The World And The Burden of Corruption

Transparency International has just released its yearly  'Corruption Perception Index' for countries. The picture is not all that good. And as reported on the page http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015, so-called 'clean' countries which are normally 'developed' appear to encourage corruption in the less developed countries they do business with.

In a general sense, corruption would be minimized if conditions in the underdeveloped world were not so desperate. But when more than half of a country survives on less than 2 dollars a day, I hesitate to call what happens in all sectors of the economy corruption, because it borders on egregious dehumanization.

If one reads between the lines of the report, every country in the world is corrupt. However, the dynamics of corruption in the so-called third world sometimes receives its impetus from the 'clean countries.' Northern Europe may fair better than most in the 'Corruption Perception Index' but companies from these 'clean nations' have been implicated in underhanded intrigues in some 'corrupt' countries of the world.

What generally occurs is a conspiracy of the elite against the poor.  Whether they live in the first or third world countries, the mindset of the elite is the same. They aggregate and control as much resources of their environment as possible and feel good when they allow some trickle down to the desperate masses.   

The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. According to a recent study by Oxfam, 62 people have more money than 3.6 billion [about half world population] people combined, and the situation is getting worse. When you have such discrepancy in wealth distribution there is really no point in wasting time talking about transparency in national or international affairs. 

A world that is controlled by corporate greed and financial terrorism cannot be transparent. The source of this tragedy lies in the first world and flows without much impediment to the the so-called third world.

2015 'Distribution of Corruption' in the World