She's apparently saying the most trivial statement possible about bribes: if nothing works the way it should but something will work if you bribe someone, then bribing these people will make these things work. Well, duh.
Exactly. And I think there's a corollary: If officials can get bribes for doing something, they WON'T do it WITHOUT a bribe. So nothing will work the way it should. Bribes perpetuate the same red tape problem they appear to "solve."
Her statement is like saying "what you need is some alcohol to help you deal with the pain of your alcoholism."
Seriously, corruption is maybe the worst possible thing for a country's economy. This article argues that it's the single biggest reason why poor countries are poor. And it's a hard problem to solve.
http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are...
Although it can be solved. Let me preface this by saying that I usually dislike privatization of public utilities. When I moved from Salvador to São Paulo, one of the biggest differences I saw was in the cartórios (civil registry offices, I guess; it's a place you go to when you want you signature oficially recognized or other bureaucratic tasks like that). Back in Salvador, where they are public, bribes are the only way to get anything done. Real state agents, for example, hire "despachantes" to bribe the right people in the "cartório" so they can make real state deals in a reasonable amount of time. Here in são paulo the cartórios are private and there is competition, so they are very efficient, and bribeless.
I guess what I want to say is that bribes usually come from giving too much power to someone. If there is a surrounding structure stopping any single person from deviating too much from the rules it gets very hard to bribe anyone.
Comments
She's apparently saying the most trivial statement possible about bribes: if nothing works the way it should but something will work if you bribe someone, then bribing these people will make these things work. Well, duh.
Exactly. And I think there's a corollary: If officials can get bribes for doing something, they WON'T do it WITHOUT a bribe. So nothing will work the way it should. Bribes perpetuate the same red tape problem they appear to "solve."
Her statement is like saying "what you need is some alcohol to help you deal with the pain of your alcoholism."
Seriously, corruption is maybe the worst possible thing for a country's economy. This article argues that it's the single biggest reason why poor countries are poor. And it's a hard problem to solve. http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are...
Although it can be solved. Let me preface this by saying that I usually dislike privatization of public utilities. When I moved from Salvador to São Paulo, one of the biggest differences I saw was in the cartórios (civil registry offices, I guess; it's a place you go to when you want you signature oficially recognized or other bureaucratic tasks like that). Back in Salvador, where they are public, bribes are the only way to get anything done. Real state agents, for example, hire "despachantes" to bribe the right people in the "cartório" so they can make real state deals in a reasonable amount of time. Here in são paulo the cartórios are private and there is competition, so they are very efficient, and bribeless.
I guess what I want to say is that bribes usually come from giving too much power to someone. If there is a surrounding structure stopping any single person from deviating too much from the rules it gets very hard to bribe anyone.