How corruption affects a country
Success is the main goal for every ambitious young man, but sometimes people tend to confuse success with power. What is the cost of economic and political power? A dark fog called corruption is blurring the Spanish dream.
Key word: corruption
Corruption is the abuse of power and / or the improper conduct of a person or institution for personal gain. In this context, political corruption is linked to the abuse of power by the public office for personal benefit. It always has consequences that affect more or less the society in general.
Political corruption is an attitude and a behavior that is not accepted by the norms and cultural patterns of a given society. When a person is politically corrupt, this person violates commitments because it missuses privileges that have been granted by the people with the mere purpose of obtaining a benefit foreign to the common good. Overall, corruption refers to rulers and / or elected officials that leverage state resources to directly or indirectly enrich and benefit themselves.
In Spain
Corruption for Spaniards is the second highest concern after unemployment. “A lack of separation between the political class and the public administration is something we inherited from the Franco regime,” said Victor Lapuente. According to this, the main problem in Spain comes from the political regime. Despite the fact that we are in a sort of democratic state, we are lacking the basic principles of political democracy: the separations of powers and true representatives. Perhaps the solution to this problem implies a new constituent assembly. But maybe the problem resides in the mentality of the Spanish people.
With the economic crisis, the number of debates concerning corruption has dramatically increased: the media starts exposing politicians, companies and royal family members; everyone is unsatisfied with the way things are and with the way the government is managing the country. «What the economic crisis has done is allow more public debate about corruption … It is being exposed more and that affects perceptions. In Spain every sector – politics, the royal family and companies – was implicated in graft at a time when the country is really suffering,» said Anne Koch, TI’s director for Europe and Central Asia. The final result is that people got tired of their politicians.
According to Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Spain dropped 10 places to 40 out of 177 in the corruption rankings. This shows the Spaniards’ unsatisfaction towards the system that promised to protect them. Prior to these ratings, many big scandals came to light: Iñaki Urdangarin, the king’s son-in-law, was charged for the inappropriate use of public funds; Luis Bárcenas, former treasurer of the Popular Party, was also part of a corruption case; Rodrigo Rato, former finance minister, also abused his power for personal benefit. Even president Rajoy had to apologize in the name of his political party for all the cases of corruption saying, » I apologize in the PP’s name to all Spaniards» in a speech he gave on October 28th.
As a consequence
All governments are susceptible to corruption, because they seek political power. In the fourth century BC, Plato in his dialogues and the Republic refer to the decline of Athens due to corrupt governments, and in his description of the «Ideal City» Plato says, «because the city is subject to corruption, the system will not endure forever but rather it will be destroyed». Corruption in a government can be harmful for the entire country.
The consequences of corruption are several from the social point of view:
1. Individual and collective degradation in relation to the values and cultural patterns.
2. Promoting a negative culture based on fraud, deceit, embezzlement, breach of trust and despotism.
3. Creating a favorable scenario for crimes such as drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, which together lead to the institutionalization of organized crime.
These consequences increase the lack of confidence of citizens in their government and their perception of injustice.
From the economic point of view an economic degradation of society takes place, accentuating inequalities between different groups producing a lack of competitiveness (cost of works is artificially increased).
Measures to be taken
1. Measures should be focused on education. It must be recognized that lying is a crime and embezzlement of public funds must have the highest moral and criminal penalty.
2. Enhance the power of citizens in the sense of creating and strengthening participatory instruments that determine the greatest possible transparency in the use of public funds. Good communication between the people and the government is critical to ensure the transparency of such.
3. Exercise the vote to elect rulers giving priority to the effective transparency.
4. Strengthen the resources of agencies of the Judiciary.
To conclude, corruption is big concern in Spain nowadays. Spaniards have stopped trusting their politicians and rulers. With an effective transparency, Spain could change for good to a united country where governors and citizens trust each other.
Ray of Wisdom 