Suchergebnisse

'In dem Beitrag geht es um zwei Fragen: Erstens um die Feststellung, welche unterschiedlichen Korruptionsbegriffe vorliegen; und zweitens, welche Folgen sich daraus für den Korruptionsdiskurs ergeben, insbesondere unter Berücksichtigung der Problematik, dass bestimmte Erscheinungsformen von Korruption darin nicht berücksichtigt werden.' (Autorenreferat)

Recent empirical work shows that judicial dependence can explain high levels of corruption. This paper examines how the dependence of judiciaries influences corruption at different levels of the government in a model where the central government, low-level officials, and the judiciary are corrupt. In the model, the central government sells offices to low-level officials and demands ex-post payments enforced by the judiciary. Because an independent judiciary can rule against the central authority and accept bribes from stealing low-level officials, it reduces corruption at the higher level of government but promotes corruption at the lower level. Therefore, even if highly corrupt, an independent judiciary may reduce total corruption.

Abstract:In one broad construal, corruption consists of deriving benefit from power over others in morally objectionable ways. The charge that capitalism is corrupt is usefully understood as a claim that modern capitalist economies inevitably and pervasively generate corrupt gains, in this sense, through conduct that does not transgress capitalist norms for individuals' economic conduct. Modern capitalism has two features that would figure prominently in such an indictment: gains from the inferior bargaining power of most workers and gains from the superior political influence of those in the best economic situations. The taint of corruption should be reduced by political measures that move capitalist commerce toward Adam Smith's commercial ideal of gains from exchanging help for help and that show appreciation of the equal importance of everyone's presumed desire to have a life shaped by directives that he or she willingly accepts. Through such measures, capitalism could, in principle, become non-corrupt. In practice, unequal political influence will prevent this. Ending the corruptness of capitalism is an unattainable yet productive goal of reform.

This article explores the psychic meaning of corruption understood as an attack on norms of conduct in organizations. The primary focus is on why individuals fail to become securely attached to norms, and on the part played in this failure by certain key features of corruption: greed, arrogance, a sense of personal entitlement, the idea of virtue as personal loyalty, and the inability to distinguish between organizational and personal ends. The essay considers the moral dimension of the problem and suggests that conduct normally interpreted as corrupt often expresses a powerful attachment to primitive moral thinking rather than a rejection of morality.