"Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today" Discuss.

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CORRUPTION

"Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today" (M. Gandhi) 

We all have heard a lot about corruption and all of us have an idea what corruption is but not all of us have the same opinion about it. It is a broad consensus that corruption is bad thing. It promotes the interests of the few over the many. For example giving extra money to a nurse to help a mother to deliver her baby is called corruption; bribing a doctor to ensure your son to get the medicine is called corruption; using the public construction equipment to construct a private house is called corruption. Using the advantages of being a government official for allocating the public resources and fulfilling your personal greediness is also corruption. All the examples may be classified as corruption. If you go through of all of these examples you first think that corruption can damage some people and can make some other better off and some other could not be affected. This is not true. Even that you are not involved to corruption, it affects you and all society. Corruption could be seen in both sides the person who get the bribe and the other one who gave that. So if this way of doing is satisfying the both sides it is very difficult not to be involved in this process. Corruption is, instead, a global phenomenon which affects individuals, groups and other boundaries, even though different interests can have different incentives to engage in corruption.

But before explaining how the corruption affects everybody, the society the economy etc. I want briefly give the factors caused this phenomenon.

As we know, corruption is an old phenomenon existing in development countries. But nowadays this is getting stronger in developing countries. Living in a developing country like Albania where the corruption is obvious strong I would be able to define clearly the particular factors, besides the general ones experiencing form development countries, causing or better saying increasing corruption.

  • The lack of clear rules and codes, the power easily becomes abused.
  • Low civil service wages and bad conditions of work, with no much incentives and rewards for an effective work, are strong incentives for bribing.
  • The poverty level that these countries had when they get out of closes socialism economy increase the incentives for having easy money.
  • The lack of transparency in government, inappropriate strategic vision and weak monitoring mechanisms create the environment for corruption.
  • Coming from different system the culture of governance is also very important. Large bureaucracy and a high scale of hierarchy
  • Lack of clear institution can increase the incentives for bribing
  • Tradition and cultural practice of offering gifts and
  •  Illiterate society
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A number of researchers found that corruption discourages investment, and affect growth, increase inequality. Nowadays corruption is thought by many to be the primary cause of underdevelopment. Shleifer and Vishny (1993) is the classic theoretical discussion of how corruption undermines economic activity.  Mauro (1995), Knack and Keefer (1995) offer empirical accounts of the cross-country relationship between corruption and growth.  The literature on corruption is reviewed by Bardhan (1997) and Azfar (2002a).

I would like to give my understanding from my observations of how corruption affects growth.

Corruption can hurt growth through many channels.

 and fiscal stability: The tax evasion, ...

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