[OPE-L] Jurriaan on the Corruption Perceptions Index

[glevy@xxxxxxxxx]

---------------------------- Original Message ------------------------
Subject: Corruption Perceptions Index
From:    "Jurriaan Bendien" <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date:    Wed, October 19, 2005 2:37 pm
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure whether corruption fits into OPE-L discussion of the laws of motion
of capital, but anyway here's a link to the new Transparency International
index: http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005_infocus.html#cpi The
TI Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries in terms of the
degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials
and politicians. It is a composite index, drawing on corruption-related
data in expert surveys carried out by a variety of reputable institutions.
It reflects the views of business people and analysts from around the
world, including experts who are locals in the countries evaluated

In terms of my previous comments about the public sector, notice how in
this world of ours, you can have a large public sector (measured in
employment terms) with low corruption (Denmark), a large public sector
with high corruption (Myanmar), a small public sector with low corruption
(Hong Kong), and a small public sector with high corruption (Bangladesh).
Thus, the actual size of the public sector doesn't seem to correlate
strongly with *any particular degree* of corruption, although you can say,
that countries with low corruption typically have a public sector
employing 20% or more of the employed labour force.

The popular image is of "corrupt officials fleecing the public", but if
you crunch the numbers, you actually find that there is proportionally
more bureaucracy in the private sector than in the public sector - in
terms of the army of administrative workers. If bureaucracy is blamed on
bad laws, the question is whether bureaucracy would disappear, if you
simplified and reduced the existing legislation - but empirically somehow
I doubt it. The laws exist, because capitalist competition exists, and it
seems that the root of modern bureaucracy is precisely the mediation of
this competition.

Jurriaan