How Corruption Erodes Personal Integrity
Corruption erodes the state from inside out, robbing honest people opportunities they deserve. It slows down the economic growth of a nation through perpetuating poverty, political instability, and eroding personal integrity. Summarily, corruption erodes personal integrity, making people be seen as honest but bend the rules if they can rationalize it in a manner that does not undermine their public esteem.
Corruption promotes political instability in countries. Nations that have normalized corruption are equally prone to wars (Suma, 2017). These wars can be inter-clan and tribal clashes caused by fraudulent elections and unequal distribution of resources by the ruling elites to the people. This causes hatred and distrust among people and, thus, political instability.
Corruption discourages domestic and foreign investment in a nation. Through demand and payment of a bribe, a regressive tax is imposed on taxpayers (Suma, 2017). The impact of this is an increased cost of doing business among business owners. This ultimately leads to an increased cost of living among individuals.
Corruption promotes unemployment among the population. In job recruitment, the person who parts with the heftiest bribe or agrees to in any form of agreeable favor is awarded the job as opposed to meritocracy and competency (Suma, 2017). A society where meritocracy is overlooked in employment is prone to reduced output in terms of services and products produced. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Corruption increases rates of inflation in the economy. It impairs competition between people and institutions, thus leading to unfair economic structure (Ohzahin and Ucler, 2017). A society where illegal activities such as drug peddling and smuggling of contraband goods thrive are likely to have a wide gap between the rich and the poor with unfair economic structure. The resultant of this effect will be increased crime rates among youths, thus leading insecurity in society.
It promotes inequality in the country. Various studies have concluded that corruption increases the difference in income through the adoption of a biased tax system, inadequate quality social programs, and lower levels of growth (Dimant and Tosato, 2018). An inequality among citizens leads to poverty, which ultimately promotes the contrary, social vices such as robbery. A society where youths are engaged in criminal activities as opposed to productivity is a failed society.
Subsequently, corruption promotes dictatorship of the ruling elites. It frustrates organs mandated to protect the rights of citizens by eclipsing their powers or cutting their budgetary allocation (Dimant and Tosato, 2018). With fewer controls, these organs are unable to carry out their mandate of checks and balances. One the other hand, to everyday citizens, there will be no public education to them on their rights, thus quickly making them easy to manipulate. Lack of information by citizens is advantageous to the ruling class as they can control the masses, thus making it for them to revolt when their rights are infringed on.
Besides, it leads to the rise of underworld businesses. Shadowy businesses such as gold smuggling, drug peddling, and poaching are as a result of corruption (Dimant and Tosato, 2018). Mysterious companies are illicit trade, which allows the circulation of dirty money, thus causing inflation in the economy. Besides activities such as poaching rob the country wild animals, it prides in resulting in a loss in revenue.
In conclusion, corruption is cancerous as it kills the future of a nation, denying opportunities to young people while entrenching cronyism and mediocrity over meritocracy and integrity. It slows down economic growth and increases inequality among citizens. Stringent measures such as hefty fines should, therefore, be imposed on all those engaging in this vice, which erodes the moral fiber of society.
References
Manzin, M., Bavec, C., & Curin, S. (2012). Resiliency to Corruption—Structural Model of Causalities and Consequences. Revijaza Kriminalistiko in Kriminologijo, 63, 281-290. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=10.5772%2Fintechopen.72953&btnG=
Özşahin, Ş., & Üçler, G. (2017). The consequences of corruption on inflation in developing countries: Evidence from Panel Cointegration and Causality Tests. Economies, 5(4), 49. Retrieved from; https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/5/4/49/pdf
Dimant, E., & Tosato, G. (2018). Causes and effects of corruption: what has past decade’s empirical research taught us? A survey. Journal of Economic Surveys, 32(2), 335-356. Retrieved from; https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/76445/1/MPRA_paper_76445.pdf