{"id":43527,"date":"2015-04-30T22:37:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T04:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43527"},"modified":"2015-04-30T15:18:49","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T22:18:49","slug":"is-corruption-linked-to-systems-of-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/04\/30\/is-corruption-linked-to-systems-of-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Is corruption linked to systems of Government?"},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The great debate raging in our country is about corruption and its (supposed) genesis in the abuse of power by autocratic leaders who find high-level thieves and cheats their best friends in their quest for unlimited personal power – and social dominance for their kith and kin, The assumption here is that a political (or constitutional) system that allows the emergence of such anti\u2013democratic leaders must be blamed for\u00a0 the social distress that ensues. Thus a \u2018JR-style Presidency\u2019 is thought to be a prime cause for social mischief of diverse kinds. Chief among these is the evil of corruption that infects both the body-politic and social institutions at all levels of society. The underlying notion is that corruption is a sign of political malfunctioning and its correction lies in the basic reform of politics and governance. This assumption is not acceptable to most social theorists and experts in the psychology of delinquancy. The tendency to overbear others \u2013 to lie and cheat in the common struggle to survive \u2013 is a built in feature of the human condition and the suggestion that it is a \u2018political problem\u2019 that is \u2018erased\u2019 by good governance is untenable. Here we quote from the writings of Prof. Andrew Spalding \u2013 an expert on corruption in human societies : “Corruption is a problem identified across cultures, across times, across government systems \u00a0– Corruption is a universal problem.\u2026 There\u2019s no \u2018silver bullet\u2019 to it. But we can address it, and we can reduce it in exactly the same way that we have succeeded in reducing other forms of crime\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is clear, then, that corruption is defeated by social and moral reforms that address the inherent foibles of our species. Thus humans are prone to violence as part of the evolutionary tool-kit for survival. This violence is now greatly reduced in all civilized societies and it has come about not through legislation or police action but by the natural evolution of social norms through advances in science and civilization. The notion that societies can be \u2018improved\u2019 by the enactment of the right kind of legislation is a species of folly that we can do without. There is an important \u2018coda\u2019 to the argument given above – that no amount of \u2018yahapalanaya\u2019 will suffice if the \u2018political actors\u2019 are lacking in moral worth. The chief \u2018batsman\u2019 (and woman) in the current \u2018good governance movement\u2019 are notoriously ungoverned in their passions \u2013 a paradox that needs resolution before all else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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R Chandrasoma The great debate raging in our country is about corruption and its (supposed) genesis in the abuse of power by autocratic leaders who find high-level thieves and cheats their best friends in their quest for unlimited personal power – and social dominance for their kith and kin, The assumption here is that a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}