Idealism and corrpution

Most of my posts are inspired by lunchtime conversations, like this particular one. During lunch yesterday, we were discussing about an ex-colleague of ours who was an absolute idealist, who wouldn’t do anything wrong whatever the price. Not in a Manjunath shanmugam way, but in small things, like not claiming any benefit without bills (including HRA) kind of stuff. I can think of my dad as another person in the same league. I am one of those mere mortals, I tend to divert once in a while not by choice but sheer lack of conviction, laziness and such like.

Increasingly in the debate over how to eradicate corruption, the conclusion most seem to be drawing towards is, change yourself and don’t bribe, corruption will go way. I think it’s a stupid argument to make. Don’t get me wrong, people like my colleague and especially my dad are vital to the fight against corruption, and they make this world a better and a saner place to live in. But solutions are not found by good intentions alone; let me explain from a personal experience.

A couple of months back, I lost my mobile (I am single handedly responsible for Nokia’s topline). So to retain the same number I had to lodge an FIR in the nearby police station. The time I entered the police station it became clear that I had to bribe 3 policemen to get the FIR and I paid the bribe. Viewing from an idealist hat, what I did was travesty. FIR is one of the most basic rights of every citizen and by paying to get one done I had corrupted the system, the policemen and even myself. Think of the consequences, because FIR can be for far more gruesome crimes like rape and murder. Guilty as charged. But thinking from an economic cost benefit hat, bribing was a no brainer. If I hadn’t bribed I wouldn’t have got the FIR, so I should have changed the number and lost many contacts. In this world of networking, that would mean I would lose touch with important people maybe ex-colleagues and hence lose future opportunities. (200 rupees was a small price to pay).

We would be stupid to assume that there will be a national moral awakening and suddenly people will shun bribing. People react to situations evaluating what cost they have to pay and what benefit they will get. The problem in India is too much of our basic services are controlled by government, lazy bureaucrats and inept officers and bribing them is much less costlier for the common man than taking them on. The solution is to move the balance to power to the common man (who is a consumer) from the government (service provider), and the way to do it is free markets and providing economic freedom for enterprise to prosper.

You don’t have to look far behind. I like to believe the corruption in getting basic things done at least for urban middle class has come down in the past decade. Think of the pain we had to go through to get a LPG cylinder just 10 years back (all of us used to bribe), and compare it to today. Today we need not bribe anyone; and we have more choices to choose from. No morality is not the answer, free markets are.