If you think you’re incorruptible, think again (Image: INTS Vikmanis/Shutterstock)
IN 2004, Benjamin Olken visited a road-building project in rural Indonesia. There was just one small section missing – a bridge over a stream – but the money had run out because of embezzlement, and construction abandoned. “By the time I got there, you could see where the road had been cleared and built, but the grass had completely grown back,” he says. “The road had fallen into decay.”
For Olken, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former consultant to the World Bank, this example epitomises why corruption is such a drain on society, and why tackling it has such a large potential pay-off. Devising effective anti-corruption policies, however, requires an understanding of what induces people to become corrupt in the first place. Only now is that evidence starting to emerge. It makes for sobering reading.
Most of us think of ourselves as pretty honest, seeing corruption as something that involves other people. But new research shows that anyone can be corrupted at the drop of a hat. Indeed, when looked at in evolutionary terms, clinging to the moral high ground could be seen as an irrational position. If everyone else is cheating, then playing by the rules will leave you with the smallest haul – where the haul, whatever it is, translates sooner or later into reproductive success. So it makes perfect sense to be as devious as you can while at the same time exhorting everyone to be honest. “I think of hypocrisy as the background state,” says psychologist Rob Kurzban, author of Why Everyone (Else) is…
