From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Tue Apr 24 2007 - 17:00:21 EDT
Matthias Heitman of NOVO http://www.novo-magazin.de/ fame has another radical take on the Wolfowitz affair: "The best way to avoid corruption is to develop strong opinions, convictions and principles that go beyond individual, purely material and short-term interests. If we did that as a society, we would still have to deal with corrupt individuals, but it would not lead us to believe that corruption is a general human trait. It would also help us to distinguish political critique from allegations of corruption and nepotism, and to distinguish individual failure from social problems. Social values and visions lay the basis for social interaction and action. They emphasise the positive characteristics and capacities of people to move society forward. Paul Noack [Professor Emeritus in Education at the University of Munchen, not to be confused with the developer of Ardie motorcycles] says that corruption in the Third World is caused by the lack of functioning democratic control mechanisms. The same goes for our societies, too. Combating corruption - which means real cases of corruption, but also our obsession with corruption and the 'corruption mindset' - should be a political task, not an empty ethical therapy programme." Total article: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3105/ The point however is that Wolfowitz (or any other leading neocon) has as strong opinions and social vision as any, but that doesn't prevent them from being corrupt! So what we need is a less superficial analysis of corruption and corruptibility, i.e. an analysis of the conditions under which corruption pays off, and the conditions under which corruption is unavoidable; and likewise the conditions (structures, forms of association, rules, values) which promote honesty and integrity. The World Bank cannot very well avoid corruption, if its very organisational structure invites corruption. Wolfowitz's approach to attacking corruption is to say "if you are corrupt, I won't loan you any money" (negative reinforcement) but this is a simplistic approach to the problem, because it doesn't eliminate the corruption, and it doesn't reward honesty and integrity. It just becomes an excuse for stopping projects that the neocons don't like anyway. Jurriaan
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