If I don’t believe it, I don’t see it. When the suspects are ours, nothing new under the sun or in the shadows: the combination of respectable facade and abusive sewers traces the most remote past. Throughout the centuries they have seen the dark light excesses of rulers, businessmen, powerful magnates, intellectuals, respectable individuals and apparently away from any stain, with high opinion of themselves. Frequently, these abuses have been acquitted by the collective imaginary: their lordships are forgiven their misdeeds.
They are not usually mentioned the murky businesses of the applauded by their military victories and extolled in glorious chronicles that he wrote without shame in praise. According to Montesquieu, it was Julio César who generalized Corromper’s custom as a political financing mechanism. The cost of his expensive electoral campaigns exhausted his fortune; So, as Suetonio Narra, he asked for loans, he sold alliances, extorted. He turned his provincial government into a great conquest offensive, the bloodiest undertaken Rome. The historian affirms that in Gaul destroyed entire cities to pay for his career with pillage and the sale of prisoners as slaves. It would end up forcing the doors of the very public treasure and seizing thousands of gold bullion and millions of seastercios. This removal of republican virtues would leave its name inscribed in a wide cartography of imperial titles: César, Tsar and Káiser.
In the Roman civilization, when the authors of the time mention the word “friendship” in relation to rulers, rich and aristocrats, it should be suspected. In general they allude to clientele relationships, complicities and networks of interests created. This happened with a literature classic, Salustio, friend of Julio César himself, who appointed him governor of a rich African province. There the region exploded based on extortion and prey that shocked their contemporaries. His administered filed a judicial process against him, which was unscathed thanks to his powerful benefactor. It was rumored that Salustio paid César a generous commission of looting profits.
The eloquent Cicero encaphed from a luxurious house in the palatine for which he paid three and a half million seastercios. “I would be willing to join a conspiracy if there were any that accept me.” The loans of real estate acquisitions were already solved with dark political complicities.
The word “corruption”, which comes from Latin, means “to join to break.” He talks about the pact between the powerful tempted by an illicit offer and the particular seduced by a profitable shortcut to achieve contracts or benefits. A currency with two faces – Duras. Before any scandal, the convenient strategy of the exculpatory generalization returns: it is easier to apologize for their own excesses with the manido argument of the traps of others. But honesty exists, and universalizing guilt is just a victory of the unpunished. As in all political and economic gears, the fight to unmask it, to know its limits, differentiate its degrees and dismantle it again and again. Aspiring an honest public life requires strengthening counterweights and clippers, increasing controls, increasing the balance between powers, strengthening laws.
The electoral expenses in Rome, before the era of advertising and television appearances, were already huge, and the candidates invested their personal fortune. Therefore, those who had paid to get a position. Some dedicated themselves to preying the territories that had been entrusted to the conquered lands. Since ancient times there are invasions of predators who take over everything, and they are called imperialism. Faced with the grandiloquence of the deeds, it would be convenient to claim the righteous. Some Roman legislators tried to deal with embezzlement with bold reforms, such as Cayo Graco. Already in the second century BC. C. began a deep debate about what the ethical norms and principles should be to govern. A permanent court was created, with the purpose of compensating those affected in the territories defeated by the extortion of their rulers. We know in detail the processes and accusations of the republican era because there were judgments against those who abused their positions.
However, paradoxically, when the rot emerges and disappoints the disappointment, some claim the old messianic recipe: the nostalgia of past autarchies, the mirage of the hard hand and the thirst of saving leaders. For a part of the societies, authoritarianism is a valuable quality in a president, and even argue that the Romans fell into that trap: during the crisis of the Republic they delivered enormous economic and military resources to strong men and consented to act without limits, dreaming a naive restoration of the order. The historical evolution led to, in reality, in a new era despotic, where everyone remained that monopolized power and had everything without accountability.
The emperors were infinitely richer than the most wealthy Roman: they confiscated land, used fiscal collections to their whim, possessed a small city of 20,000 slaves to their service, inherited all of Egypt as a private territory of the crown and fattened their coffers thanks to the booties of the wars that they themselves declared. They say that Caligula appointed a Hispanic horse, his favorite, who adorned with pearl necklaces. In a time of constant evictions, Nero made a mansion built, which extended for 50 hectares in the Center of Rome, with gold, ivory and precious stones in its 300 rooms, in addition to its own planetarium. When he crossed the threshold for the first time, he exclaimed: “I can finally start living as a human being.” Corruption is consubstantial to dictatorships: fear makes the complaints disappear – too dangerous – arbitrariness lacks counterweights and clientelism becomes law.
Relax surveillance on gifts, billionaire donors, cryptocurrency businesses, favors exchanges, murky transactions and dizzying heritage increases from our leaders pushes us to a slippery slope. Without stalking inspections, bribery temptations increase. We must demand more control over the power to better defend the public, since corruption is also a form of privatization. Principles statements are complemented with statements of goods. Where you need to investigate, care to deregulate. Authoritarianism is not the solution, only the dissolution of the tools to combat corrupt. We endanger if everything folds to the power of wealth, because the freedom of all depends on the limits of money. Although it seems contradictory, trusting democracy means suspicious of the people in whom we delegate power: spontaneous honesty increases in proportion to the number of vigilant eyes. Thus we prevent integrity from being disintegrated.
