Why Not Legalise Corruption?
by KR Ravi Filed under Breaking bad habits, Decision Making, Editor's Picks, Effectiveness, Life Skills, Personal Growth, Problem Solving, thinking
I once visited a friend of mine for an evening of music, drinks and food. As he poured me a mug of my favourite poison, beer, he requested his ten year old son to join in and asked him what he would like—beer,whisky or rum. I was taken aback—how could a fond father actually invite his minor son for a drink when almost all other friends of mine hid their alcohol habits from even their wives?
Looking at my perplexed expression, my friend paused a while to clarify the situation. “You see I am convinced that the more I hide my bottles of alcohol from my son, the more curious he will become and will surely imbibe the drink surreptitiously in my absence. I decided that the best way to avoid this is to offer him a drink whenever I drank. He tasted whisky once and found it disgusting. I am now sure he will not drink even when offered.”
The CEO of a large company asked me to meet with his HR manager to discuss the possibility of conducting workshops on Lateral Thinking for his colleagues. I sought an appointment with the HR manager only to find the man was not interested in meeting me. I suspected that he did not like the idea of being told whom to meet.
A short time later, I sat opposite the man who leaned against his large desk looking cynically at me.
“So you think you are a latter day Einstein?”
“Sir I am far…..” I began saying but was interrupted rudely.
“I have seen many trainers who think they can transform this company. But they are only after money,” he argued.
“But I never even….”
“I believe we are creative enough and do not need….” His voice trailed off as the intercom rang. He barked some instructions to his secretary and then turned to me.
“See we are a very innovative company and do not need anyone to tell us how to think innovatively,” he said in an authoritative tone.
“Sir please listen to me….” Again I was interrupted mid- sentence.
“I think you are wasting my time,” he stated with an air of finality.
I got up. Before shaking hands I told him, “I hope at least now, when I am about to leave you, I will be permitted to say at least one sentence.”
“Of course go ahead. Why do you stand? Please sit down.”
I obliged and continued the exchange, “I have no doubt that your company is innovative and has won some awards for innovation. I am convinced that you do not need my services AT ALL! On the contrary I would learn from your lateral thinking colleagues. I hope that will happen some day.”
So saying I again stood up and stretched my hands towards him.
“Oh come on. Nobody can claim to have learnt all there is to any subject. We can learn from you. You have a formidable reputation,” said the man looking amiable for the first time. His defences were finally down.
I would go on to conduct a dozen workshops for that company and the HR manager is now one of my close friends!
These are two examples of counterintuitive thinking in which we ask ourselves what is the last thing that one can think of or do in a tight situation? One goes against the grain as it were.
The State of Tamilnadu was rocked by a series of shocking incidents of people imbibing ‘hooch’ and either dying or being blinded. The concoction served by bootleggers, was contaminated by acids and ethyl alcohol that were almost always lethal. The obvious ’solution’ to this crisis that might come to most of us is to ban hooch, clamp down on bootleggers, swoop down on known sales outlets, and arrest the bootleggers. This not only did not solve the problem but made the trade even more secretive. The drink was now made under even more unhygienic conditions with even more cheap and lethal ingredients (including lizards and rats) which led to even more tragedies.
Surely this called for counterintuitive thinking. The government decided to open dozens of stores where good quality liquor would be available at a fair price. The underground market almost totally ceased to operate.
We all talk of corruption in India but few have offered concrete suggestions to reduce or eliminate it. The Right to Information Act is one step in the right direction. Here is a counterintuitive suggestion:
How about legalising corruption?
Let me give you an example based on a system that is in operation in a country even more corrupt than India. Let’s say that you need a fresh passport urgently since you have an opportunity to travel abroad. The Passport office has a reputation for corruption. Now a new scheme is introduced. Those who need a passport urgently—in a week for example—will have to pay 15% extra service charge; those who can wait till four weeks will pay only half that amount. No service charges will apply for delivery after four weeks.The collections will be distributed among the staff— as happens in a restaurant where the ‘tips’ are shared among all the staff.
In effect this scheme legitimizes what you would have been paying under the table, much like the tipping the waiter at a hotel. I believe most people may not mind paying additional amounts officially as against being extorted.
Witness that way in which people in Chennai do not mind paying a given amount of money to a ‘call taxi’ service where you pay as per the meter. The same people hate paying the same amount for the same journey to an auto rickshaw guy who actually is seen as an ‘extortionist’ since he ‘demands’ more than is considered legitimate. The call taxi amount is deemed legitimate .
The drug menace is one of the many evils of life in many countries including the US. Not many may be aware that terrorists obtain colossal sums of money by selling drugs based on crops that grow in Afghanistan. In effect any American who consumes drugs is financing the acquisition of armaments that are used in acts of terrorism. Drugs are banned but the ban is ineffective and has the unintended effect of making the trade even more secretive and lucrative. Some countries have attempted to implement a counterintuitive solution—Canada for example has made marijuana available legally!
My first encounter with this form of thinking was when I was a fourth standard student in a Mumbai school. I was an enfant terrible and my mischief was the despair of all my teachers, not to speak my classmates some of whom changed to another school just to avoid me. One day, a new teacher joined my class and looking back I could see how she used counterintuitive thinking. With much fanfare, she actually appointed me the class monitor!
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I absolutely agree with you!
Your first example symbolizes educating children “not to do” things. The opposite is better. Let them try things. They are not stupid and even though they are young they already have a keen sense of judgment sometimes much better than adults.
