Corruption, according to the Aurélio dictionary, means: act or effect of corrupting oneself; decomposition; debauchery, depravity; Bribery; breast. Therefore, we can consider that corruption is the act of improperly using a position of influence to obtain advantages or even perform some action that is considered illegal under the laws in force. Corruption can happen in everyday situations, but it can also be related to politics. This is, by the way, the field most associated with the term.
In the political issue, corruption is closely related to the Bribery, that is, when people use an important position to demand money from someone. With this in mind, if a mayor demands a bribe to build a hospital in a certain location, for example, he is being corrupt.
Origin of the concept
According to political scientist Fernando Filgueiras, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in the civilizations of Classic antiquity, that is, civilizations greek and roman, the notion of corruption was always associated with the idea of putrefaction, destruction and degeneration. both the latin word
corrupt as for the greek diaphthora they indicated corruption in the sense of a living organism that is attacked by disease and aging or a rock that is progressively destroyed by wind and water.the philosopher Aristotle believed that corruption was typical of worldsublunary, that is, the earthly world existing below the celestial spheres. For Aristotle, everything that was not earthly was perfect and eternal, therefore, it could not be the target of corruption (understood as degeneration). As earthly beings, humans were also subject to corruption, and this profoundly influenced the very notion of organization. politics in Greek and Roman civilizations.
There was, therefore, a transposition of the concept of corruption, applied to the physical and biological world, to the proper human or political sense, as Filgueiras explains:
Etymologically related to the problem of order, the problem of corruption (diaphthora) cuts across all forms of mediation in which politics is organized, being a phenomenon present and conceived in its transfiguration from nature to politics. Corruption is even a fact of politics, because, according to the meaning of the movement of the body political over time, since it provides the generation of institutional mechanisms for its control. [1]
If the politics it is the art of life in the city, that is, of life in society, thus forming a "social body", so that it does not degenerate, it was necessary for men to be guided by the reason (logos) and in the virtues (areté), such as courage, honesty and prudence. The combination of reason and virtue would make man not commit the call "hubris", the immoderate power, the folly that leads to catastrophes and tragedies.
Disorder x Order and the example of Catilina
In this sense, political activity for the ancients was associated with the practice of virtues and the search for an enduring moral order. Corruption, in turn, was identified with vices such as ambition, greed for power, cowardice, etc., that is, everything that causes social chaos, disorder and violence.
A classic example of this conception in the ancient world is that of the Roman politician catiline. Catilina, who, among other important positions in the Roman Republic, was governor of the Africa, he tried to be named Consul (the highest administrative post) a few times, but failed to all. Catilina then began to “play dirty”, mobilizing other politicians of the Republic to join him in a conspiracy to assassinate the two consuls who were in power at the time. The plan did not work out, as it was discovered on the eves. The speaker is also a politician Marcus Tullius Cicero against Catilina, he directed a series of speeches known as “catilinárias”. These discourses are one of the main sources of political perversion and, so to speak, corruption in antiquity.
This notion of corruption associated with perversion and lack of care for the common good would cross the Middle Ages and reach the beginning of modernity with the political theorists of the Renaissance. However, with the expansion of commercial relations resulting from the great navigations, urban growth, the advent of industry, the rise of the bourgeoisie as a political class – through revolutions such as English (1640-1668) and the french (1789-1799) –, the political system began to be thought of differently.
Corruption in Modernity: Montesquieu and the Positive Laws
The old conception of virtues as policy guides no longer worked in the modernity. A conception of politics that took into account individual interests and ambitions, which were part of the modern world, was needed. But how to do this without letting such interests and ambitions degenerate the political system? Montesquieu he was the one who offered the best model, which, for the most part, is still present in democratic regimes today.
Montesquieu, author of the book The Spirit of Laws, written in the mid-18th century, he believed that virtue-based politics did not work in the modern world. As Fernando Filgueiras says, Montesquieu “he observed in the modern world the supremacy of interest, because the maintenance of virtues is no longer possible in a world that seeks, incessantly, the accumulation of capital. Political actors are represented in the public sphere for their interests and no longer for the common good, in the classical sense”. [2]
In order for these interests not to triumph over the public good and for the political body not to be corrupted, the following solution was needed, according to Montesquieu: lawspositive, that is, a set of legal measures that fit the reality of the interests of determined society and imposed control over it, being able to mediate men and their needs.
This model proposed by Montesquieu was followed by the liberal democracies of the nineteenth century. However, from the transition from the 19th century to the 21st century, the world became increasingly integrated, both economically and politically, especially after the world wars. This integration, despite bringing countless benefits, also brought great difficulties.
Corruption in the Globalized World
One of the greatest difficulties for the exercise of politics in the integrated, globalized world is the fact that the political universe is always associating itself with illegal practices, such as the favoring large multinational corporations by politicians from a given country, money laundering in tax havens, connections with mafias and other criminal associations etc. Corruption at this level is perceived, but not always interrogated, investigated. That's because the network of illegal schemes it moves is incalculable.
What exists in the contemporary world, roughly, is a kind of tolerance to corruption, as long as the corrupt political system does not “run away” with the obligation to satisfy the interests and needs of the population.
GRADES
[1] FILGUEIRAS, Fernando. Corruption, Democracy and Legitimacy. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2008. pp. 32-33.
[2] p.70-71
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Daniel Neves
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/historia/o-que-e-corrupcao.htm
