Dec
17
As you might know that at Reason For Liberty, we are busy reverse engineering the brainwashing done in Indian and American culture.
Money is just another measure for your useful labour
First of all, you need to understand what money is. Money is not something you win in a lottery, or are born with. Money is a measure of your labor that came useful to someone. For example if you build a house for someone, he will give you some money in return. Therefore, the money you have is your hard earned labor, nothing else.
If you invest your money in stock market and make millions out of it, then basically you took the labor assuming the risk involved in the business you invested in. The money is now a reward for your risk taking and accurate decision making.
If you are a millionaire then you became a millionaire because you performed the labor to become so rich.
I am covering these bases because in India half of our problems are because of wrong presumptions. We in India believe that being rich or poor is a matter of luck. You can never deserve to be rich or to be poor. If you are rich, then help out the poor people. If you are poor then there is no reason why rich should be treated any more or less than the poor.
I might write a detailed article about this later (although the site is full of such articles), for the time being stick with me.
Bribe the government officials
Once you have established the axiom that being rich or poor are not the matter of fate and your own doing, you will realize that when you pay someone with money, basically you are giving them your useful labor. You are giving them this labor in exchange for their useful labor.
When you pay a traffic cop some money to not write you a ticket, that money goes to him directly instead of to the government. This is a very good thing. This makes him more efficient.
How? Here is how. What is the purpose of the traffic cop? To regulate the traffic, prevent, and deter people from violating traffic rules. When you bribe a cop, you are basically asking him to be more efficient in catching traffic violations, because more people he catches breaking the rules more money he will make for his own pocket.
How? Here is how. Who is willing to pay more for a faster passport? Someone who needs the passport with more urgency. Why would a person need his passport with more urgency and why would he be willing to pay for it?
Because that person feels his time is more important to him than the money he spends on bribing the passport officials. He is willing to spend his valuable useful labor on the speed of passport because he either expects to make more money out the time he saved (in which case he is providing more useful labor to other people), or he just wants psychic satisfaction by getting his work done faster (in which case he is paying by his labor).
What about dishonest cops? Sure bribing a cop may not bring any good?
Well actually it does. You see most of our laws are basically a legacy of British Raj, take for example the law against Homosexuality, laws against guns, our Indian Penal Code was formulated in 1860 (90 years before we achieved independence), under British supervision.
A bunch of our laws are formulated because western nations with huge guilt want us to follow them through UN, take for example the environmental laws, Intellectual property laws etc.
Then a majority of our laws are there because the old people who stick to their Culture (well they don’t have any wealth to pass us on, so why not talk about the various non-tangible things they pass us, that is, Indian Culture), want the government to enforce cultural norms on us.
The point being that except for a minority of criminal laws that actually are relevant, most of the laws are made with an intention of following culture and customs. The Hindu Marriage law forces Hindus to follow Hinduism; the Muslim marriage law forces Muslims to follow Islam. Pornography is not legal in India because our culture does not approve it.
When Police force tries to enforce these laws, where there are no victims, nothing is more moralistic to bribe the police. If you want to use drugs, bribe the local cop. If you want to engage in prostitution, bribe the local cop. If you want to watch Porn, bribe the local cop.
You might say, well where does this ‘dishonesty’ stop, how about you want to rape someone you can bribe the cop?
Well the cop is not stupid, he will not take a bribe if you raped someone or molested some young kid. Even dishonest cops have a conscience. Dishonest cops take bribe for crimes which have no real victims, or where the damage done is really small and the rewards are really high.
Although this in no way guarantees that the cops will only take bribe for victim-less crimes, but my point is just because you do not bribe them does not change the fact that our police force is highly inefficient. The point is, there is nothing immoral in bribing a cop for a victimless crime.
If the question arises in your mind, what is a more permanent solution incompetence of the Police force, well try getting rid of all these stupid laws about victimless crimes, and then the cops will only be focused on catching the real criminals.
Although Train Conductors do not always give the ticket to the highest bidder, they give some preference to highest bidder, and some to the person needing the seat most (like an old person or a woman with kids).
The economic function achieved here is, the Train Conductor can make maximum amount of money if he satisfies the maximum number of people and maximum need with whatever resources he has.
Conclusion
As you can see this article stands to what it claims in its title. Bribing the government officials brings efficiency in the government operations. It is not the best course of action for us, but with the limited means we have, this is the best course of action.
