Relation-values and emotions: Bribery
'To bribe is to corrupt, to taint a person, usually of trust, by giving him or her favors or gifts.' K reads one day. But, he wonders, that is precisely what we do to those we love: a small present, a thoughtful recognition, a pleasant smile. Is that already bribery? It could be, we cannot decide, K muses, without knowing something else, namely the motivation of the doer. On the personal and private level we usually, well, at least often enough, can judge the motivation. Apparently in distant and formal interactions we need rules. The rule we seem to have come up with is that bribery is bad, corruption worse and nothing but a zero tolerance policy will do.
At the very heart of the bribery-corruption issue lies a dilemma, K concluded: We want favors, that is the contract, the apartment or the affection. But we want it because in whomever's power it is to grant us the favor actually likes us, not because we have helped a little, greased the wheel, so to speak. The dilemma fully comes into its own when we do not get the favor. What do we do then? Walk away? Remind ourselves that 'the better one may win - and we're obviously not it?' Or do we 'help', 'remind', or 'draw their attention' to our offer, our qualities, or plea? Who is able to say with a straight face that they have never been tempted? Only in exceptional circumstance, of course, do we quieten our conscience, and always with reason beyond reproach. Events and situations appeared in front of K's eyes where his own behavior was less, far less, than exemplary.
And yet…
We all know that overall everyone suffers if anyone gives or accepts a bribe. Bribery continues because the damage is spread over many people, preferable without their direct knowledge, while the benefit, the favor that was granted, is restricted to the few. We all know that and that knowledge actually fuels the corrupt behavior. If everyone does it and you do not, all you ever get is the countless, anonymous bits of damage. From that we conclude that every once in a while we 'deserve' to also get the benefit - in a sort of really strange evaluation of fairness.
In a connected world, however, we all suffer more and more often. The real question, therefore, K believes, is how do you tip the system from being corrupt to being less corrupt?
The two answers that everyone tries are reporting and sanctions. Reporting works because many, if not most of us, know when we do something fishy and would rather not have everybody find out. There are , of course, exceptions, but peer pressure is alive and well - just ask your children. And sanctions work because they remove or reduce the benefit you have gotten.
But reporting and sanctions are not enough. If that is all there is, it quickly becomes a game: as long as I am not caught it does not affect me. And as we can see by opening any newspaper, being caught and held responsible happens less and less.
So what is missing, wonders K?
Some experiences from a few years ago come into stronger focus. K worked at the time on a project in India. India, of course, has become a byword for bribery - so institutionalized has it become that estimates exist what bribery 'costs' were it a tax. It is impossible not to see it, from the petty to the grand.
And yet …
K remembers meeting two businessmen who unequivocally did not give nor accept bribes. What was it that drove them? A was in the international airfreight business and goods crossing borders have given rise to bribery throughout the ages. Couple that with modern day demands for guaranteed on time and just-in-time delivery, paying bribes, even organizing regular payments for regular favors might have been quite understandable. Yet A paid nothing, ever. "If you don't mind me asking, how do you stay in business?" K remembered asking.
"As is often the case," A responded, "those who engage in bribery talk about it in a tone of world-weary inevitability. Because if it truly were inevitable then that would reduce individual responsibility and guilt. If everyone does it, the logic goes, what actually can you do? But," A continued, "in reality it is not like that. Bribery is not inevitable and you can choose not to do it. If there is no ambiguity in your behavior it does get known what you stand for and sooner, rather than later, no one bothers you any more."
K must have looked a bit puzzled, because A went on after a little pause "It is a little bit like dealing with dogs, or animals in general. If you have fear, or are not sure, they sense this and act accordingly. If, on the other hand, you do not have fear, they sense that as well and adjust their behavior. Simple really, since at that level customs officials behave like animals: they sense you. And if your decision not to pay or accept bribes is clear and firm, well, then that's that."
