It is one of those games we all play: an irregular verb - I compete, you bribe they are corrupt. Corruptions is almost the necessarily consequence when one model of possible political future becomes the only model, and is impose willy nilly across the world. States like Afghanistan have never worked (why should it have to be one- it never as?) - and all that is likely to hold the hodgepodge of interests together are web of wide scale corruption - so that the corruption actually becomes the sate, and every one knows it. It is after all an old problem in philosophy - One invent rules that appear perfect (or not)- and then discovers the problem about rules is that they create a game, that might not by playable or that if it will will be also played to intern rules, to the rules minds make of the rules they are given. rules external fixed thing, even the ten commandments (which is surely the idealists model here) simply do not have to be followed- or if they are the following itself might be highly problematic and complex. to follow a rule is never simple. Likewise to break a rule is never simple either. Rules are not simply there to brea- one might break one rule to mend another- or to keep the spirit of the whole thing... The entire edifice of laws then turns on interruptation, corruption or lawyers - how else could it be different?
lopped into this fact are then several others. firstly once one has a rules one needs a person to enforce it or regulate it or at least note when it has been broken. in the perfect rule state that person is of course oneself. And yet Rules are often rather technical affairs, and so highly complex to enforce - and oneself rather biddable and possibly open to suggestions: Or again rules are very often about articulating complex relations on has with others, relations which would normally be pitched in other (in more violent or passionate ways)- and rules form merely a part of that pitching (and not necessarily a big part). Or finally many if not all rules are parachuted in from God knows where- are the result of some stitch up at sometimes between global powers, and make little sense in local situation or in other peoples cultural traditions. There is no reason to follow them all the more this is the care when the external powers themselves do not follow (or perhaps police) there own rules. Or (as is often the case) e they are too greedy, or maybe they do not care enough. to monitor what there own people are doing. Maybe they have invented the rules in another context, or as a reflection of their own power (and so nothing to do with other nations) - the permutation go on and on- but the upshot is the same the world is full of bodies of rules defined at one time and in one (all too political context, and which has almost no value or universal application.
In short the idea that rules are internal affairs collapses leaving one with the bodies that are meant to enforce these rules impartially as the answer. At which point of course one hits the deep problem with external rules themselves. They need to be enforced as a world within the world. Everything will have then to be comprehended within the rule book and in terms of it The rich complexity of life is then lost within a few targets and half jotted mantras. The result is the then pure nonsense - as rules become applied nilly willy or wherever and however: - a world where they simply be any simple answer.
This is of course the Genius of case law Case law allows rules to be applied, and then for everyone to watch and think about the application and change their practice. Law becomes then a living tradition - for everyone to know. and yet keeping this case law free from the influences needs a lot of hate and jealousy, and all directed at the same place. That is you need rivals struggling with each other, rivals who are determined to honour the tradition but critique one another. The trouble of course is that the manufacture of such a system of rivals in a bitter struggle according to certain rules is almost by definition a product of cultural tradition. That is what cultures (with the exams and the colleges, and their port and high tables) do. To try to impose it elsewhere is then always tricky, as local customs will move the rules elsewhere- : Or actually and far more tragically the mere fact that one is imposing a rule from without is enough to undermine the application of the rule kit itself. Everyone is liable to self-consciously apply the rules, and wire that self-consciousness into their application- a fact that actually breeds corrpution as people cease to live the part.
Rules then corrupt as they wander across the globe- and do so naturally, as local practice adapt as they adopt, the rules. more than that they are adopted self-consciously, an adoption that disrupts culture making different people powerful, and creating a hybrid of local custom and self conscious rule kit. To navigate this senseless union becomes always then tricky. one need to knows That is exactly what rule as are being applied where (local or international or hybrid). At which point another dynamic kicks in. for once the rules cannot make sense then it really becomes about who one knows...
and other dynamics then get working. Firstly the original enforces of the rule are not innocent here. they have after all taken rules from one of their domains and applied then across all the rest. It does not wrk for them either - they will the be just as generate transgressor - only their corruption will be mingle with genuine hypocrisy as well, as they focus one where the rules work and not and the money making areas where they do not... At the same time the actual problem will not be understood by the western powers who rail against the corruption while aiding its creation and of course to do business at all conniving with it. An ideology of the end of history and the triumph of the west is so strong strong, and so imperial, that any other world or voice always gets itself lost in the process.
At which point of course the world divides into a very complex sequence of patchworks, some Western rules are applied sometimes and some local, and between rule endless little acts of bribery and corruption. Acts the West joins in one and uses of course for their own benefit (although in this case they are of course absorbed under the expenses of big business). A complexity that is then reflected in business big and small and the way it these fragments of law allow to make (or lose) money. the very fragmentation of the sate becomes then the system itself (and oddly stable)
Corruption then is not really any criminal so much as the failure of one system to universalize across all domains an the across the world. does this really surprise us? What really? and are we sure that in condemning i we are not merely also critiquing other cultures form not being like us? Questions we need remember in the rhythm war - even when we condemn regime that certainly are corrupt and d enforce unjust rules on their people, regime - that and do indeed include ourselves once we are removed from the comfort zone of our western identity....
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