If you really want passport offices to be more efficient, privatize it.
If you really want Traffic cops to be more efficient and honest, privatize traffic police, privatize roads, and have this organization compete with each other for the consumers.
If you want to see honest cops, remove the stupid laws, make people responsible for themselves. However, these are only temporary solutions; a more permanent solution would be to privatize Police itself.
If you want honest Train, conductors privatize railways. Allow private agencies to run their railroads in India.
Until then, never feel bad for a consensual capitalist act.
Related Posts
1 views31 Responses to “Make Govt Offices Efficient: Bribe Them!”
Leave a Reply
Colombia Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 11:15 pmThis Blog reminds me the reason I like bloging so much, the interaction is very important with readers and you guys have it right. Looks great too, will be back for more posts, David the mover.
Yaseen Says:
December 18th, 2008 at 8:33 amlol.. strange but seems true! If there was no bribing then most of Govt. jobs will no more be in demand as no one would want such a low paying job! and if the demand is less then the employees will be of a lower standard or less efficient!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 18th, 2008 at 11:51 amIt reminds me of Ajay Devgan and Arshad Warsi starer movie SUNDAY.
Ajay portrayed the role of a “COP” lol his acting was brilliant.
asit dhal Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 9:32 amBribery makes the system efficient to some extent. But it’s not always true. Sometimes when it crosses the limit, it makes it completely lame.
Suppose u r an engineer. U built a bridge. U stole half of the money.
U bribed ur all senior officials. Income Tax guys came to know it. U also bribed them. Now matter close.
After 3 years, the bridge collapsed. 100 people died.
Is this an efficient system ???
Will u plz justify ?????
renegade_division Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 11:51 amFirst of all I am talking about BRIBING, not STEALING.
The engineer who stole the money is basically a thief, and when he bribes the senior officials they are not accepting bribes they are accepting share from the stolen property, that is, they are thieves too.
Secondly, I think I made it clear that if you don’t wanna suffer the disadvantages of bribery you gotta do the right thing from the starting. That is Bridge construction should not be done by the Govt. Private Organizations should construct the bridge and they should be allowed to extract toll from it.
Even now the bridges which are tolled by the contractor who made them don’t fall. And trust me there is HUGE amount of corruption in there. Its just that they rip off huge amount of money, but they ensure that the bridge/damn won’t fall.
This is how the corruption cycle goes(and this is right from the horse’s mouth).
Politicians asks for an estimate from the Administrative officials for the bridge project.
Administrative officials ask the estimate from the engineers.
Engineers find the estimate and then provide 10% larger figure, to Administrative officials.
Administrative officials provide a 30% larger figure of what is actual estimate and provide it to the politicians
Politicians sanction 50% larger figure of what was provided to them by the administrative officials.
Then Politicians eat 50% of the sanctioned money, and pass the rest to administrative officials
who eat 30% of the money they got, and pass the rest to engineers
who eat 10% of the money they got and build the bridge out of it.
There are very few engineers who are THAT stupid that they make a weak bridge. Actually they don’t intend to, but they don’t know how much to skim.
This in no way the most efficient system, but your alternate option is this which is usually found in totalitarian socialist countries:
1) Engineers supply an bloated figure to administrative officials, who send it back to them asking for a lower figure on the threat of throwing in Gulag
2) Engineers now are forced to supply the minimum amount of figure which may or may not be sufficient for building the bridge
3) Administrative officials then supply this figure to politicians who send it back asking for a lower figure on the threat of throwing them in Gulag
4) Administrative officials now supply even lower figure to politicians which is clearly not sufficient for building a bridge.
5) Politicians then sanction the money more than what is needed, but since they are they are the most powerful people they get to keep a chunk out of it
6) Administrative officials have no opportunity to skim money out, even after that one or two officials skim some out of it.
7) Same thing takes place with engineers, most of them are unable to skim any money but someone of them do, and rest of them try to build the bridge with whatever is available to them.
The bridge eventually build is very weak.
If you really want maximum efficiency, privatize the river and have a private organization build a bridge on it, and extract revenues out of it.
I made a case for private ownership of Natural Resources here:
Case for Private Ownership of Natural Resources I
Case for Private Ownership of Natural Resources II
Jordan Amdahl Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 12:16 pmHi,
I saw your post at the Libertarian Blog Place, but it appears it isn’t updating its list of blogs any more. I’ve decided to set up my own aggregator for libertarian blogs to serve as a replacement. If you’d like to add your site, go to http://emergentdisorder.org/Libertarian_Aggregator/ , click on ‘add your site’ on the right hand side and leave a comment.
