Is Political Corruption Bad?

In today’s perfect, lovely, strife-free world, you need but swing a very large bladed object in a room of prominent political leaders to mortally wound at least one politician that has been swayed in their political past to perform dishonest actions by the lure of money, property, or other forms of compensation. Some people think this is a good thing. These are usually individuals on the receiving end of significant amounts of capital and express this opinion privately within their expansive gold-plated mansions, accompanied by a rich chortle. Unfortunately for these people, the vast majority of the public believes that political corruption is a bad thing. 

Of course, the judgment of writers at The Quill, a newspaper that prides itself upon objective writing, is completely unbiased, and as such, this topic will be approached with the absolute impartiality demanded by the standards of our craft. It is difficult, unfortunately, to be objective about this matter since its discussion often incites violent feelings of disgust and hatred and perhaps a tiny bit of greed. Thus, to decide whether or not political corruption truly is immoral, we must turn to the most objective source on the Internet—Wikipedia. A quick glance at the “Ethics” article on Wikipedia shows that, amazingly and completely unexpectedly, there are a variety of competing paradigms that all have different ways of viewing the subject. Below are three of the main theories, along with an analysis of how political corruption fares against them. 

Consequentialism

According to consequentialism, moral righteousness is derived from the outcome of an action—that is, its consequences. Therefore, the question at hand remains: does political corruption make things worse? According to the International Monetary Fund, it does indeed! Political corruption can actually decrease investment and economic growth! Wow! Isn’t that fun? Besides that, it can also decrease spending on education, which keeps people ignorant, lessens the quality of government infrastructure, lowers tax revenue, and reduces aid to struggling countries. As the great Andrew Jackson once said, “I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.” Truly a wise man. Political corruption, it seems, must seek a shadier refuge to argue its morality, which brings us to our next theory—deontology.

Deontology

Deontology states that actions are right or wrong depending on the inherent rightness or wrongness of it. For example, although stealing a dollar from a millionaire may not have any tangible consequence, it is still judged as “wrong” and condemned by deontology. So is the inherent act of taking goods in exchange for performing political services wrong? If we consider the position of an elected politician to be one where  they have been elected by the citizens to work in service of the public good, accepting bribes is a violation of that inherent promise, and thus it is deemed “wrong.” However, we must consider that many citizens elect politicians to the throne of public office not out of the hope that they will work for the public good, but instead in the hope that they will perform better than the opposition. But do they really? Let’s assume that a politician has two, and only two states: corrupt and less corrupt. Let us, then, define two candidates: Candidate A and Candidate B. Candidate A wins the imaginary electoral race. If we assume that Candidate A is in a state of corruption, such as in Utah, Candidate B has two possible states. At worst, Candidate B will tie Candidate A in overall corruption. Let us assume (Yes, there are a lot of assumptions. This is a Bunion article.) a certain percentage of voters feel genuine hope that Candidate A will be a good candidate, while the rest believe Candidate A will be better than Candidate B. In this situation, Candidate A can never satisfy the hopes of the voters if they peddle political favors. Thus, according to deontology, the foray of Candidate A into the murky waters of accepting wealth in exchange for significant and often alarming changes in previous professed political opinions is bad. This might come as a shock to some readers, although a very aristocratic shock. The only remaining refuge of political corruption must lie within the next ethical theory.

Virtue Ethics

Unfortunately for political corruption, virtue ethics is the least objective one so far. Virtue ethics concerns itself with virtue—if an action is sufficiently “virtuous,” as judged by a completely subjective frame of view, it is right. Sadly, at least for some people, virtue ethics is particularly judgmental of corruption. Corruption is fueled not by compassion or courage or honesty, but instead by greed and, occasionally, cowardice. In particular, Aristotle would frown upon this deceitful practice. Aristotelianism, the theory peddled by him and his associates, concerns itself not only with virtues but also with vices, of which he could probably ascribe to this practice several metric tons. By this metric, political corruption is probably ranked among the lowest of the low, meaning that no safe haven remains for political corruption. It must sadly boil alive in the heat of judgment. What a shame.

Epilogue

After a brief, hurried, and unsystematic analysis, it seems that political corruption is a bad thing. This result, arrived at after at least a few seconds of deliberation, is a great surprise to me. It’s definitely not something you could think about for two seconds and arrive at. There are probably a few lessons you could take away from this, like, “Don’t accept bribes,” being good, upstanding, morally just children. You likely already know this, but reading this article was not a complete waste of time—after all, you occupied yourself for, perhaps, 30 seconds, maybe even a minute. In conclusion, don’t do political corruption because it is a bad and illegal thing.

Works Cited 

“Consequentialism.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism. Accessed 10 October 2024.

“Corruption Quotes – BrainyQuote.” Brainy Quote, https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/corruption-quotes. Accessed 24 October 2024.

“Economic Issues No. 6 — Why Worry About Corruption?” International Monetary Fund (IMF), https://www.imf.org/EXTERNAL/PUBS/FT/ISSUES6/INDEX.HTM. Accessed 24 October 2024.

“Ethics.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics. Accessed 10 October 2024.

“Most Corrupt States 2024.” World Population Review, https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-corrupt-states. Accessed 24 October 2024.