Corruption - 11. With despair ...

Before moving on to the next topic of my cycle, I would like to thank the forum participants. I did not expect, I repent, such a high level of understanding and discussion. I thought they would send me away with my general considerations and “highly scientific” theories. Thank you. We are going on.

We will now discuss the consequences of corruption. The problem is that corruption-for example, a bribe to some official-is usually evaluated as an immoral act, a crime, isolated and affects only the side of the corruption transaction. They often even say about corruption that it is “a crime without sacrifice”. Well, really: someone gives a bribe, someone takes. This is their business. What do we need? Well this is his money - the one who gave a bribe. He did not stole them with us.

All this, of course, is a severe misconception. Firstly, even in the article “Corruption-4” we deduced from the principal-agent model an important theorem that each corruption crime has a final victim, these are citizens of the country. Of course, this theorem acts when we consider corruption as a whole - as a social phenomenon, and not as a separate conspiracy between two immoral types: Tolyan and Petrovich. But specific transactions may have victims of third parties, and specific types of corruption can have their own negative consequences. We will talk about all this, together and separately.

Let's start with specific sacrifices. Here is such a scene: the traffic cop is slowing down at night a steep parquet SUV, rushing at a wild speed along an empty highway, but along a rather intricate trajectory. A specific guy cannot get out: he is so drunk that only the steering wheel saves him from the transition to a natural horizontal position. The guy reflexively sticks 200 euros into the chest pocket of the traffic cop and rides on the same manner. After two kilometers, he knocks down a road worker. To death. This person would live if there were no preceding ordinary harmless bribe. A road worker became a direct victim of a particular corruption transaction. And no court will condemn the traffic cop for the death of a man shot down by a drunken scum, released by another scum for a bribe.

But, expressing the righteous anger about both heroes of the plot who survived in this story, let's not forget about many unknown heroes, including ourselves who paid bribes for receiving a inspection coupon without passing the inspection, for the opportunity to pay off an innocent violation, for saving their precious time, which is a pity to spend on drawing up a protocol and walking in Sberbank for Sberbank Payment of a fine, and for much more. All these innocent fun, along with many compatriots shot down by drunken drivers who have enough money for bribes, form a phenomenon that we call “corruption on the roads”. It has its own global consequences for all of us - drivers, passengers, non -investigated pedestrians and even valiant traffic cops - risk to appear ahead of schedule before the Supreme Court, having died on our roads. In Sweden, the number of deaths on the roads is measured by hundreds per year. We have tens of thousands.

Here we are faced with an example of another cardinal and universal consequences of corruption. Imagine that you bought air freshener in the store. You paid money for it - this time. You are waiting in return for a positive result - these are two. But suddenly it turns out that after turning on the ozonator, a stink and a dangerous gamma radiation are going out of it. Will such a device suit you? The idiotic question. Most will be outraged, go to the store and begin to download the rights.

OK. Then I have a bewilderment of the next variety. Each of us pays taxes. Some of them go on the maintenance of such an institution as the traffic police, the noble employees of which we, out of habit and, out of respect for the native language, call the traffic cops. Why do we need this body? It is clear: to ensure safety and order on the roads along which transport is moving. Does he fulfill his function? It is clear that no. But this is exactly what we do not realize: for the money we spent, we are not just deprived of the services for providing order and security, but, on the contrary, this body produces a risk to life on a large scale. But since we are not aware of this, we do not download the rights, but quietly and meekly pay, in addition to taxes, the bribes of the knights are roads, and then we retreat on the same road to the world other as a result of our collective connivance and complicity in this corruption. My bewilderment is that we are ready not only to indignant, but also to act when we encounter a worthless ozonator, but we remain amazingly passive if we encounter a worthless bureaucracy, although the latter is much more dangerous for life, as we see, than some kind of ozonator or, do not bring the Lord, an iron.

But this is so, along the way. The most important thing is something else that I promised to say above - any organization under the influence of not limited corruption degrades and ceases to perform the function for which it was created. Moreover, it can become dangerous for people. An example of this is demonstrated by the traffic police. But there are other examples.