Thanks,
Jordan Amdahl
Sanjeev Sabhlok Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 4:46 pmDear renegade_division
I came across this post accidentally. The arguments made here call for a rebuttal.
Are you claiming that efficiency is the goal of a free society? I suggest that efficiency is a subjective measure which can lead us quickly to immoral and dangerous solutions. We want to focus on freedom as the only goal of a free society.
But freedom comes with accountability. The problem you are referring to is of lack of accountability of the police and bureaucracy (particularly in India, but also in many other places).
The taxpayer is entitled to a uniformly efficient service from a policeman, not a discretionary service contingent on a bribe being paid. If a uniformly efficient service does not happen, the taxpayer (through his representative) is entitled to dismiss and punish the policeman. In India this accountability of the inefficient is not part of the system particularly since politicians are the most corrupt of all.
In my book ‘Breaking Free of Nehru’ which has just reached bookstores I have analysed political corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency in India and proposed incentive and freedom based moral solutions so that accountability can become the norm in India. (The book was briefly reviewed in today’s Telegraph: see
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081219/jsp/opinion/story_10272879.jsp)
Details of the book are available (including free download of half the book) at:
http://www.sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/breakingfree.html
I trust you and your readers will consider reading about how we can deliver freedom and accountability to India. Let us aim for a moral society. A free society is, above all, a moral society.
Regards
Sanjeev Sabhlok
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pmNo you completely missed the point he is referring to.
You missed it because you are more interested in advertizing your book. I have no problem in that, although I could simply have turned your comment towards the spam box.
The point this particular post is referring to, is the senseless and redundant laws dealing with victimless crimes.
As for example, it is considered a crime if you are driving your bike on a highway or a city road while you are not using a helmet. There’s a big force of traffic police just checking that. its not only useless, it is wastage of the very limited resources we have.
So, if some traffic police man catches you without a helmet, its better to bribe him Rs50 rather than getting a ticket of Rs500/.
Same goes with other sequences of victimless crimes. That is different thing that because of his own excitement, the author put up some wrong and ill-sense examples too, but the author clearly knows that Bureaucracy or state police is simply unable to be authentic and accountable because of the lack of competition.
privatize the police system and the corresponding competition will give birth to accountability, honesty and competence too alongwith efficiency.
And yes, freedom has a great relation with efficiency. Freedom is the catalyst which increases efficiency.
About Morality, it is not in the scope of this topic. You can discuss morality in many other posts here under section of philosophy and ethics. But on a very general frame, if one is not interrupting any other body’s freedom by any of his actions, then he is not Immoral.
Sanjeev Sabhlok Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 5:27 pmDear Diva,
I appreciate your instantaneous response!
But I’d like to suggest that that a bribe to escape a legal accountability is a crime and cannot be condoned by any advocate of liberty. What you are advocating is license, not liberty. On the other hand, I advocate liberty alone, which is necessarily tightly bound with accountability.
If you have gone without a helmet and are fined, the solution is not to pay a bribe but to seek to change the law (ie. if you oppose the law: which I don’t - for reasons outlined in my next book, currently a manuscript ‘Discovery of Freedom’ at:
http://www.sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/discovery.html where I argue against Milton Friedman on this precise issue of motorcyclists without helmets).
I am unable to support libertarian arguments which short-circuit the social contract through bribery and corruption.
Also, whether there is a victim or not (‘victimless crime’) is not an issue since we have signed up to a social contract to obey ALL laws or alternatively change them through a democratic mandate. Disobedience of laws or advocating corruption amounts to the destruction of the basic agreements for the existence of a society itself. If you are so enamoured of corruption, why don’t you advocate India as heaven, for it is a totally corrupt society, without any spurious arguments to further support such dishonesty in society. May I suggest that corruption is deplorable no matter what form it takes?
In any event, arguments of freedom are sternly against any form of bribery. But under no circumstance can bribing a publicly funded functionary be condoned in a free society.
Other points are fine, such as privatising the police services to the extent possible, etc.
Btw, if you or anyone one who genuinely belives in liberty (not license!) is interested in really making a difference, consider joining the Freedom Team (http://freedomteam.in). I look forward to young libertarians joining the Freedom Team (so long as we are advocating genuine liberty).
