Corruption and Development

One time my professor teach us about the relationship between corruption and development. And he asked us to read an article by Samuel Huntington about corruption. There are some points that I would like to emphasize about that article and my understanding of the issue.

Firstly, that corruption is 'the grease on the wheel', it is happened and inevitable in a changing society from traditional to modernity society. A transition from traditional informal communal society to a rule-based formal individual society will reveal and categorize the process that may not be considered as corruption in the old norm, but it is in the new norm. The hike cases of corruption in this phase may become the sign of this changing norm process.

Secondly, even successful state-led development countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore, and maybe China nowadays cannot really eliminate corruption. But they can really make sure that it does not halt the process of development. So, it is like the darkness before the enlightenment. As long as there is progress in the process of development and serious effort to eradicate, control and prevent the act of corruption, the process is in the right track.

Thirdly, the process of development and political and economic interest from the man in power or authority open the chance to do the practice of rent seeking. In many cases, this leads to unreasonable and even harmful policy that seems to support the process of development but in the end, it leads to a harmful condition that even make the process of development harder.

This may be only my random thought. But I think those points related to the news that I shared below.