Beating bribery through fake money(economist.com)
economist.com
Beating bribery through fake money
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21591198-increasingly-popular-weapon-fight-against-corruption-fake-money-small-change
1 comments
LOL that's fine as long as there's actually a _market_ _price_ for the bribe, meaning there are competitive forces keeping it in check, but once someone corners the market it's game over.
All the benefits of this system can still be accrured if the "bribe" does not go into the pockets of the policemen. It has to go into the public treasury for the common good of the people.
If you forget the word "bribe" and think of it the way you would think about a waiter's tip, you'll see that it doesn't have to go into the public treasury to be a good system.
If there's a financial incentive for policemen to catch bad drivers, they will do their job better already, much in the way that restaurants where waiters earn more on tips than they do on a salary generally provide good service.
If there's a financial incentive for policemen to catch bad drivers, they will do their job better already, much in the way that restaurants where waiters earn more on tips than they do on a salary generally provide good service.
The usual thinking is that this is bribery and that it is corrosive on the morals of society.
But, the way I see it, this system is actually a better system for price discovery than the legal route. In other words, it's a better and more efficient system for finding out what the price of a minor infraction should be.
If you think about it, the official penalty for an infraction is set by a small committee of people claiming to represent the people by being voted into power or through some other democratic method.
But, the quality of information available to this small committee is much lower than the aggregate information the market has in its totality. The price signals that dictate the amount of a bribe are therefore best emitted by the market itself. Some groups in the market will want the price to be higher, others will want it to be lower. If general society drives well, without infractions, the policeman will be forced by market forces to charge a higher bribe to the few that drive badly, which means that the price will reflect accurately how people view the act of driving badly. Similarly, if a lot of people drive badly, the bribe will be lower, again reflecting the fact that society doesn't see bad driving as something that should be heavily penalised.
So, in this particular sector at least, you could argue that the bribe system is actually more just and representative of the will of the people than any arbitrary penalty system decided by its legal representatives.