

Every day, the news is filled with stories mired in the world of influence and bribery. Randomly, for example: “From the skyscrapers of Wall Street to the factories of northern Indiana, cheers rang out for one of the biggest mergers of the year. For $13.35 billion, Goldman Sachs and a group of giant private equity firms agreed in April to sell one Indiana medical device maker to another… But suspected acts of bribery thousands of miles away may have complicated that deal — and raised larger questions about the way prosecutors mete out justice for big corporations…

“Biomet, the medical devices company being sold to its rival Zimmer Holdings, is suspected of helping to bribe government officials in Mexico and Brazil, according to the confidential documents, which have not been previously reported. An email from an anonymous whistle-blower laid bare the problems in Brazil, reporting that distributors Biomet had hired to sell its orthopedic devices were ‘paying kickbacks’ to government doctors.

“The fate of Biomet’s merger now hinges partly on the outcome of bribery investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, painful reminders of a separate 2012 federal case that accused Biomet of foreign bribery. Although Biomet disclosed the thrust of its problems to Zimmer before striking the deal — and neither company has shown signs of abandoning it — an unexpectedly steep penalty for Biomet could alter the price of the deal.” New York Times, December 22^nd. Hey, that’s the way business is done all over the world, and if the U.S. authorities don’t look the other way, they are only handing over massive economic opportunities to competitors from countries that accept the world the way it really is. Really? And so nothing will ever change?

The impact of corruption often leads to popular rebellion, almost always results in ignoring environmental restrictions, child labor laws, exploitation of recent immigrants and the lowest-levels of workers and creates deep economic inefficiencies that keep poor nations permanently poor. According to the International Monetary Fund, corruption and economic polarization are the biggest killers of economic growth on earth. We look in horror at the murderous activities of mega-extremists such as Nigeria’s Islamist Boko Haram (literally – against foreign teachings), but their power arose because of the brutal and imperious Nigerian police, always shaking down the locals for bribe, punishing those who did not play.

The Islamic State railed against corrupt Shiite politicians in Baghdad and Damascus who seemed hell bent on Sunni repression, but their extreme measures have shocked the globe. The Taliban rose in Afghanistan as a reaction to corruption at the top of the old regime (and now the new regime). Remember the “Let them eat cake” era at the end of the 18^th century in France? Russia’s Vladimir Putin makes and breaks his oligarchs at his political whim. He is rumored to be one of if not the richest human being(s) on earth. Turkey’s PM, Recep Erdogan, is still trying to deflect the accusations stemming from a purported recorded telephone call between him and his son as to how to move cash into Swiss bank accounts.

China’s business interests – with deeply uncomfortable ties to political incumbents – have produced one of the most toxic environments on earth. PRC Leader Xi Jinping’s attempt to send a clear message to those officials (and their families) – taking down heavyweight Communist functionaries like former Chongqing’s Party Secretary, Bo Xilai, the current efforts against ex-security chief, Zhou Yongkang, and even the senior aide to former President Hu Jintao, Ling Jihua – represents a crackdown to keep the faith of the people, to restore a polluted environment that should keep more Chinese citizens healthy and alive. Critics asked whether this action against “a few bad apples” can overcome a system based heavily on cronyism.

False growth statistics – heavily weighted by stock market value (where the rich invest) and raw unemployment numbers (without looking at real earnings and those who are not measured) – tell us that the United States is on a hot streak, but if you aren’t in the higher earning strata, there has been a massive recent shift of opportunity away from most of us to those at the top of the social ladder. We lie to ourselves with statistics, self-righteousness, laws that “should do the trick” and out-and-out denial. The definition of corruption necessarily embraces the creation and protection of entitled classes – based on their cash-driven support of elected officials – at the expense of everybody else.

Just think how many of the earth’s issues would vaporize if corruption could be banished – or at least seriously minimized. If there is one massive goal that would do more for humanity than any other effort, it would absolutely have to be crushing corruption wherever it appears, unmasking laws that foment corruption rather than pretending that they are manifestations of good government and democracy.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we don’t care, if we don’t actively reverse our own dangerous trends, we will find ourselves as one more piece of flotsam floating in the ancient and unforgiving drift of failed societies in history’s never-ending ocean.