Corruption And State

Corruption is a deplorable act because in basic terms it is a theft and it generates inefficiency because the "project" will be done in a relatively different way from the "programmed" one, the state is in theory the "one in charge" of preventing this kind of thing from happening and yet the great protagonist of corruption in a country, in a capitalist system of total economic freedom, corruption, far from being beneficial to the businessman would actually be something quite negative.

The work of a politician is based on lying so that you believe that you really need a tutor who tell you what to do, how to do it and why, the work of an entrepreneur is based on creating the best product or service and sell it to you, Normally trying to beat his competition by being the one who offers the best product at the best price... Here is the key word: "Normally", why does this not always happen?, the answer is because of the current mercantilism that exists in the world, the big corporations are more interested in making friends with the politicians in power in order to have certain short and long term "profits" that in the end will give them an advantage over their competitors, instead of having really fair competition they use the state as a propulsion mechanism to make their competitors "existence" more difficult, to create better products through "patents" and to obtain an "unfair" monopoly thanks to being friends with a few.

Corruption in the case of politicians is due to public works, it is due to the amount of money that circulates thanks to the legalized theft of taxes and that these politicians manipulate. I ask you a question, How much corruption could there be on the part of a government if there were no public works?, the answer is zero due to if there is no public works, it is because there are no taxes, therefore there is nowhere to steal money from because the government does not generate wealth, steals it and redistributes it as a kind of poor quality Robin Hood.

We are basically talking about a small government which does not deal with the economy, that is, we are in the free market, we are in capitalism. There wouldn't be the mercantilism or the profits that there are today for a few corporations that do what they want with prices because they basically have the best product and don't have a marked competition thanks to the government... I would like to stress that I think that the only bad monopolies are those generated by the government, when we talk about a "monopoly" which would really be a "market dominance" that is a consequence of how well the company is doing in a free market where consumers are the only ones who choose who wins and who loses that company that is dominating that market is a hero.

If there were no state and we were talking about a totally capitalist economy, corruption would be something totally negative for any company, especially for the owner of the company, because corruption always makes you lower efficiency or, in this case, makes you sell things with "over price" and that in a free market takes its toll because you would give your competition the opportunity to sell a product of similar or higher quality at a better price than you, for the simple fact that they are not committing acts of internal corruption.

Yes, some might say, "But there would still be corruption", no doubt, some employee or sector of the business would seek to make a little more money by doing some kind of corrupt act, but again, this will ultimately end up hurting the business owner and the business itself in some way or another. The entrepreneur in this case has to maintain the order of his company to prevent this from happening because there is no way that in a free economy is the one who obtains any benefit from such corruption, that is, in this case the entrepreneur is the one who has the power to eliminate corruption with the difference that he is negatively affected by corruption because we consumers would also be affected and we would stop buying their products thanks to the overpricing or lack of quality.

While today, it is the government that has the power to eliminate corruption but they benefit from it and it is we citizens who are negatively affected by it and have no way of "punishing" it because we pay taxes, we are not free to pay or not. The only freedom we have is to choose who will steal from us for the next four or five years. When entrepreneurs realize that it is more beneficial to work with the government than to offer consumers a better product at a better price, that creates a problem.

Corruption is inherent in the existence of the state, entrepreneurs cannot buy favors that politicians do not have to sell, politicians cannot benefit from alliances with entrepreneurs if they cannot sell favors and we can add to that the amount of taxes, the less taxes are collected, the less corruption there is, the less money will be stolen, Therefore, corruption is not only related to the mere existence of a state, but also to its size; the smaller the government, the less corruption there will be on the part of the government and if there is no government, obviously there can be no corruption by any government and in a capitalist system the entrepreneurs and business owners would lose out if there are cases of corruption in their businesses, companies or corporations.

Do we want to eliminate corruption?, the answer is: Eliminate the state or, failing that, to minimize it as much as possible and to maintain a free market economy and free competition where some corporations benefit from favors that some "rulers" sell them. The Capitalist system itself "Cleans up" corruption and punishes it by simple market logic, will corruption exist? possibly and probably, but such corruption instead of being beneficial, will be punished thanks to the market... Thanks for reading, peace.

#	References	Titles
1	Oxford Research Encyclopedia	Political Corruption and State Crime