On a recent Economist blog – Blighty – about the new Bribery Act which came into effect in the UK in July this year one person commented:
“Indeed it is ultimately helpful to eliminate bribes in poorer countries, as their corruption is a major (though not the only) factor in keeping them poor.”
Also, in the recent edition of HR Network Scotland, Innes Clark of Morton Fraser’s Employment Law team is reported as saying:
“Implementing the Bribery Act very much depends on factors such as the location an organisation is trading in and the nature of its business. For example, if it operates purely in the UK without dealing overseas then the risks are likely to be low. Naturally the risks will increase when it conducts business abroad, especially in countries where there is a known bribery culture.”
The implication is that bribery, which benefits only the privileged few and is detrimental to the wellbeing and economic prosperity of others, is more likely to happen in other countries, especially poorer ones. But bribery doesn’t only happen in other countries, or only poorer countries, but in all countries, it is just the level of economic deprivation that is different. Just because we have a higher GDP and better living standards does not make bribery any less effective in depriving many of wealth that is illegally leveraged into someone else’s pocket. And the less likely the country is to think of itself as having a bribery culture, the more bribery will be hidden, and so will not be reported in surveys such as those done by Transparency International.
Cultural differences regarding the behaviour of those in power does play some part, however, in determining how their behaviour will be judged. For some cultures, where those in power are considered exempt from the standards which others are required to follow, their behaviour will be acceptable simply because they are in power. There is a certain level of assumed privilege and protection. Whereas in other cultures, those in power are meant to be held to account as much as everyone else, if not more so.
However, as events in the last few years have shown with the banking crisis, MP’s expenses and the News International phone tapping and paying police officers has shown, these things can be as common in our own culture as much as in any other.
We are simply more likely to see someone else’s corruption more clearly than we can see our own.