Regards
Sanjeev
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 5:55 pmI wonder why are you so prone to misunderstand everything?
What legal accountability without a mutually consent full contract?
There is no legal accountability over a forced decision. it is individual’s freedom whether to use a helmet or not, it is individual’s freedom whether to hold a gun for his self-defense or not.
it is the individual’s freedom whether he likes watching porn movies or not. it is individual’s freedom if she want’s to engage in prostitution or not.
Any forcible law restricting such liberties is simply immoral and wrong.
And there is no accountability of a wrong and misplaced law.
As for example, according to the new UAPA law which is being discussed in parliament, any person under suspicion can be detained by police and the burden to prove innocence is on the suspect.
its not law, its tyranny.
I am not a supporter of bribe myself. But I don’t consider it anything to be attacked.
it is NOT immoral to bribe a police man instead of filing up the fine because fine itself is IMMORAL.
And if someone is saving his earned money against such brutal laws by bribing, it is not immoral nor unethical.
Although it is a forced action and the total responsibility of such actions goes on the collective system and not the individual because the Individual is forced, he never was taken in mutual consent with the law deciding authorities.
About democracy, even if one single person does not accept a law decided by majority, than it will be certainly IMMORAL if that law which has been decided by majority via democracy is forced on that person.
That is the exact point of the article.
Bribery is not corruption in all cases, bribery is genuine too in some cases.
it is your brainwashed thinking which tempts you to term bribery as a synonym of corruption, it is not.
Neither is usury immoral or corruption.
The author of the article clarifies the difference in bribery and corruption in his first comment where he says —
instead of throwing your book’s advertisement, it will be better that you read his comment. it will clarify the mist in which you dwell.
I must also add that the author has mentioned some wrong cases too as bribe.
As for example, the author says that bribing a ticket checker to get a ticket is not wrong, but basically it is wrong.
It is wrong because it is STEALING. the ticket checker is not the owner of the train (or any other service) So he has no right to bargain or variegate the original fare/price of the ticket. TC is just a service man doing his job, if he acts like he owns the train and has will to decide the fare/cost of the ticket as per situations, than it is also STEALING. Stealing from the actual owner of the train.
lol. what social contract?
Where is that social contract? was it signed under mutual consent or was it forced?
You are too much delusional, during which dream you signed that social contract?
You never signed any social contract with any body on mutual beneficial grounds.
These social laws were forced on you without taking any consent from you.
I hope you know the difference between the two.
About free-society, in a free society, there will be almost NO bribery or another form of corruption. because in a free society there won’t be any law against the victimless crimes.
Furthermore, Bribing won’t work in such cases not because it is immoral, but because it is much complicated to keep the prices un-disclosed and variable.
The better way for business purpose and consumers satisfaction is pre-decided prices. Some of the tickets can surely be conserved for specific conditions (just like “Tatkaleen reseravtion” etc.) Only such system will work on greater zone of a free society because it will encourage the trust of the consumer.
Since it is not a free society, and individual citizen many a times is forced to accept wrong and ill-placed laws, like law against pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, helmet and traffic laws etc, which are victimless, bribing in such case to avoid the fines is not at all wrong.
Bribing in any case where bribing amounts to STEALING or contributing in an act of theft is immoral and unreasonable and despicable.
Drugs Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pmThe worlds drug problems are not being effectively addressed. Too many youngsters are having their lives blighted by this scourge but the drugs war simply isn’t working
Mayuresh Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 3:08 amMoney is just another measure for your useful labour.
For me, the statement is doubtful.
We in India believe that being rich or poor is a matter of luck.
People tend to think so because usefulness of labour is actually unpredictable. And it has got something to do with the social dynamics.
I will never understand why a particular stone is so important, thus costliest than lives of thousands.
Risk taking and accurate decision making
Nobody knew that housing rates in metro cities will see these rapid changes. Most of the crises also are explained afterwords.
Economic systems (just like marriage) can never be truly transparent and satisfactory both at a time, and outcomes always unpredictable.
renegade_division Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 4:34 am@Mayuresh Said:
I am glad you said so.
The point is not that Money and Labor are completely interconvertable, but that Money is not acquired through luck and is mostly a product of your labor.
Actually nothing is unpredictable, its all a matter of Marginal utility of labor or something. For example if you are a brain surgeon then your labor is more marginally useful than labor of a factory worker.
What is Marginal Utility of labor?
