“I think, when I read such news, that the fortunes of these people who are in the Chamber, in the Senate, in the ministries, even in the Presidency of the Republic, are based on crime. What do you think?”
The statement comes from the protagonist of “The Only Murder of Cazuza” (1922), one of the last texts by . The systemic issue in the country has been around for more than a century. The higher courts, however, were not on the list. Yes, Lima did not appeal to the superficial, culturalist explanation (Lusitanian heritage).
If everyone believes that corruption is the rule of the game, we are trapped in a classic trap. If, on the contrary, the belief that honest transactions are the norm prevails, obeying the law becomes the dominant strategy. When shady practices are perceived as the rule, the actor who decides to play fair tends to be the loser — and, ultimately, does not survive. The incentive, in this situation, is to play dirty, betting that others will do the same.
If a citizen or businessman pays a bribe to a public agent — be it an inspector or a parliamentarian — hoping that the offer is accepted, the system remains in balance. The occasional punishment of some transgressors can produce partial changes — in a sector, a ministry or a city hall. But, in the absence of a herd effect, that is, an inflection point capable of radically altering expectations, .
The empirical evidence supporting the thesis that “corruption corrupts” (Shaul Shalvi) is numerous and consistent. Data from Lapop/Vanderbilt show a strong correlation between the belief that “corruption is widespread” and the probability of considering that “paying bribes is justifiable”. Daniel Gingerich and co-authors demonstrated that exposure to information about corruption increased in a country, compared to a control group not exposed to this information.
It is not individual “pecadillos” that produce systemic corruption. Causality operates in the opposite direction: corruption corrupts. Gächter and Schulz, in an article published in Nature, find evidence, based on a sample of 23 countries, of the impact of large-scale corruption on small-scale corruption. Participants from countries with high scores on the Rules Violation Prevalence Index (PRV) — a measure that captures major corruption, political fraud and tax evasion — in laboratory experiments.
Fisman and Miguel, in turn, examined thousands of parking tickets committed by employees of diplomatic missions in New York — who enjoyed immunity until 2002 — and found a strong correlation between illegal parking and indicators of corruption in the diplomats’ countries of origin. Even in the absence of any punishment, the .
The lesson to be drawn for Brazil is clear: it is great corruption that shapes our sociability and encourages microtransgressions — not the other way around. “If those upstairs do it, why can’t I do it?” It stops being just a rhetorical question and starts to function as a maxim guiding social behavior.
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