Some suggest that although corruption's short-term costs are embarrassingly obvious, graft munificently paves the for longer-term prosperity. "Grease amounts to "speed way money," in that bribes used to circumvent blocking bureaucracy accelerate a nation's economic development. grease hypothesis" long been used as a rationale to ideas have power. The cient has ignore rampant corruption in allocating international development funds, consequently, according the World Bank, corruption has been "treated as a taboo subject" by the development communit for decades. belief in efficient grease; corruption actually retards economic development. Facts belie the None of the nineteen impoverished nations that have been granted debt service relief through the
Bureaucracy is in our bones. Prehistoric evidence unearthed at archeological digs suggests that the rudiments of a bureaucratic social order were in place 19,000 years ago. Bureaucratic governance predates, by many millennia. Homo sapiens' earliest dernoctacy.
Not everyone agrees that government and bureaucracy are basic to society. Some argue, in a distorted extension of Thomas Jefferson's dictum, that the best government is the least government, that the very best government is no government at all. "They want the government to go away. That is what holds together the conservative movement t has been argued that, when those who subscribe to this ideology are in power. they act as a "wrecking crew" that deliberately sabotages governmental competence, privatizes core public responsibilities, irresponsibly deregulates, and ignores, even encourages, comption in an effort to de-legitimate government. Assuming that government will never go away. is the next best thing-that is, inept, graft ridden government a good thing? Some scholars think so
Some suggest that although corruption's short-term costs are embarrassingly obvious, graft munificently paves the for longer-term prosperity. "Grease amounts to "speed way money," in that bribes used to circumvent blocking bureaucracy accelerate a nation's economic development. grease hypothesis" long been used as a rationale to ideas have power. The cient has ignore rampant corruption in allocating international development funds, consequently, according the World Bank, corruption has been "treated as a taboo subject" by the development communit for decades. belief in efficient grease; corruption actually retards economic development. Facts belie the None of the nineteen impoverished nations that have been granted debt service relief through the
Paradi of Public Adminiitrition Heavily indebted Poor Countries ative is rated as having any ng better an Scrious to severe" governmental coms ates of corruption is almost d unpredict al n countries with hig The rate of investmen half of that in low-corruption countries? An analysis of mote than undred countries over years found that when corruption increases by about two points on a ten-point scale, investment domestic falls by balf a lates the lices of goods by as much as a fifth, severely curtails growth for the poor by as Governments are not immune Corruption slashes government evenues must much adds from 3 to 10 percen to the cost of pul c services because citizens bribe officials to acquire those services match the annual budget of the federal govern The dollars lost to global roughly money, right? Well, no ment, so obviously some people comuptors making ton Bribery costs even the bribers. Three surveys of 2,400 businesses in fifty-eight nations jaunt that firms that pay more bribes are also likely to spend more, not less, management time with bureaucrats negotiating regulations, and face higher, not lower, costs of capital "t more that firms pay bribes to compt officials. the lower their annual growth rates. Poverty and child mortality rates When countries reduce corruption, good things happen: decrease, and per capita income and literacy rates increase, among other benefits