A response to Tajudeen on corruption

Capitalism by its very nature encourages and rewards corruption in its many different forms, like low wages, for example. That is corrupt because it robs the worker in Africa of the value of his/her labour and transfers the wealth that that worker produces to the corrupt financial centres in Europe and America. This wealth passes through the hands of an enabling political class that is corrupt in its dealing with the working populations they govern and in its collaboration with the corrupt financial institutions. As Africa embraces free-market neo-liberal (unregulated) capitalism there is an inherent by product of increased opportunities and rewards for corruption

There is an essential element that Tajudeen glosses over – in fact side steps completely – and that Tajudeen, of all people, is keenly knowledgeable of. This element is in regards to corruption as a product of an engendering system. Human agency surely is the engine of all social actions, however, it take place within a structure, a system that it self is a product of human agency.

Capitalism by its very nature encourages and rewards corruption in its many different forms, like low wages, for example. That is corrupt because it robs the worker in Africa of the value of his/her labour and transfers the wealth that that worker produces to the corrupt financial centres in Europe and America. This wealth passes through the hands of an enabling political class that is corrupt in its dealing with the working populations they govern and in its collaboration with the corrupt financial institutions. As Africa embraces free-market neo-liberal (unregulated) capitalism there is an inherent by product of increased opportunities and rewards for corruption.

Punitive policing does not deter corruption i.e. crime. It creates a motivation for more clever methods and schemes as well as encourage another tier that an be bribed and or used for personal purposes. The system of social and economic organization must be based on honesty and a commitment to cooperative collective prosperity, i.e. communal success as opposed to competition and private individual acquisition. Laws informed by values that reinforce cooperative honest and social responsibility together with regulations that shrink the space where corruption is acted out must be instituted.