A bribe is by no means a necessary evil
The most popular and familiar vice of government, and not only government, is corruption. It is destroying our society and our lives. It raises prices, destroys jobs, robs us every day and deprives us and our children of a future, even if we don't realize it.
Photo: Pxhere
It is corruption that appears to be the key reason for the all-crushing migrant flow, literally washing Russia and Russian civilization itself off the face of the Earth: unscrupulous officials, for entirely objective reasons (including unconsciously), are seeking to replace the bearers of Russian culture, who consider bribery a crime, with bearers of other cultures, who perceive it as a normal business transaction.
The state effectively fights against corrupt officials, at politically significant moments shaking society with stunning revelations, instilling in it ever new old hopes and removing political and psychological dividends from “safe apartments” densely packed with money and palaces standing on foundations made of gold bullion. However, it almost does not change the rules of business (including those established by law), which constantly and widely give rise to these corrupt officials.
Accordingly, no matter what clouds gather over the heads of specific corrupt officials and for what period of time from what no matter how much publicity they receive, corruption as a phenomenon remains almost untouchable.
It is fundamentally important that in the fight against bribery (as with most other serious crimes), cruelty in itself will not help; what is important is something completely different: the inevitability of punishment, which is obvious to everyone. In medieval China, executed bribe-takers were sometimes stuffed into a stuffed animal, planted as a joke in the office of the successor, and shocked Western travelers described officials as if nothing had happened extorting bribes in the company of such a scarecrow. After all, the framework of certain rules simply did not leave officials with an acceptable choice: if you don’t want to steal, leave government service.
Meanwhile, a bribe is by no means an inevitable evil, and certainly not a folk dance, as the brilliant satirist Arkady Averchenko wrote about more than 100 years ago. The built-in self-cleaning mechanism of the most vile, most decomposed government is very simple and well known to everyone involved in it — to overcome corruption you just need to launch it. (By the way, it cannot be completely excluded that it is precisely its obviousness and well-known nature that prevent its implementation: if the circles leading the state were not aware of its effectiveness, over the past years they could well have launched it simply by accident, “by mistake.”)
The notorious “political will”, the lack of which commentators and observers have been almost automatically complaining for 37 years, is needed primarily to launch this mechanism and maintain its functioning.
A thief should be in prison, not in power, but it is no less important that what he has stolen should not serve as a reliable pension fund, confirming the maxim “a bribe is the best business,” but should be returned to the people.
It is amazing that in order to liberate the Russian state from the captivity of corruption and (which is politically no less dangerous and humanly much more offensive) suspicions about it, it is necessary to take only two steps that have clearly proven their effectiveness, transforming any however decomposed mechanism of governance (including its law enforcement segment) into a self-purification mode.
First: it is necessary to establish (following the example of Italy) that the bribe-giver, when collaborating with the investigation, is released from liability guaranteed, completely and automatically (and not, as in our case, partially and only in the case of coincidence of the wishes of the investigator and the judge). This places all responsibility for corruption on its organizer — the official, thereby breaking the mutual responsibility that unites him with his victims, and deprives him of the last incentive to protect him.
The second step that triggers the mechanism for self-purification of power from corruption is the introduction (following the example of the United States) of complete confiscation of even the assets acquired in good faith (except for those necessary for a very modest life) of families and close relatives of members of organized crime who do not cooperate with the investigation. We are talking specifically about organized crime, since government corruption is always associated with the mafia, which cleans out lone bribe-takers more reliably and inevitably than any law enforcement officers — simply in the process of competitive struggle
Since the “common fund” is not enough for everyone (after all, it is created for expansion, and not to protect ordinary and even average mafiosi), a significant number of people involved in corruption who have attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies will face a merciless choice: risk their lives or doom family into poverty. Practice (though so far only American) shows that a critically important part prefers to risk their lives for the sake of their family — and this reliably cuts the economic ground from under the feet of mafia clans.
These measures are, in principle, sufficient, since employees even deeply corrupt law enforcement agencies, naturally striving for promotion, begin to apply them en masse to each other.
As a result, in Italy they deprived the mafia of political power everywhere except the south of the country (although in five and a half years, during the implementation of this rule, six governments were replaced), and in the USA the traditional mafia ceased to be a significant political force.
All the remaining measures, endlessly discussed and chewed over by an already desperate society, are of an auxiliary nature — but nevertheless valuable.
Thus, a presumption of guilt (following the example of Singapore) in the event of a discrepancy between official income and expenses in the families of officials is vital.
The notorious digitalization provides enormous opportunities, allowing not only to visually see online whether a particular official is living within his means, but also to transfer all procedures for developing and approving decisions into an electronic and, moreover, formalized mode. If the chaotic exchange of information through various (and often controlled by Western intelligence services) instant messengers is replaced by a structured electronic platform, transparent to the state, control will become invisible, intangible, and at the same time comprehensive. Any inappropriate decision of each official will be identified and automatically checked — and will end with his punishment for either incompetence or corruption.
It is absolutely necessary to deprive officials of the opportunity to pay off corruption crimes — “to pay for disclosed bribes from undisclosed ones.” This essentially medieval norm was (among others) given to organized crime (including corrupt officials) by President Medvedev under the guise of “liberalization of the Criminal Code.” But under no circumstances should we forget that corruption in government, unlike corruption in business or a social sector institution, is by no means a property crime, but a crime primarily against statehood, that is, belonging to the same category as treason .
It seems extremely important to introduce automatic lifelong deprivation of all those convicted of a corruption crime (including those committed outside the public administration system) of the right to hold not only government, leadership and elected positions, but also to conduct any legal activity, and also, what is usually forgotten, to teach public Sciences. (The author remembers well the very colorful and convincing lectures on how to correctly give and take bribes, which, out of nothing to do, “at the call of the soul,” were given in some respected Moscow universities by no less respected middle-class liberal reformers who remained out of work.)
The listed measures (and even only the first two) will sharply reduce the level of corruption and deprive it of a systemic nature, that is, make the most dangerous thing impossible — making strategic decisions based on corruption motivations.
We should not forget that even simple reducing the level of corruption thanks to the implementation of these measures will provide Russia, in fact, with a second budget in literally three years.
There is nothing fundamentally complicated in the required changes: there would be a desire. The fight against corruption, just like the fight against individual corrupt officials, as well as the choice between these two types of struggle or abandonment of it, is not a matter of economics and certainly not of jurisprudence or even law enforcement practice, but entirely a matter of politics.
And I am convinced that with our help, dear readers, it will ultimately be resolved correctly.
It’s just that delay in this matter is not like death: delay in the fight against corruption is itself death for tens, and in modern conditions, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens — and the corruption of tens of millions before the eyes of those beginning to sincerely believe that corruption is the real basis of the state system of today's Russia.