Anatomy of a bribe seeker - Part 1

This is a two part series on corruption in public life and a new way of looking at it.

Bribery and corruption are rampant in most of the public institutions in developing countries. Economists call this type of transaction as ‘Opportunistic behavior’ or Rent seeking. It implies, the officer who is authorized to give sanctions and permissions, will seek personal gains by virtue of being in that place. This blog is an attempt to understand this phenomenon in terms of behavioral patterns of people who engage in these kinds of transactions.

Behaviour patterns of human being can be broadly classified based on its origin as ‘Learned’ and ‘Earned’ one. Earned behaviors are those with which we are born with and ‘wired’ in our human brains for thousands of years. Learned behaviours are those which we learn consciously from our parents, in schools, through our interaction with neighbors, friends and from other social institutions which we are part of.  Earned behaviors are generally of two broad types, ie Reciprocal altruism and Kin selection. This write-up is an attempt to understand the phenomenon of corruption from this vantage point.

Reciprocal altruism implies that co-operation between two un-related individual is conditional, based on reciprocity of give and take. It signifies that an individual in position of authority do a ‘favor’ to an another biologically un-related person only if the latter reciprocates in a particular way that is desired by the former. In simple language, he is altruistic to the extent of being reciprocated. It is like ‘I will scratch your back if you scratch mine’. It is the primary mechanism through which we interact with an ‘outsider’. In this context, he is seeking a reward, which may or may not be in the form of a bribe, as an act of reciprocity for doing a ‘favor’ like issuance of a driving licence, electricity connection, approval for some benefits etc.

This argument is not as simplistic as it initially appears. The natural question that one asks in that case would be why most of us don’t give or seek bribes in our daily transactions despite our actions are beneficial to many others. To answer this, we have to understand that, many of our actions are not necessarily framed as altruistic. Rather, they are framed as market transactions. For example, a Road transport bus conductor don’t seek bribe from us because his act of collecting money from a passenger, is framed as a market transaction, and not as an altruistic one.

A bribe seeker assumes his action as Altruistic when he has given authority to interpret rules where he can deny, delay, discriminate or disapprove a benefit. This tempts him to frame his action as altruistic. By framing it as altruistic, he creates a sense of entitlement and so seeks reciprocity and rewards. Sometimes, his discretionary power of selecting a particular beneficiary amongst many, itself is framed as he is altruistic to that beneficiary. The moment he himself frames his actions as altruistic, he is seeking reciprocity for his action from beneficiary.

However, this expectation of reciprocity will normally kick in only when the beneficiary is known, identifiable, and is in physical proximity to the authority (who ‘sanctions’ the benefit). Another criterion is that the beneficiary should himself acknowledge that the benefit he receives is an act of altruism and so has to be reciprocated. If these conditions do not get satisfied, this transaction will be considered as a ‘market oriented one’.

Even this leaves a lot of things unanswered.  We do see a lot many public officials not taking any bribes yet do altruistic work for the betterment of society at large, despite having a lot of discretionary powers and identifiable beneficiaries. They are found to be satisfied with their salary and other perks which they are legally entitled for.  If it has been an earned behaviour, all men in this earth should been behaved in similar manner. But it doesn’t happen so.

Public official want all their actions to be a rewarding experience. Without it, they neither are likely to act proactively nor perform to the expected level. Contrary to popular beliefs, rewards are not necessarily illegal nor morally distasteful. Fortunately, rewards can be either intrinsic or extrinsic in nature. Intrinsic rewards come in the form of intangibles like honor, fame, prestige, recognition, self satisfaction (by seeing the social benefits he had created through his action) etc. This sense of achievement is a reward in itself and the ‘honest’ officer would be contented with it. Human beings are endowed with a wonderful cognitive phenomenon of rewarding themselves for their own actions and hence can derive a self congratulatory message by themselves.

None will be having any objection towards intrinsic rewards. Even many of extrinsic rewards like medals; price money etc are instituted by government itself. Only those extrinsic rewards which are mostly in monetary terms, and are sought from the beneficiaries are considered illegal.

 Another way of seeking reciprocity is in the form of intrinsic rewards is by the way of expectation of building a credibility which is likely to be rewarded at the later stages. This is by creating a reputation of being an honest officer which may (or sometimes may not) be recognized and appreciated sooner than later. Remember, reputation is a fixed deposit in his ‘virtual bank’ which he believes, can be en-cashed later. This is termed as Delayed gratification.

                                                                                                                  Contd in Part 2