What could be more harmless and more common than bribes for admission to the university?! But this is even more abrupt than bribes on the roads. Let's go according to the same logic. First about individual victims. Any dunce that came to the university for dad's bribe displaces a talented girl or a sensible young man. They are direct victims of specific corruption transactions. But along with this there is a constant and widespread practice of paying for receipt, sessions, tests, coursework, diplomas, dissertations. Together, this creates a social phenomenon “Corruption in universities”, which has its global consequences for us, citizens and for our country. What are universities for? The answer is clear: this is the reproduction of the professional and intellectual elite of the country (there are other functions, but this one is basic). Does this mission fulfill a higher education if the lion's share of the future "elite" acts and ends higher educational institutions for bribes? The answer is equally clear: no. What do we get in return? It's scary to think about it. We receive doctors who have received a medical education not in the form of knowledge, but in the form of marks and diplomas obtained for bribes. Are you ready to entrust your life or the health of your child? Not ready? But doomed. And how many lawyers in the country are produced for bribes without measures by bred law faculties? How do you need to trust such a lawyer, judge, prosecutor? I believe that readers have enough imagination to continue the list of professions and the list of destructive consequences of the appearance of such professionals.

Result: Huge corruption distorts the institution of higher education. Instead of professionals, he, on a terrifying scale, lets young people who have already learned that all problems are easily solved with the help of bribes. At the same time, deprofessionalization and dectellectualization of the people, the country occur. With such higher education, we will never become a competitive country. On the contrary, we are Trim the path to degeneration. It is also scary that the negative consequences of corruption in higher education can only be corrected by many years of effort.

This example, if this nightmare is appropriate to call an “example”, is instructive and universal, that is why (I already described this plot, but I consider it important to return to it). We tend to overestimate a short -term win and underestimate long -term losses. Therefore, the ancestor will easily pay a bribe for the child’s entering the university, without thinking that further efforts will be needed to “promote” his wrong after the endless end of “learning”. It is even more difficult to think about your complicity in the general process of debting the country and the catastrophic consequences of this steady process. “I solve my problem. I solve it now and for myself. And I don’t give a damn what will happen later. ” So it all works. Oh Lord!

In 2001, in our big study of corruption, we asked the following question to the respondents: “How do you do if your district clinic does not have any services (treatment, diagnosis, tests, medicines, procedures, etc.) to solve your health problems or these services too low?” Only 13.2 % of the respondents said that in their clinics these problems do not have these problems. Another 8.1 % did not face similar problems, because they use paid medical services. 17.6 % of respondents resort to informal surcharges (bribes, simply put) to get the right quality. All the rest - there are more than sixty percent - are not able to get normal medical services. The same part (49.1 %) costs what is. And another 12.1 % generally refuse free state medicine and prefer self -medication. Think about these numbers. Suppose they are overstated. Suppose that citizens do not always do this. But, one way or another, more than half of our fellow citizens is not able to be treated normally, because they do not have enough money for bribes or for paid medicine. We complain about the depopulation of Russia, roughly speaking - on extinction. And do we think what contribution to this makes corruption in healthcare?

When we repeated our study in 2005, we found that since 2001, the risk of running into extortion in healthcare has grown by almost 60 %; The average size of bribes increased by forty percent. As a result, citizens twice as often began to refuse to give bribes to this, which took the oath of Hippocrates. This means that the proportion of people who refuse “free” medical services and incapable of paying for paid has grown. The growth of corruption leads to a decline in the health of the nation and, therefore, to an increase in extinction.

Please note: in this article I spoke only about household corruption, ordinary, familiar, everyday, harmless, as is commonly believed. But its consequences are catastrophic. But I did not talk about the losses that society constantly carries, spending time, money, mental forces to overcome countless barricades, which are built by corrupt, ineffective, working bureaucracy. The problem was everything: to obtain citizenship of a baby born of Russian citizens; arrange housing in property; enter the rights of the inheritance; To arrange social benefits. All life is a throat of bureaucratic rubble.

Our intuition does not cope well with the assessment of the amounts of a huge number of small numbers. Each of our losses from overcoming the next bureaucratic blockage is familiar and is not evaluated as critical. But if we take into account that in the year Russian citizens communicate with the authorities of at least three hundred million times, then it is easy to understand the scale of public, economic and personal losses. People cannot realize this, and therefore put up, remaining patient and even indifferent. While this will be so, our losses will grow along with corruption. Before the explosion.

To be continued

Author - President of the Indem Foundation