Another example, around the world is the fact that we ask our children not to talk to strangers. Well, I believe we should, under fair circumstances, do the opposite. If they were allowed to talk to strangers, their social senses would develop much better. They could just by talking a few sentences feel someone fishy. Shielding children from any danger is robbing them from life experiences.
Thanks for this great article!
A well written and very true article, in all the issues I truly agree, but sadly the one thing that will bring this whole idea of legalizing corruption will be destroyed by inflation. Let me explain. A man used to charge $10 extra under the table for delivering prompt service, now you go and legalize that and he now gets the $10 legally, but greed will dictate whether he will charge you another $10 under the table to ensure that you are now 1st in the que. When the government legalise that as well, he will once again increase the fee, until the true market force tells him him to bugger off as they are no longer willing to pay the excessice amount.
Just my opinion.
Thanks again for a wonderfull article.
Dear Ravi
Definately thought provoking and thats exactly what I told my son too….infact he is just 5 but made him understand that his father has a drink and there is nothing wrong with it and I have made sure that I have never acted or behaved unnuturally after the drinks. and yes….thats what Lalu did with in railways….the tatkal scheme was in a way of telling passengers….pay the govt rather the TT themselves.
cheers
sharad
While I agree that counterintuitive thinking would work in certain situations, what would happen if the child to whom you are offering whisky actually likes it?? Would you then stop him doing what he likes??
A thought-provoking and educative article one cannot miss. congrats!
It is as good as pulling the elephant with a hair.
without putting any defense.
I really enjoyed your article and think it is extremely creative to use this type of thinking to deal with various issues.
I just wanted to clarify that CANADA has only legalized marijuana for MEDICINAL PURPOSES and it must be attained through a licensed pharmacist and very strict controls are in place to eliminate any abuse. Typically you wont be charged for small amounts if caught as it would be for personal use but you will be charged for traficking under Canadian law if you are caught selling or growing it.
It might seem legal in the Province of British Columbia as it is a port town and has good climate for growing it and like most warm places illicit drugs are a means of earning an income without having to work to hard.
This final part of the author’s script was what happenned to me as well. SOme nostalgic moments. Thanks You Ravi.
However, legalising corruption is a crude way of projecting a very good idea. This can and will certainly work is my thought.
Lets see where this all ends!
There is an error in the logic that increasing fees and distributing the fees among office members will reduce corruption. The underlying cause of corruption is lack of transparency, not that people are not getting paid enough. To believe otherwise is to assume people will become honest at some income level. The world (incl. India) is full of rich, corrupt people. You also assume people are co-operative in revenue sharing. What prevents one of them from doing side-deals? The same result can be achieved by paying the people more, but true answer to corruption is tough, fair legal system.
My thinking is people will be honest if the cost of being corrupt is higher than cost of being honest. It is simply a matter of making the numbers available to outside world and reward people for better service while taking harsh action against corruption (both giving and taking). It will take time, but eventually people will realize that economic costs of corruption are too great. Those who invent clever ways to dodge the law will fall more spectacularly as the society learns to abhor corruption.
Also, passport office is a bad example – you want these places to be honest to make life difficult for terrorists.
I tend to like the US system of checks and balances with independent 3-branch government. Each has incentive to keep tabs on the other. In parliamentary system like India, the nexus between politicians, police and judges encourages corruption instead of competition to expose the bad elements. That is where the change must begin.
when so called great people in society agree on something deciding who gets what and make others to follow. It becomes legal.when those people dont agree and thearten people not to do that.It becomes illegal.we call this as GOVERNMENT.
Counterintuitive Thinking And Problem Solving is for sure a thing to bear in mind.
I’ve enjoyed the article, but have to limit the idea. In cases where the officer in charge or the decition taker has a big lever to influence costs – lets say factor 10-times or even 1,000-times what he personally receives – then it turns out to be very unhealthy for the whole of the society. The renderer of service saves a lot of money by not providing the services he has been paid for, while the owner of the site is the one being betrayed. Simply remember the last earthquakes in Mexico or Turkye where most of the collapsed building are not done to standards. Therefore I won’t take it THAT easy (imagine you may be living in such a building)
While there may be some elements of truth in the idea of going completely counter intuitive to the typical thought process, I am not sure that I would actually employ many, if any, of the tactics, though in a think tank the notion of “thinking outside of the box” and “brainstorming” unusual ideas has some merit. As a project manager, from time to time I will deliberately employ some potentially difficult or “dangerous” practices, that risk either putting me at odds with others or putting my credibility to question. Typically though these risky moves get me very rapid answers to the questions or issues at hand; they’ve cost me my job at other times; not everyone understands what I am doing.
Regarding drinking or drugs, you are proposing a dangerous idea. Some people will choke on a gulp of whiskey, but others will like the rush they get. Same with drugs: change your drug of choice to either Cocaine or Heroin and a frightening conclusion emerges – you generally cannot even touch either of them without significant risk of addiction and also significant health risk. They are extremely enticing, otherwise they would not have such a high addiction factor.
Though your arguments have some merit, the analogies lead me more to question than to accept the whole notion. What it really tells me is that this strategy CAN work, but it MUST be used with EXTREMELY GREAT CAUTION, with significant risk of a serious and major disaster far greater in scope than the typical benefit to be gained. Consider it, but consider the cost, too, and BEWARE!