Well you cannot directly calculate the cost of your labor by measure it, what you have to do is to remove that specific person and then see how much less money you are making in a factory. For example removing 1 worker out of 10,000 workers will make little difference, the productivity will come down by $50 a day, then that means the marginal utility of the worker is $50 a day.
Similarly if you remove a brain surgeon from a hospital it will cause HUGE difference in the total productivity so his marginal utility is more.
What Marginal utility of anything?
The marginal utility of a good or service is the posited quantified change in utility obtained by using one more or one less unit of that good or service.
You pay $400 for an iPhone because the marginal utility of first unit of an iPhone is more to you than $400.
But you then are not willing to pay $400 for another unit of iPhone, because the marginal utility of $400 is more to you than second unit of iPhone, because you already have an iPhone you don’t need two iPhones.
Although you might be willing to pay $200 for second unit of iPhone because marginal utility of second unit of iPhone is more than $200, because you might gift that phone to someone.
Similarly, third unit of iPhone will have even lesser marginal utility to you.
renegade_division Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 4:47 amNow when you ask why a particular stone so valuable than so many other useful things around.
This is called Adam Smith Paradox, its usually put forward as, why does 1 oz of water cost less than 1 oz of diamond when the utility of former is way more than the utility of latter.
Well the answer is because the marginal utility of next unit of diamonds is way more than marginal utility of water.
In simple words the first unit of water will be way more valuable to you than first unit of diamonds(by first unit I mean you have no water, and this 1 oz of water will be your first unit of water, and you have no diamonds and this 1 oz of diamond will be your first unit of diamonds), because without water you will die so you will readily take water over diamonds.
But after having enough units of water to survive, at one point next unit of water will start to have lesser value than next unit of diamonds. Because you have enough water now so you now want diamonds.
That’s not the point. The point was “if you assume risks, and the risks come in favor of you, you will make money”.
The point you are making is about risks going against you. Yeah that happens, nobody made any money and so many people lost their money.
Mayuresh Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 3:27 pmWhen you pay a traffic cop some money to not write you a ticket, that money goes to him directly instead of to the government. This is a very good thing. This makes him more efficient….
And
But after having enough units of water to survive, at one point next unit of water will start to have lesser value than next unit of diamonds. Because you have enough water now so you now want diamonds.
,,,,,,,,,,
Both the cases above have got something to do with “Psychology” of people. Which could be a complex matter.
If life is so complex, how can you say then that “Actually nothing is unpredictable”?
renegade_division Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 4:55 pmI am sorry if I may have put it in an ambiguous way what I meant was we don’t have to worry about predictability or unpredictability in this case. What I am talking about is Logic and Human Action.
If you come to me on the road and offer me a gold ring and ask for $500, if I choose to buy that ring from you there is a possibility:
1) Ring actually costs more than $500 in market
2) Ring costs less than $500 in market
Now you might say that there is no certain way to predict what will really happen, and that’s right. But from the viewpoint of Economists you don’t have to worry about what really will happen.
As economists you have to deal with both the situations.
If the ring costs more than $500 then yes I did the right judgment, I made some profit, and I totally deserve the profit because of my risk taking
If the ring cost less than $500 then yes my judgment got screwed up, I made some loss, and the loss is totally mine because I took the risk.
Now you are talking about “Nobody knew whether the prices of housing will fall considerably”, well it doesn’t matter to you what happens. The people who purchased those houses assumed the risks, since the price fell too much they took the losses.
Your concern should not be whether it can be predicted what will happen to the prices as economist.
Wanna be IAS Officer aspirants, please read this! | Reason For Liberty Blog Says:
January 1st, 2009 at 7:01 am[…] Make govt offices efficient: Bribe Them! This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Reason. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. […]
Mayuresh Says:
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:03 amYour concern should not be whether it can be predicted what will happen to the prices as economist.
,,,,,,,,,,
Also as an economist one has to know human behaviour, in order to be proponent an economic system.
e.g. natural human tendency to compete with each other for luxuries in life, which can be used to generate wealth, is taken into consideration by the proponents of capitalism.
What I think is an economist should not be just back tracker.
What I am talking about is Logic and Human Action.
,,,,,,,,,,
Are human actions logical?
Actually logic is in humans mind, which has been taught to him. So chances that their actions are in accordance to what has been taught to them are very high. As an economist one has to know a higher level of (logical) truth.
But logic is not the only thing that humans behave in accordance with. So one has to learn “Psychology”, in order to understand historical human being.
