Corruption and a Culture -II

Corruption is a huge problem in many countries as it is 'OK' to be corrupt. In fact I've come across people who take pride in their corrupt activities and perpetuate such practices without analyzing the broad effects of it. One way to distinguish if a problem is specific to a section of people holding power or something that is present in a broader culture is to take out the powerful people out of the equation. Power is known to corrupt people across the globe and history has shown that repeatedly. Even the qualities and behavior of some powerful people seem to have common patterns that is cross-cultural.

It is widely acknowledged that good leadership at several levels (not enough to have one non-corrupt leader at the top) can mitigate the problem, but it may not be sustainable. It is easy to succumb to corrupt practices when the broader social context is supportive of that. Then it becomes a competition for who gets to abuse power and earn money/fame through any means. The prevalence of power abuse and corruption, especially in a democracy, can not exist independently of the wider population of people who support or reject it. That shows the existence of this problem in our broader culture. We need a change at a deeper and higher level that can create the social context where corrupt practices find it hard to flourish. The deeper level has to do with our value systems and the higher level has to do with social organization that lets people put pressure on leaders if they are found to be corrupt.

There have been several movements to deal with corruption and there are several dedicated groups working to create more awareness about the problem of it. Given the widely acknowledged existence of this problem, the framework in which we analyze the problem of corruption and power abuse is important. These are problems that touch both the moral domains of our existence and society's functioning and health. Hence it becomes imperative to use systems language to address the problem as it is one way to connect deontological moral systems (rule based ethical system) and utilitarian social organization.

The health of a system of individuals can be assessed just as the health of an individual can be evaluated. It is important to remember that there is no absolute definition of health even for an individual. Defining health for an individual during his or her lifetime is a complicated issue and varies with time and place. It is possible that people get habituated to a state of sickness and think that is the most healthy state possible for that individual. Sometimes to define the most healthiest state possible, it is important to envision an ideal state or look for people who have achieved extraordinary states of well being. Just as people are redefining health of an individual by including several factors such as physical, mental, spiritual and economic health, the way we assess a society's health needs to be changed.

A society or a country is a group of individuals living in a place with its own natural, ecological and human resources and who are in an open exchange of all these resources with the rest of the beings on earth. One important health indicator in a society is moral/ethical health as it determines how people interact with each other. Since all beings live in an inter-connected and inter-dependent system, it affects almost every aspect of our life and living. One useful way of thinking about it is to compare it with systems at other levels.

Several systems of understanding nature widely recognize that the universe is arranged as a holarchy of beings at multiple levels. A holon is simultaneously a whole with its own specific properties and also a part of bigger system where it is a component part. There are holons at several levels. For example, cells have their own unique properties, but are also part of tissues and organs. Like wise individual humans have their own unique autonomous nature and simultaneously interact with other people and beings in multiple ways to form a society. These ideas are discussed in great detail in Ken Wilber's book 'Sex, Ecology and Spirituality'.

The systems at all levels are organized according to certain patterns which results in their harmonious functioning. Studying these principles of organization and the nature of their dynamic behavior are the focus of several domains of science. In human societies, this principle of organization is expressed as ethical and moral principles. As free agents with several ways of organizing a society, people have experimented with several such principles. However such principles cannot be separated from the values people hold as it directly affects how people interact, treat each other and what is considered as wrong behavior.

Corruption and Cancer : Deontological systems derive its rule mainly through the application of reason as Kant would argue or through discovering such principles as in revelations. Some theorists like Penrose and several other thinkers of the classical eastern and western philosophical system argue that morality is built in to the universe and these principles are known just like how mathematical insights appear to mathematicians. Even though there have been several times in history when such insights were attributed to revelations from a divine source, it is easy to see their relevance to social organization. As ethical principles are principles by which groups of autonomous people are organized, it is interesting to see what happens in a society when such principles are ignored. The idea here is to see the link between the deontological system rules and utilitarian consequences through a systems level analysis at a higher level of organization.

One way to see such effects clearly is to look at a lower level of organization (that bears resemblance to the level of organization under discussion) and look for clear analogies. In this case, organization of the human body throws light on this specific question really well. Even though it is not an accurate comparison in every detail, it does have analogous characteristics to the organization of the society.

In the human body, the individual cells maintain their unique state in a dynamic manner and has semi-permeable boundaries through which it exchanges matter and energy with its surroundings. Most cells perform specialized functions and all these diverse cells form such a complexly organized human body.
One of the rules of organization is that when a cell's boundary encounters another boundary, it stops further growth. When such principles of organization are broken as in the case of cancer, the cells acquire an aggressive tendency and spread to other locations and uses the resources to divide itself. There are several factors like genetic predisposition and environmental factors that cause a cell to become cancerous.