B, the managing director of a chemical company agreed with A, as K recounted the story to him. "You have to go further, though," B insisted. "When bribery is as endemic as it is here the problem lies deeper than a series of bribes being paid and pocketed. It becomes a vicious cycle: Once bribes are part of daily life, the next step is to pay someone deliberately not enough with the tacit understanding that there are opportunities for bribes to make ends meet. A daughter of a good friend of mine once studied in the United States and had a part time job as a waitress. Her wages were way below what you could live on and when she said so, her employer said quite openly 'Well I know, but there are so many opportunities for tips, and what you declare on your income tax, well, that's up to you, isn't it?' Nothing tacit here, but was it a bribe?
"Tipping is almost as good a topic as the weather," B continued, "you can talk forever, with passion and clarity and still never come to an agreement. It does bring up the ambiguity of the situation in which briber flourishes quite well, though. Which does not mean, by the way, that ambiguity inevitably leads to wrong behavior. It is one of those asymmetrical causations - but those are quite another story."
To nip this philosophical discourse on asymmetrical causation in the bud, K interrupted at this point: "So A is right; you do have to make a firm decision and stick to it?"
"Yes," B nodded emphatically, "that's the start and then you need to change the system so that the reason for the wrong behavior, bribery in our case, diminishes."
"And how do you do that?" K asked.
"With yourself and those you can influence. For example, I pay all of my employees wages that allow them to reject bribes without personal hardship. I tell you, this is much, much more effective than those lectures about the evil of bribery and the redemption one may get from resisting this evil. Mind you, I am not saying that evil and redemption do not exist, but what I've never understood," said B, "is why not do the easy thing first. And I for one firmly believe paying someone a decent wage that allows him or her to reject a bribe is easier than dealing with evil and temptation."
"I do like your pragmatism," K remarked, "but I would like to push you a little further, if I may." "Ok, go ahead," replied B, obviously enjoying the discussion.
"One of the, as the jargon has it, competitive advantages of your country, is your low cost of production, especially your low cost of labor." K began. "If you pay all your employees wages at which they are able to decline bribes and your competitors are not, don't you loose business and, therefore, in the long run are able to employ ever fewer people at the decent wages you pay? And is not, in the end, no one really served by your gesture?"
"In the long run," B countered, "we are all dead - as a wise person once observed. But, joking aside, you raise a good point. Let me give you an answer that I first heard from C, a senior vice president with a major US chemical company. 'I work for a company', C said at that occasion, 'that has made it unmistakably clear, without fanfare and razzmatazz, that neither pays nor accepts bribes. No matter what!' And he too was asked, the real world being what it is, don't you loose valuable business that way. His an-swers was," and B, almost imperceptibly, sat up a little bit straighter in his chair, " 'Of course we do - but let me tell you,' C said, 'we do not loose any business we care to have in the first place'".
B paused to let this sink in for he wasn't quite sure if K was only playing devil's advocate or really did believe in 'realpolitik'. "C's company is one of the oldest in the US, almost two hundred years old, which, in the corporate world, is pretty close to eternity. So all the business they 'lost' on account of not paying or accepting bribes cannot have hurt them too much. C ended his answer by saying: 'It also saves tremendous costs on the operational level. When things are clear you save on audits, on mediation, on dismissal, on court costs and penalties and, perhaps most important of all, on reputational cost - plus you get to live longer since every night, you get a very good night's sleep.'"
These lessons in practical honesty which K learned in India came back to him now. "Sometimes," he said to himself, "life is actually much simpler than we think it is."
Before he turned in for the night, K was reminded of another little episode he'd almost forgotten. Once he was in Hong Kong on a business trip and recalled a dinner conversation where his neighbor pulled out a twenty Hong Kong dollar bill. On it, it said: 'Bank of China promises to pay the bearer on demand at its offices in Hong Kong TWENTY HONG KONG DOLLARS'. What, his neighbor had asked, do you think would happen if you actually did that?
At the time, K suspected it was a joke he simply did not get - but somehow he'd gotten over that moment of slight embarrassment. Recalling the story in light of his memories of the conversations with the two Indian business men, however, he wondered if at the core even of the financial system is not pure, ephemeral trust - and that the 'real world' we so willingly invoke as an excuse for bribery and other wicked deeds is not the real illusion, conjured up with great skill and dexterity by the perpetrator in order to gain instant, and smug, absolution.
With that thought, and without a nightcap this time, K retired for the night.