Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Powerful men are almost always bad men. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. So the saying (by Lord Acton) goes.
Corruption plagues this great world of ours, from Africa to America and everywhere in between, varying only in degree (and not in kind) from nation to nation, society to society. Some have argued that corruption is necessary for smooth functioning of societies, others even that it is beneficial to all involved. Fortunately, neither is even remotely true. That corruption harms the victim on whom it is perpetrated needs no elaboration. But that it also surely harms the perpetrator does. Perpetrators often need the collusion of their peers and connivance of their superiors (to whom they owe their power and its attendant benefits). As a result, they are forced to share their spoils with these peers and superiors. Worse, they also live in constant fear, of being betrayed or exposed. This constant fear they live in as well as the easy money they have access to force them to lead sub-optimal lives, inhibiting them from fully using their potential.
It is no secret that corruption plagues the underdeveloped and developing world, but as political and corporate scandals in rich countries remind us time and again, it plagues the developed world as well. Corruption may be widespread and pervasive in poor nations (with almost no one untouched by it), but its scale and intensity by and large are often of much smaller in magnitude than in rich nations (with a few notable exceptions, of course). This, however, by no means makes corruption in poor nations benign or even harmless; for, although small in magnitude, the havoc corruption in poor nations wreaks on victims is perhaps more devastating than it does in rich nations. In rich nations, on the other hand, corruption is not as pervasive, but where it occurs, is severe in scale and intensity.
Corruption’s pernicious claws hurt more than just individuals and families – they hurt economies as well. As the OECD quote above indicates, economists are coming around to the view that, contrary to previously held conventional wisdom, corruption’s impact on economic growth is significant, and that it is no coincidence that the world’s poorest nations also tend to be the most corrupt.
So what does CorruptionFreeWorld.com have to do with all of this? As we all know, corruption’s greatest friends are fear exerted by the perpetrator on the victim and secrecy into which the victim is coerced as a result. By providing a forum where corruption can be reported to the whole wide world anonymously, our hope is the following: a) victims will be encouraged to report abuse without fear or favor b) perpetrators will be deterred from crimes in the future as well as brought to justice for their crimes in the past, and c) finally, well-meaning corruption fighting governments and their law-enforcement bodies can use this forum as a resource to track down perpetrators and crack down on the bane that hurts us all.
Corruption plagues this great world of ours, from Africa to America and everywhere in between, varying only in degree (and not in kind) from nation to nation, society to society. Some have argued that corruption is necessary for smooth functioning of societies, others even that it is beneficial to all involved. Fortunately, neither is even remotely true. That corruption harms the victim on whom it is perpetrated needs no elaboration. But that it also surely harms the perpetrator does. Perpetrators often need the collusion of their peers and connivance of their superiors (to whom they owe their power and its attendant benefits). As a result, they are forced to share their spoils with these peers and superiors. Worse, they also live in constant fear, of being betrayed or exposed. This constant fear they live in as well as the easy money they have access to force them to lead sub-optimal lives, inhibiting them from fully using their potential.
It is no secret that corruption plagues the underdeveloped and developing world, but as political and corporate scandals in rich countries remind us time and again, it plagues the developed world as well. Corruption may be widespread and pervasive in poor nations (with almost no one untouched by it), but its scale and intensity by and large are often of much smaller in magnitude than in rich nations (with a few notable exceptions, of course). This, however, by no means makes corruption in poor nations benign or even harmless; for, although small in magnitude, the havoc corruption in poor nations wreaks on victims is perhaps more devastating than it does in rich nations. In rich nations, on the other hand, corruption is not as pervasive, but where it occurs, is severe in scale and intensity.
Corruption’s pernicious claws hurt more than just individuals and families – they hurt economies as well. As the OECD quote above indicates, economists are coming around to the view that, contrary to previously held conventional wisdom, corruption’s impact on economic growth is significant, and that it is no coincidence that the world’s poorest nations also tend to be the most corrupt.
So what does CorruptionFreeWorld.com have to do with all of this? As we all know, corruption’s greatest friends are fear exerted by the perpetrator on the victim and secrecy into which the victim is coerced as a result. By providing a forum where corruption can be reported to the whole wide world anonymously, our hope is the following: a) victims will be encouraged to report abuse without fear or favor b) perpetrators will be deterred from crimes in the future as well as brought to justice for their crimes in the past, and c) finally, well-meaning corruption fighting governments and their law-enforcement bodies can use this forum as a resource to track down perpetrators and crack down on the bane that hurts us all.
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