In an analogous way in the society, the principle that protect an individual's unique characteristic and allow that individual to do anything he deems fit without harming or coming into conflict with another individual in a destructive way is captured in the idea of rights. Given that humans have a certain degree of choice in determining their actions, the rules of organization need to be flexible and broad enough to accommodate the choices an individual would make. Corruption and power abuse are akin to cancer in this regard that individuals' rights are being violated and what is rightfully theirs is also taken away from them. There are several factors such as predisposition and environmental factors that make people behave the way they do.

This analogy certainly helps to see the effects of ignoring certain principles of justice. It raises questions about the dynamic range of the system to accommodate such transgressions and survive/rebound from that state to a healthier state. One of the strategies suggested by Ken Wilber to deal with pathological holons is to arrest those arrogant holons and then integrate them if possible. In the society it translates to ensuring the proper functioning of justice system in a compassionate way. It is well recognized in modern civilizations, that the purpose of justice systems is to maintain the harmonious functioning of the society.

Tai Chi symbol adapted from http://www.chiinnature.com/TT_taichilogo.html

Eastern Philosophy and Complex Systems: Evolutionary biologists and Game theorists argue that even if a society starts off as a completely truthful society where every individual speaks the truth and every individual's right is protected, deception and slowly such corrupt practices spread to a point until it reaches an equilibrium. This idea has been the focus of several eastern philosophical systems like the Vedanta and Taoist schools.

In Advaita Vedanta system, it is widely recognized that righteousness and justice in a society declines at every phase in a four part cycle until the cycle repeats itself. Every cycle is divided in to four such epochs, where righteousness and justice declines by 25% in the society and towards the end of the cycle dramatic changes in the value system or in the world resets the cycle where it continues again. People have even discussed the conditions of living in each such epoch and the prevalent tendencies and dispositions of people which affect healthy living in societies.A similar cycle is known to Taoist Philosophers, where the Yin and Yang forces alternate and gets expressed in the society as similar balance between peaceful and disturbed conditions.

At this point I would like to speculate on the similarities in these systems to the 80-20 rule people have observed in several complex systems. It is the observation that in a system being categorized according to polar opposites, 20% of the fraction lie in one category and 80% in the other category. It then becomes important to understand the effects of upsetting such an equilibrium in a complex system and to know its effects. Will it fall into chaos and suffer irreversible damage or is it always so dynamic as to rebound to its initial equilibrium point?

The ideas in the classic 'I Ching- The Book of Changes' about abolishing the old patterns of behavior and establishing a new one offers great hope and is reflected in the following verses:

"Enlightened intelligence makes people joyful.
Great success comes through justice.
Since the revolution is proper,
All regret disappears.

Heaven and Earth abolish the old and
bring about the new,
Then the four seasons complete their
changes.

Tang and Wu abolished the old and
brought about the new.
They obeyed the will of Heaven
In accord with the wishes of people.

The time and meaning of abolishing the
old is truly great."


Cycles in Value Systems:

As Fritjof Capra points out in his book 'The Turning Point', "Cultural transformations are essential steps in the development of civilizations. The forces underlying this development are complex, and historians are far from having a comprehensive theory of cultural dynamics, but it seems that all civilizations go through a cyclical process of genesis, growth, breakdown and disintegration."  He also points out that "one of the essential elements in this cultural breakdown process seems to be a lack of flexibility. When social structures and behavior patterns have become so rigid that the society can no longer adapt to changing situations, it will be unable to carry on the creative process of cultural evolution".

He also notes that the dominant social institutions most often refuse to give way to these new cultural forces, but their decline is inevitable and this provides the creative minorities a chance for transformation into a new configuration.

As complex free agents, such dramatic changes in ethical behavior in societies is not independent of value systems. Some theorists like Pitrim Sorokin have observed a cyclical shift in materialistic, spiritual and a combination of both materialistic and spiritual value systems. These value systems hold different views of ultimate reality. The ultimate reality in the materialistic culture is matter alone and holds that spiritual phenomena are a manifestation of matter. It also professes a relative ethical system and sensory perception as the only source of truth and knowledge. The spiritual value system holds that true reality lies in the spiritual realms and consider inner knowledge as the source of ultimate truth. It professes super human standards of justice, truth and beauty. The idealistic phase is characterized by a harmonious blending of these two value systems leading to great achievements in arts, philosophy, science and technology as observed in several civilizations during their golden ages.