I do not really understand when people criticize Marx and all. Those people really had very deep understanding of all social sciences, so that they were able to talk about things that may happen after few centuries.
Vikram Says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:56 amWell the cop is not stupid, he will not take a bribe if you raped someone or molested some young kid. Even dishonest cops have a conscience.
Can you guarantee this unpre ? There are quite a few high profile cases of murder (Nithari, Jessica Lal) where the police were accused of shielding well connected perpetrators. We cannot leave the functioning of a modern society to such subjective notions. You can definitely not extend trivial cases like being fined for a traffic offense to the general workings of the state. What about the bribes that are taken to use sub-standard materials in bridges, dams, roads etc. all over the country ? They endanger thousands of lives.
On the other hand, if you have a problem wearing helmets while reading ur bike, lobby ur legislator and get the public opinion on ur side and effect a change in the law. Or keep bribing the policemen ;) .
renegade_division Says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:00 am@Vikram said
This is Renegade here, the author of this article. Well can you guarantee that by you not bribing the policemen, the policemen will become honest?
If not then how can you ask the guarantee of otherwise? Its like Coke saying that ‘there is no guarantee that Pepsi is not having pesticide’, when they themselves cannot give a guarantee of their drinks.
But if you wanna look at the logic, then I can surely give you some.
A policeman receives a salary of Rs 15,0000/-.
Case A: He receives no bribe by the common law offenders. Like traffic violators, parking fines, etc etc. Bribery is illegal too, if caught there is heavy penalty.
A rich guy does a rape, and he offers him Rs 20,000/- to look the other side, or in fact gives him a monthly retainer of Rs 3,000/-(like Mafia does to policemen).
Will he accept that money?
Case B: He receives a lot of bribe by common law offenders. His salary may be Rs 15,000/- per month, but his other bribe adds upto Rs 20,000/- There is more social acceptance to this money. If caught with this bribery he is just let go with warnings but never severely punished(the case what I made for it).
Now a rich guy does a rape and offers him Rs 20,000/- to look the other side.
Will he accept that money?
If yes then what are the chances? Are chances more or less in him accepting the money compared to Case A?
See my point is clear, if offering bribe to Police for victimless crimes does not increase, in fact reduces the chances of a cop accepting bribes for a serious crime, isn’t it better thing to do?
The cops accept bribe and salaries from Organized crime syndicates everywhere, whether in Chicago or Calcutta.
The answer to your question is, no I cannot guarantee any such thing, but neither can you.
Nihari case, and Jessica Lal case will be there in a monopolistic police organization, whether you allow bribery or run a huge campaign against it.
Sorry dude, but how many bridges have fallen because of using sub-standard materials in bridges?
Compare to the amount of corruption and bribery which goes on in Irrigation and Public Works dept there are very LESS number of bridges and dams which have fallen over the years.
Please read my 5th comment on this article, where I have explained in great detail what kind of corruption which goes on in such places.
Plus how can a common man bribe officers at these places anyways? All I am saying is that if you wanna make the office you deal with more efficient, just bribe them for the job.
Most govt officers who accept bribes for making dam from sub standard bridge are morons. Trust me when I say to you you can skim public money off without compromising on the quality of the dam.
On the top of that when companies bribe the public works offices and they compete with it, for public offices it become insignificant whether one guy is offering him Rs 1 lakh and other Rs 2 lakh. Now after clearing over a basic level of bribe what he cares more is what will make his *** more safe.
Its the long term sustainance what a govt official now looks on, he can take a one Rs 10 lakh bribe, or he can take 20 Rs 1 lakh bribes.
Exactly, all you have to do is convince 4,634,323 people in your constituency to vote for not wearing a helmet and then you can not wear a helmet. Democracy is such an amazing system. If you don’t wanna wear a helmet all you hav eto do is convince 4.5 lakh people and you are good to go.
Maybe wearing a helmet is good for me, but can you explain me why I can’t pay for having sex??
Why do I have to convince half of the country of 1.1 billion people just so that I can pay for sex?
Vikram Says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:25 amNo, no one can guarantee honesty. Thats exactly the point, you cant rely on something like conscience to base law and order on.
There must be a strong disincentive for the policeman to not take a bribe. This consists of adequate compensation for the service they provide and proper punishment if they compromise their duty.
