Tuesday, May 8

a thought on corruption

I found a mention of corruption on one of the blogs I subscribe to and it got me thinking; the mention of corruption is made in the promises of yet another interested political party, in their promise to "fight corruption".

Its enough for me to see someone promising to fight/eradicate corruption (Senator Palpatine, anyone?) to make the speaker loose all credibility.

Here's a message for all people promising to eradicate corruption:

It doesn't work that way.

Its like the US fighting against drugs: they created an organism (in an elections campaign also, because the middle class wanted "something done about the damn hippies") that takes more money each year and fights to get people attentive to the dangers of "drugs" so it gets more funding. The result is that, while most drugs are bad for your health, you get arrested for smoking marijuana, but not for smoking tobacco (which is much more toxic to those around you) ... and their democracy goes one step further towards hypocrisy (you're free to do whatever you like with yourself, but we'll put you in prison for it).

Creating a strategy for fighting corruption will not eliminate corruption. You end up with just another strategy eating at your resources and ... and that's it. Corruption is always there, you can fight all you want.


Eradicating corruption is not something you can do, not without changing the system completely.

Its definitely not something to promise in a political campaign, unless you make it clear you will change everything; and that is something nobody wants to promise because its - most of the time - unrealistic. Its promising revolution when people expect from you evolution. And revolution its a painful process; its not a step but a jump and on this jump you might fall badly.

In the end, "fighting corruption" is just another political campaign promise, and it usually translates to fighting the corruption of the opposition - if you actually end up fighting any corruption at all.

That is, unless you really change everything.

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