As the spiritual truths are realized mostly through an inner experience and deals with subtle and very subtle energies, the direct demonstration of it to people is a very difficult task. There are also huge lapses in the understanding of spiritual truths among followers of conventional religion due to the nature of such truths. So in spite of the existence of several religions and loyal followers comprising a huge fraction of humanity, it is widely acknowledged that we live in a time when the predominant value system is materialistic. That value system is reflected in the current socio-economic, humanitarian and environmental crisis. The shift towards an alternative culture started several decades ago in the developed world and that movement has been progressing steadily, spearheaded by several great leaders in all domains of human activity.

It is also reflected in the radical changes in the global culture as we inch towards the completion of the second decade of the 21st century. However there are several obstacles to such a transformation to establish an idealistic culture. These obstacles include oppressive and exploitative societal structures well supported by a growing criminal economy, corrupt governments and information media managed by parties with vested interests. Our effectiveness in dealing with these obstacles is going to be an important factor in determining the rate of such a transformation.


The Needed Change: 

Recent reports from nations such as India throw light on the nature of the problem. A government institute has released a report that 75% of GDP in one of the largest economies in the world is illegal. A predominant criminal economy by nature is exploitative and can easily turn in to an oppressive one even if that is not the case now. I believe there is a continuous range in the fraction of criminal economy among several nations.
Such a state of the system is not just about economy. It also affects the psychological and moral well being of individuals living in such a society. It is reflected in the paranoiac, cynical attitude of most people towards each other and in the lack of trust on several socio-political institutions even at global levels. Reestablishing a state of health in the society from such a state requires intelligent, wise, courageous and persistent action just like any healing process in a living system.

There are many forms of violence in societies. Physical violence, violation of rights, abuse of the mind through manipulation, coercion and systemic practices. Some violation of rights and exploitation may also be systemic cultural phenomena in some places. Some thinkers like Steven Pinker have suggested we live in much better times with less physical violence relative to historical times. I seriously wonder whether this conclusion will change when we include other forms of violence. It is possible that people are more lenient towards or more willing to commit subtler forms of violence compared to physical violence. Some of the reasons might be that physical violence is too risky for life and is dealt a severe punishment than for other forms of violence. When corrupt and exploitative practices spread in a system, people become more forgiving and supportive of such practices as it offers people with resources a great advantage. Beyond a point, even the prevailing notion of healthy practices change and corrupt practices are considered the commonly observed state of affairs.

In such a case the way we deal with each form of violence in an already corrupt society has to vary too. It may be the case that to defend against physical violence, people may have to use violent means. Where as to deal with subtle forms violence, people may resort to a more non-violent approach such as legal means or civil-disobedience and non-cooperation.

A billion courageous and truthful choices, billions of daring and wrong choices and billions of timely withdrawal in to comfort  have gone into creating this current situation in this world. The choices might have been habitual, traditional or even well thought out and examined choices. We have no other choice, but to accept the current situation as it is and involve in wise action to turn the tide to establish a healthier social context.

It may take a lot of time to deal with this sickness like any every other big social change. It can certainly be facilitated by good leadership and a change in value system that looks beyond limited notions of self-interest to understand the effects of  these corrupt practices on our moral nature and on the health of the broader society. Like any other complex problem, a multi-pronged approach is required to deal with it.

One would be to not support corrupt organizations and people involved in corrupt practices by not participating in their institutions. Such discrimination is easier for privately owned institutions than state-owned institutions. As I'm more familiar with the corruption problem in India in the domain of education, I would like to cite the example of corruption in education as an example. Most politicians (local,state and national level) own a college or a group of institutions of learning that charges exorbitant fee from their students for sub-standard levels of education. As pointed in the government report, that is one domain where a lot of illegal economic activity occurs feeding their income, which in turn is diverted to illegal vote soliciting and other huge ethical problems. If prospective students can avoid such institutions, despite some perceived personal loss and take up education in some other institution, it is as act of non-cooperation with corrupt organizations that will drain their strength. New formats of learning such as Open Online Courses for education from institutions of great standard can certainly help in this non-cooperation movement and offer alternative ways of meeting our educational goals with out supporting corruption.


The second approach would be to reform the legal apparatus to be more accountable and effective. This has been widely discussed by several legal experts elsewhere. These strategies can also be applied to other domains of corrupt activities to slowly drain their strength. All these changes can certainly be helped by a radical change in the value system of people.

I sincerely hope such ideas are at least discussed broadly taking into account all these various aspects of the problem in a framework that helps us see its effects on the health of any society and our experience of everyday life.