Your example does not take into account human greed. If bribe taking is socially acceptable, then there is nothing to stop the policeman from taking a bribe even if he makes more money (except an unreliable ‘conscience’). Your example does not prove your claim that bribing policeman for victimless crimes somehow inhibits him/her from taking a bribe for a serious crime.
You have not satisfactorily answered the examples I offered. How will multiple police organizations not be susceptible to corruption and influence if bribe taking is acceptable ?
Okay, I dont have data on the number of bridge-failures in India.
Why do you have to convince x number of people ? Because you live in a majoritarian democracy where in such matters you have to respect the majority’s wishes. You are welcome to complain about this on a blog or join a revolutionary organization.
I am personally totally for legalizing prostitution, by the way. You wont face any opposition from me on that matter.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 amAs I said earlier, there is no way out to expect professionalism and honesty in infrastructure until it is totally PRIVATIZED, with no intervention of government in it.
Why do you think you will make a strong and proper building for your own residency?
Let’s say I have to make a road for private business purpose (Read More about Private Roads) , It becomes my responsibility to make sure road comes out to be of good standards and viable for the purpose I am making it. So that my consumers may not feel any problem in that, better and honest work will increase my profits, and my will to make profits will drive me provide honest and best possible services at cheapest prices. That is the way it is.
In governmental system, Roads/bridges/Housing buildings can never work good. Why?
Because greed is a natural part of Human Nature. every person working needs incentive.
So what is incentive for an engineer and a builder working under government? NONE. What is incentive of inspectors? none. they look for incentives, which causes bribery.
If you remove governmental system, the structure to be made comes under private ownership, and the owner will be in loss if there happens to be mismanagement and he will do his best to stop it.
For that, not only he be more attentive professional and assertive, also he will provide enough incentives for the work team involved to be honest and efficient worker.
In economic sector, Honesty is possible ONLY IF government stops Interventionism.
In social sector, like policing, traffic check ups, ticket checking, license checking etc, bribery provides the incentive. Let privatizes security system flourish and you will find honest alert police and security systems too.
Human greed , his affection toward incentive and progress is the basic driver for any work any progress. Governmental system lacks that because there is no competition to government, government acts as monopoly. Destroy that monopoly and Dishonesty and inefficiency will run away.
gopi Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:58 pmgr8 article… just one qeustion :
de bribed policeman is indeed incentivised to catch more overspeeding bikers. but since the bikers have to pay only Rs.50 instead of Rs.500,aren’t they also incentivized to overspeed, which may cause loss of life /property? it is indeed the biker’s individual right to overspeed or not… but just imagine every biker in delhi overspeeding without helmets bcoz they can bribe officials!!! i don’t think it wud b such a gud scene..although damage to property can be paid for, one cannot monetarily compensate killing a pedestrian accidently.
renegade_division Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 8:16 pm@Gopi Said:
And if too many bikers overspeeding despite of the private fines traffic cops are taking then won’t that incentivise the policemen to raise the bribe he is asking for?
Won’t Cop be tempted to ask for more money now since giving Rs 50/- does not seem to matter to these people, they still don’t care for breaking the law? Well its a fact that bribing also works on supply demand basis. If there are too many cops around in one area, you can get away by paying Rs 5/-, if there are less cops in an area, he will demand more money from you(his goal is to get maximum money possible from you). If its really difficult for the cops to accept bribe, then he will accept only a higher bribe(again the supply of corrupt cops have been reduced so he charges more money).
There is no such thing as Right to Overspeed. You only have to drive at whatever speed you want on your own property, if its my road and I don’t want you to overspeed, I am not violating any of your rights.
Please understand the difference between Positive Rights and Negative Rights, Libertarianism does not support ANY positive right.
Positive right means “right which permits or oblige an action”, like right to education, right to food etc etc.
Negative rights means “right which permits or oblige an inaction”, like right to not be raped, right of not be prevented from overspeeding on my own property, right to not to be prevented in eating my own food on my property, right of not to be killed.
As I already said before, if every biker in Delhi is overspeeding, then cops will be even more alert to catch these people because now this means they can make even more money. Also the Cops will start to charge more and more money now, the bribes will go upto Rs 450, and if the bikers STILL are overspeeding, then the cops will have to use other means to deter them, like not taking bribe and simply giving them official tickets, if the bikers STILL don’t deter then its clear that your system of traffic fines is failing, well corrupt traffic officers tried their best, the only solution is to hike the fine to Rs 1000, and allow traffic cops again to charge bribes.
