When money or goods are given away, it
could be seen as a gift, a tip or a bribe, depending upon the
circumstances. We think of a bribe as corruption, but gifts and tips
as socially acceptable – but are these lines so easily drawn?
Recently, I have come to wonder about
the distinctions between gifts and bribes. If I send one of my books
to a potential client, that's a business gift. If I give money to a
waitress after the meal, it's a tip. If I give money to the Maître
d' to get seated, it's a bribe. But in all three cases, I am giving
something to someone else with either the expectation of receiving
future benefit (the business gift and the seating bribe) or in return
for prior benefit (the waitress' tip). Furthermore, even the
distinction of the tip is vague: since custom expects the serving
staff to receive a tip (in many countries, at least) it is almost as
if I have retroactively given a gift or bribe that I retained the
option to withdraw in the event of poor service. In this light, the
tip may seem worse than a bribe!
This is tricky ethical ground, and the
problems are not easily dismissed. On the one hand, the blurring
between these kinds of transactions represents genuine ambiguity (and
varies enormously from culture to culture). On the other hand, it is
easy to find oneself arguing that corruption is socially normal. If
there are lines to be drawn, it is not clear where they lie, but if a
line is not drawn where does that leave us?
The
US Judge John Noonan in his book Bribes
notes that “the Greeks
did not have a word for bribes because all gifts are bribes. All
gifts are given by way of reciprocation for favours past or to come.”
Accepting this, he then suggests that a bribe can be
distinguished from a gift in terms of the size and the secrecy
involved – if it is given in secret, it's a bribe, or if the size
of the gift exceeds the norm it is a bribe. (Charitable donations,
however, where no reciprocation is expected, can be both secret and
huge). An alternative approach comes from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, which has composed an acronym
for GIFT: Genuine (offered in appreciation for legitimate functions
without encouragement), Independent (no effect on future
functioning), Free (without obligations) and Transparent (declared
openly).
But both of these approaches seem to
fail in the case of campaign contributions (especially in the US
where these can be very large in size). Such donations to a campaign
are done openly, thus dodging Noonan's first complaint, and OECD's
fourth, but to expect that such donations are given without
obligation or expectation of future effect is naïve: the wealthy
elites give campaign contributions precisely because they are
expecting the politician to take a particular stance. The
contribution might not have been intended to influence the
politician's position (because their position is already where the
donor wishes it to be) but to suggest this arrangement is free of
obligation misses the political realities of campaigning. The
politician's obligation is precisely to hold
their position. (I am glossing over the highly likely situation that
the politician doctors their political position in order to ensure
the greatest campaign contributions).
A great deal of attention to this
subject has been paid by people in India, where gifts and bribes are
far more prevalent than in the West. Nepalese writer Narayan
Manandhar suggests that the issue can be seen as a continuum from
extortion to gifts. “Bribe becomes extortion when it is demand
driven,” he writes. “If a medical doctor asks for a bribe inside
an operation theatre or an emergency room, it is clearly a matter of
extortion.” Whereas a bribe can be considered a gift when it is
supply driven. The gift entreats, but does not demand action. “Gift
does not entail a situation of reciprocity - quid pro quo situation.
Bribes are demanding. Failure to perform after taking bribe could
invite negative reciprocity, i.e., retaliation.”
The award-winning poet, painter and
photographer Pritish Nandy takes a different tack, admitting that
gifts are “nothing but bribes in another guise.” He suggests:
“The value's not the issue; the purpose is. Most gifts are meant to
seduce, impress, persuade or make friends with people we need
something from.” But he does not entirely condemn this state of
affairs, saying:
Now we all know that bribery is an awful thing.
It brings us a bad name and compromises our politics. But the
question is: Can we stop it? I don t think so. For bribery is a way
of life. In an imperfect economy like ours, bribery - despite its
social stigma - actually achieves the impossible. It redistributes
wealth. It ensures efficiency, understanding, sometimes even social
justice.
In a bold move, Nandy places the blame
for corruption upon free market economics:
When you install a free economy, you
make a choice. This choice entails moral compromises. The most
important being the fact that you no more take responsibility for the
poor and the weak. You are driven only by market forces. In such an
economy, corruption is inevitable. For money moves by the compulsions
of profit, not ethics. Once you have made such a choice, it is silly
to pose like King Canute and imagine that you can roll back the waves
of corruption and crime.
These problems are intensified by
cultural variation. In many African countries, prompt attention from
officials presumes a bribe so universally that it is effectively a
cost of business. The same is true in many former Soviet nations: try
getting into Ukraine without bribing the border guards. Many South
American nations have similar issues. According to a paper in the
Journal of Third World Studies, South Koreans give gifts to
attract the attention of people who could be influential for their
business – and these gifts are often cash. Yet this is often seen
as ethical behaviour because it is the cultural norm. A massive grey
area results where determining what is a bribe depends more on
Noonan's second condition – how the size of the gift compares to
the norm.
Between these many different positions,
certain conclusions can be drawn with confidence. Firstly, whether we
are talking about gifts, tips or bribes, there is open
acknowledgement that money and goods changes hands in return for
attention or influence and that not all such exchanges are
corrupt. Secondly, what is
acceptable depends in part upon social norms, and varies from culture
to culture: there is no absolute approach to delineating corrupt
practices in this regard. Thirdly, while the expectation of
effectiveness does not make a bribe corrupt, the demand of
outcome coupled with a veil of secrecy which conceals that demand
crosses into extortion, and hence corruption.
What
of Pritish Nandy's accusation that free market economics guarantees
corruption? This claim seems reasonable, but it is hard to validate.
Was corruption less common in Russia under Communism? How would we
make a fair comparison? Is the issue of regulation of the marketplace
really the distinguishing factor here? More to the point, even if
this claim were verified, what economic model would not open the door
to corrupt practices? It is not just the distribution of wealth that
helps generate the circumstances amenable to bribery, but also the
distribution of power, and neither of these issues seem pragmatically
soluble.
The
exchange of gifts, bribes or tips constitute an essential part of all
cultures, and as such the acquisition of influence and power and the
possession of wealth go hand in hand. Those who have the money
necessarily have the influence, and this situation is very unlikely
to change. The arguable tragedy of this state of affairs is that
those living in extreme poverty lack any means of escaping it, for
without wealth they necessarily lack influence. Even democratic
influence can be lost, since the news sources which allow individuals
to make their decisions are controlled by the wealthy who
consequently have the capacity to dictate which stories are told,
and how they are spun. Small wonder the disenfranchised turn to
crime. This is not a problem resolved by escalating law enforcement:
perhaps, by virtue of tax-funded social safety nets, the poor must be
bribed into innocence?
Lord Acton, writing to Bishop Mandell
Creighton in 1887 wrote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Perhaps we should focus our attention not upon resolving problems of
corruption in the form of petty bribery, but upon resolving (from
culture to culture) the standards of behaviour to which we will hold
our officials, elected and appointed. When we lose our sense of
outrage at the abuse of power, we tacitly approve of corruption and
unseat trust as the basis of governance, allowing extortion and
intimidation to become the mechanisms of leadership.
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