Acceleration fees are collected mostly by mid-ranking
bureaucrats and middle rung decision makers in both the
political echelons and the civil service.
(3) Decision Altering Fees
This is where the line is crossed from the point of view of
aggregate utility. When bribes and promises of bribes
actually alter outcomes in the real world - a less than
optimal allocation of resources and distribution of means
of production is obtained. The result is a fall in the general
level of production. The many is hurt by the few. The
economy is skewed and economic outcomes are distorted.
This kind of corruption should be uprooted on utilitarian
grounds as well as on moral ones.
(4) Subversive Outcomes
Some corrupt collusions lead to the subversion of the flow
of information within a society or an economic unit.
Wrong information often leads to disastrous outcomes.
Consider a medical doctor or an civil engineer who bribed
their way into obtaining a professional diploma.
Human lives are at stake. The wrong information, in this
case is the professional validity of the diplomas granted
and the scholarship (knowledge) that such certificates
stand for. But the outcomes are lost lives. This kind of
corruption, of course, is by far the most damaging.
Unfortunately, it is widespread in CEE. It is proof of the
collapse of the social treaty, of social solidarity and of the
fraying of the social fabric.
No Western country accepts CEE diplomas without
further accreditation, studies and examinations. Many
"medical doctors" and "engineers" who emigrated to
Israel from Russia and the former republics of the USSR -
were suspiciously deficient professionally. Israel was
forced to re-educate them prior to granting them a licence
to practice locally.
(5) Reallocation Fees
Benefits paid (mainly to politicians and political decision
makers) in order to affect the allocation of economic
resources and material wealth or the rights thereto.
Concessions, licences, permits, assets privatised, tenders
awarded are all subject to reallocation fees. Here the
damage is materially enormous (and visible) but, because
it is widespread, it is "diluted" in individual terms. Still, it
is often irreversible (like when a sold asset is purposefully
under-valued) and pernicious. a factory sold to avaricious
and criminally minded managers is likely to collapse and
leave its workers unemployed.
Corruption pervades daily life even in the prim and often
hectoring countries of the West. It is a win-win game (as
far as Game Theory goes) - hence its attraction. We are all
corrupt to varying degrees. But it is wrong and wasteful -
really, counterproductive - to fight corruption in CEE in a
wide front and indiscriminately. It is the kind of
corruption whose evil outcomes outweigh its benefits that
should be fought. This fine (and blurred) distinction is too
often lost on decision makers and law enforcement
agencies in both East and West.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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