There are places in UP where cops are so free to do whatever they want that there are systems of bribery, a network of cops taking bribes, though I cannot validate this story, as I just heard it from someone long time back but its quite possible. The cops would take bribe from you, and they will hand you an unofficial receipt if you are stopped by a cop again for that day you can always show them the receipt and they will let you go.
This system developed because people traveled from this cop’s area to the other cop’s area complained of being charged twice, so cops started having their own system of taking bribe from one person only once.
The whole point of this article is not some defense of corruption or anything, but a utilitarian defense of giving bribes. When readers are asking “what if the cop takes bribe for raping a woman and let you go”,well so what this is a corrupt cop we are talking about, even if you go ahead and legalize taking bribes for victim-less crimes, the bribery for victim crimes will never be legalized, you still will have the same problem, except now the cops will be earning more honest money.
gopi Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:00 pmhmmm… yeah. i see de point now..
Want be an IAS Officer, please read this! | Reason for Liberty Says:
August 16th, 2009 at 12:05 am[…] Make govt offices efficient: Bribe Them! Footnotes:Yahoo Answers! Plz plz help…wanna be a honest ias officer….? [↩] […]
arvind Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 amwonderful article, i guess bribe is capitalism emerging as a natural more logical system in a mixed economy
vamsi Says:
October 13th, 2009 at 6:52 amFirst of all, my sincere advice is to be optimistic in life. The author here ‘renegade’ is somewhat a type of a frustrated individual.
He would have opted for many big changes previously, but failed in attaining some of them & talking like this about the system.
I can understand his frustration but privatising everything is too illogical.Capitalists are so greedy that they even ask for privatising air& water & sunlight.
oh GOD!! save my country & good people on earth
Arpan Shah Says:
February 16th, 2010 at 2:09 pmWell, have read the article and the comments too.
I quite found it interesting to read the other side of BRIBE… but even i don’t agree to what all has been put up here. There has been a big discussion/argument already on the system of police-men and bribery regarding it. And i firmly believe, bribing them will only make the system more in-efficient. Individual accountabilty will be lost in the backyard on moral acknowledgement. System becomes in-efficient with the imbalance caused by the tragic flow of money. You depend on any person’s dire need to save money or save time & use it as a weapon to fulfil their own need… not agreed… it would be indeed great to have some kind of solution where people pay a bit more as tax which is completely dedicated to policemen…
BUT why is privatisation given so much importance. Privatisation only adds to the increase in the value of direct/indirect services.
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT WHICH I BELIEVE YOU GUYS MISSED IS THE POINT OF PASSPORT OFFICES. IT IS SUCH AN IMMATURE EXAMPLE, BECAUSE SUCH BRIBES ARE CAUSING THE HIGHEST INFLOW/OUTFLOW OF TERRORISTS AS WELL AS NON-STATE ACTORS. PLEASE READ DEFENCE ARTICLES & PUT UP SUCH EXAMPLES.
i don’t question the regards of the author, but it is disturbing to know why the whole article was put in a very minimalistic & one-dimension approach.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
February 16th, 2010 at 4:00 pm[i]Privatisation only adds to the increase in the value of direct/indirect services. [/i]
yea may be that’s why Local and STD calls were so costly before 1991 when Telecommunication sector was not privatized and was in Government’s hand.
And may be that’s why communication is so cheap and user friendly now a days that even a poor vegetable vendor can afford to have a cell.
Its silly, idiots never learns.
Arpan Shah Says:
February 16th, 2010 at 5:39 pmYou are justifying it with wrong data…
The period you are talking about, you havent considered the economic scenario, technological art & innovation, customer base, revenue modelling & most importatly “sector competition” (which is also an amalgamation of monopoly, capital sharing etc…) etc…
Why again one-dimension thought?
Please consider recent examples…
Privatised farming & agriculture in many parts of India has resulted in costlier vegetables. etc… Privatisation of infrastructure and transport has led to soctlier fees for the same… Privatisation of commercial places has led to realty hike… Privatisation of education has led to costlier education (although i totally agree to have done that to get education on a larger scale)… Although privatisation doesnt “necessarily” mean good… govnt. institutes still rank higher than other educational institutes…. I am just trying to put some vivid examples…
I am not against privatisation/commercialisation… but i don’t advocate it even… and most importantly on such trivial issues/sectors/services…
BTW “Its silly, idiots never learns”… whom was it targeted at??