Category Archives: Corruption
Corruption Continued
Tonight I went to an event produced by the Business & Human Rights Resource Center. There were two speakers, both of which are currently human rights lawyers specializing in law suits against corporations for human rights violations. Hearing about their careers, current cases and past adventures was inspiring. I wish I had the courage these two speakers have. They have spent the majority of their careers fighting corruption on a massive scale.
During the Q&A section of the event one person asked a great question. It’s that question that’s always on everyone’s mind but doesn’t seem to have an answer and yet remains a constantly pondered puzzle. The gentleman asked, “These people at the top of these organizations we can assume they are well-educated and really know what they’re doing. They have been successful because they know how to run cost-benefit analyses and make intelligent decisions. So how are they possibly justifying these gross human rights violations? Are they making poor project analyses or are they just evil?”
The answers were hazy as one would expect, but the speakers did touch on the fact that there is a lot of corruption in the world. For example, one of the attorneys noted that some of his clients in West Africa had settled with a major corporation a few years back and were still struggling to get their payments, not due to the corporation’s failure to pay no, no they paid – but rather, there is an individual(s) attempting to steal the funds before it reaches the plaintiffs. Ridiculous. What is wrong with people? Those funds are supposed to be for damages emotionally, physically, financially, etc. Talk about kicking someone when they’ve been down for so long.
Dear Corruption, Are You There?
Yesterday in my “Political Economy of Violence, Conflict and Development” Class (huge name, I know) a friend and I were discussing corruption. My thoughts were as follows … I don’t understand corruption. I get the minor corruption of some, taking a bit of cash from the company till, or using grant programs to buy X, Y or Z when you don’t truly need the free money, or regifting (haha I had to). But, I really don’t understand the massive corruption. You know the type; stealing of aid money to fund a Bentley purchase or two or three, paying workers at a company one owns little more than enough to get by, or taking people’s money in a supposed investment scheme to later spend all their retirement plans and never look back. What is wrong with people?
My friend on the other hand said … I understand the massive corruption. I get the greedy desire to buy Bentleys and siphon off loads of money. But, I really don’t understand the minor corruption. What is the point?
This leads me to the You, my beloved readers. I want to know what you think about corruption. What are your thoughts on the big vs. small-scale actions? Friends, Family, Rotarians alike tell me your thoughts.
