“The cancer that demands our urgent attention is corruption and poverty.” —Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
“Corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity.” —Joe Biden.
Every country has a history of corruption. Those which are well-governed have managed to curb corruption to its minimal impact. That’s why most of their citizens stay put rather than look for better economic opportunities elsewhere. Examples are the United States and Canada where applications for immigration are on demand year in and year out. There is so much reliance on the governing elite and its institutions to do the right and legal things for the people. In a way, corruption is highly correlated to the exercise of power. So it pays to heed Lord Acton’s warning that “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But why is corruption more pervasive in countries like the Philippines than others, resulting in more economic hardships than necessary? Are Filipinos born corrupt? Is it in their nature to become corruptible once they get a taste of authority? Do they have strong attraction to corrupt leaders? Or does their system of government allow corruption as part of its culture? But before we find the answers to these questions, let’s be clear that corruption affects not only Filipinos but all of mankind.
A trading vessel called Batavia, which was owned by the Dutch East India Company, set sail from the Netherlands on October 28, 1628. It carried 340 people and one of them was a junior merchant named Jeronimus Cornelisz. The ship suffered a mishap as it crashed into a coral reef on June 4, 1629. The captain and its entire senior crew decided to set sail to Java in an emergency longboat, leaving Cornelisz and other survivors to fend for themselves until supplies could be acquired to rescue them. With limited resources on hand, Cornelisz took charge and figured to cut off demand. He first eliminated his potential rivals; then those who were disloyal by refusing to kill at his command. When the Batavia’s captain returned months later, more than a hundred people were killed. Cornelisz was hanged to death.
In 1965, six boys, aged fifteen to seventeen, left their boarding school and stole a fishing boat for an adventure of a lifetime. But instead of a fun outcome, they encountered a strong storm that ripped apart their boat. They scrapped their way into a craggy, deserted island called ‘Ata in a Tongan archipelago near Australia. In order to survive, they agreed to work together and collaborated in all the tasks they needed to do, such as ensuring the flames never die out. There was no power trip; everyone was a leader. Fifteen months later, an Australian named Peter Warner spotted ‘Ata and brought the boys backed home.
These two conflicting stories about power were mentioned in the introductory pages of Brian Klaas’s book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us. His book answers the aforementioned questions at the beginning. Klaas laid out four possible answers: (1) power corrupts people; (2) power attracts the corruptible; (3) for some irrational reasons, we give power to bad leaders; and (4) bad systems create bad leaders.
There’s no question that power corrupts us. We experience this in the course of our ordinary life. In the workplace alone, we see terrible bosses abuse those below them with delight. Workers squirm in fear because they need the job to survive. And the bosses know the psychological impact of bullying which allows them to continue in their abusive behaviour. For confirmation, Klaas mentioned the research done by Dacher Kelner on the cognitive effects of power. In 2016, Keltner wrote The Power Paradox. According to Klaas, “The book’s thesis is straightforward. He argues that being a good person—someone who is affable, altruistic, competent, and kind—helps you get power. Those traits make others admire you. They put their trust in you. They speak highly of you to their bosses. All of that allows you to rise through the ranks. But then (and this is the paradox) those same traits that helped you get to the top are swiftly eroded by the corrosive effects of power, such that you’re more likely to abuse your authority once you’re on top.”
Seeking power is in itself not a bad thing— for a few of us tend to be leaders and most of us are just followers. Genes somewhat play a role in which category we will belong. But studies showed that the dictatorial and corrupt tendencies of the parents are not inherently passed to the children (Bongbong Marcos perhaps?). There may be further traits, such as ambition, confidence, extrovertness, or affability, which can help you obtain power, but doesn’t tie you down to desire power more. But a person who exhibits the three components of the so-called dark triad — Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy — for sure will want power. Klaas described them as follows: “Michiavellianism…refers to a personality trait marked by scheming, interpersonal manipulation, and moral indifference to others. Narcissim…refers to personality traits that often manifest as arrogance, self-absorption, grandiosity, and a need for recognition from others. And psychopathy…often shows up as someone who lacks the ability to feel empathy and is impulsive, reckless, manipulative, and aggressive.”
Again, we’re familiar who have these personality traits in the workplace. According to the research done by Paul Babiak, Craig Neumann, and Robert Hare, “there are about twenty times more psychopaths in corporate leadership that in the general population.” But, as Klaas put it, “Dark triad traits may have a double effect: they make such corruptible people crave power, but can also make them more effective at getting it. And that may come down to an ability to focus laser-like on ruthless self-interest.” Hence, the ten professions with these dark triad traits, according to Kevin Dutton, the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths, are CEOs, lawyers, TV/radio personalities, salespeople, surgeons, journalists, police officers, members of the clergy, chefs, and civil servants. He didn’t mention politicians but a lot of them exhibit the dark triad traits and one great example is Donald Trump.
Filipinos are too familiar on being attracted to bad leaders. In the most recent presidential elections alone, they voted in Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and Bongbong Marcos in 2022 in spite of overthrowing his father in the so-called People Power Revolution in February 1986. Now the celebration of that historic non-violent resistance is no longer listed as a holiday this year. Maybe the next move of the Bongbong Administration will be its total erasure from the history of the Philippines!
The answer to this seemingly mismatch behaviour, according to Klaas, is because our brains have not evolved completely since the Stone Age era. Evolutionary biologists came up with a theory called “signalling theory” and looked at the animal kingdom. They cited the springbok whose instinct was to leap into air, hence drawing the attention of lion, cheetah, or a pack of wild dogs to chase it as a possible lunch.
We have the propensity to give power to those who exhibit the appearances of power such as: confident poise, celebrity status, big houses, designer clothes, expensive watches, and other signals of excessive wealth. We also believe that men are more suitable to govern than women; taller people than short; friends than strangers (the in-group and out-group mentality). We also assume at our peril, sometimes, that baby-faced people are harmless and less culpable of crimes (unfortunately, not applicable to the black people who are always viewed to be threatening).
The system of government in the Philippines has a long history of corruption. Examples include graft, bribery, favouritism, nepotism, impunity, embezzlement, extortion, racketeering, fraud, tax evasion, lack of transparency, lack of sufficient enforcement of laws and government policies, and consistent lack of support for human rights. It is mightily broken that fixing it requires a monumental effort from its citizenry. But there’s the famous saying that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” that Filipinos adhere to than the difficult task of reforming the system. Everyone benefits in corruption so why make trouble. Therefore, having a bad system encourages abuses from top to bottom. But those who wield the power to govern leave greater damages to the country’s economic well-being.
In Chapters X to XIII, Klaas listed ten ways to attract the incorruptible among us. I will not discuss them in more details, except to mention them in their summarized version:
- Lesson 1 – Actively recruit incorruptible people and screen out corruptible ones;
- Lesson 2 – Use sortition and shadow governance for oversight (sortition means using randomness to put citizens in positions of authority);
- Lesson 3 – Rotate to reduce abuse;
- Lesson 4 – Audit decision-making processes, not just results;
- Lesson 5 – Create frequent, potent reminders of responsibility;
- Lesson 6 – Don’t let those in power see people as abstractions;
- Lesson 7 – Watched people are nice people;
- Lesson 8 – Focus oversight on the controllers, not the controlled;
- Lesson 9 – Exploit randomness to maximize deterrence while minimizing invasions of privacy; and
- Lesson 10 – Stop waiting for principled saviors, make them instead.
24 January 2024
