At present, corruption has become the focus of unhealthy trends in China, which has seriously affected the process of reform and the establishment and improvement of the socialist market economic system. How to effectively control corruption is a major social issue of national concern. John maynard keynes pointed out: "Economic theory does not provide a set of conclusions that can be used immediately. It is not a dogma, but a method, a thinking organ, and a thinking skill that helps those who have it draw correct conclusions. " [1] The economic investigation and analysis of corruption may provide us with some useful enlightenment.
First, the economic definition of corruption
What is corruption? Huntington, a famous American political scientist, believes that "corruption refers to the behavior of state officials who violate recognized norms for personal interests." [2] The International Monetary Fund defines corruption as the abuse of public power for personal gain. Broadly defined, corruption is a conscious disobedience to seek benefits for individuals or related individuals through relationships. Transparency International explains the meaning of corruption as follows: the behavior of public sector officials, whether they are officials engaged in political affairs or civil servants engaged in administrative management, makes themselves or close people get rich improperly and illegally by abusing the power entrusted to them by the public. Michael johnson adopted a broad definition of corruption, which means the abuse of public roles or resources, or the illegal use of political influence by the public and private sectors. According to David H. Bailey, the word corruption means improper use of authority to gain personal interests, which are not necessarily money. Some scholars in our country believe that "corruption is a deformed political behavior and political phenomenon that the party and state public servants abuse power for personal gain, violate the discipline, law and moral norms recognized by the society at that time, and form certain social harm."
These research conclusions from the political, legal and moral levels all discuss corruption from the perspective of power operation, and only regard corruption as a phenomenon that public power deviates from its proper direction, violates national laws and social morality, and harms public interests, giving people a sense of confusion. As a political scholar said, power is a mysterious thing and a magical social phenomenon.
If we study corruption from the perspective of economics and regard it as an economic activity, an economic activity that uses public power for personal gain, many things will be suddenly enlightened. Can we define corruption like this? Corruption is a commercial activity in which officials or bureaucratic groups use public power for personal gain. They always expect to do the biggest business at the lowest cost and get the biggest profit. You can design a calculation and thinking process for corrupt people or corrupt groups: how much you invest and how much you bring. The ideal goal is to take less and bring back more.
Second, the economic analysis of the causes of corruption
Since we regard corruption as a commercial activity and an exchange of public rights and private interests, let's analyze three questions: First, is there a market possibility, that is, is it possible to exchange public rights and private interests? Second, as the main body of public power, will officials use public power for personal gain? The third is to use public power for personal gain.
(A) the market for corrupt transactions [5] Possibility: power is always prone to corruption.
Nowadays, corruption is an important news content. When we turn on TV or newspaper to watch prime-time news reports, we may be dazzled by a large number of reports about corruption. Why is corruption so rampant? This is exactly what we are going to discuss in this part.
Power tends to be corrupt, which is a common social phenomenon. Montesquieu, a French political scientist, said: "It is an eternal and difficult theorem that all people with power are prone to abuse their power." John acton, a British historian, also pointed out that absolute power inevitably leads to absolute corruption. Carlos albert Rozansky pointed out: "Corruption is a symptom that will appear in all societies. Whether it is the largest superstructure or the smallest group, it can be found. " Power and corruption are like people in the moonlight and their shadows. Where there is power, there is no place without corruption. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to absolute corruption, which can be proved by the characteristics of power exchange and supply and demand.
1. Power is an exchangeable social resource.
What is power? Max Weber of Germany believes that "power is the probability that an actor will carry out his will regardless of opposition in a certain social relationship, no matter what the basis of this probability is." An American scholar expressed this view, "My direct view of power is this: A has power over B to the extent that A can make B do what he doesn't want to do." According to R.H. Taunay, power can be defined as the ability of a person (or a group of people) to change the behavior of others or groups in the way he wants, and to prevent his own behavior from changing in the way he doesn't want. It can be said that power means some kind of coercion, domination and control over others, which means that the behavior of the person in power is superior to the object it acts on. Parsons, a famous British sociologist, thinks: "There is also the possibility of reciprocity in power relations." Therefore, power has always been a tight commodity that is not enough to be distributed. Throughout the ages, I don't know how many people yearn for it, covet it and work hard for it.
The interchangeability of power means that power, as an external ability, can be transformed through the replacement of power subjects under certain conditions. The power owned by the power subject lies in his own interests. When he performs his corresponding duties, he has power, and when he leaves this post, he loses power. This is what the common people often say: "Have the right not to use it, and it will become invalid when it expires". With power, the subject of power can "respond with one voice"; When he leaves power, he will be "invisible", which will make the subject of power have a strong sense of loss, which will lead to the alienation of power, that is to say, the subject of power regards his power as a "commodity" in exchange for personal gain, that is, power corruption.
2. Inelastic power demand and supply.
Generally speaking, under the condition of commodity economy, the development and growth of any market is determined by demand. Because power is superior to society, it has an absolute dominant position within a certain scope of responsibility. On the one hand, people yearn for power, pursue power and have a strong demand for power; On the other hand, people who work for public power are easily confused by the characteristics of power, easily regard people's power as their own private things, trade power and money with their power, and take other people's property and public property as their own. Meet people's demand for power through unreasonable use of public power.
The influence of China's long-term planned economic system, as well as China's traditional thinking and social system, led the government under the leadership of the Party to become the subject of power monopoly. And a public official has certain power and authority in a certain period of time. In order to be rational, he will "price" his power to obtain more and higher personal interests. The price varies with the object of the right to use, and the obligee is certain. This forms the zero elasticity of power supply. Faced with this situation, "economic man" will inevitably expand his authority or raise "price". At the same time, as long as the price is within his tolerance (generally limited to marginal cost = marginal income), he will not consider its level, and the power owner will also seize the psychology of the power demander and create more opportunities for himself to obtain valuable things, thus making the emergence of corruption inevitable.
(b) Analysis of the subjects of corrupt transactions: Officials are also "economic persons"
There has been a debate between good and evil in China since ancient times, but no matter which school thinks there is abstract universal humanity. Whether people believe in the nature of good or evil, it is generally believed that the government is a detached organization, transcending all self-interests and pursuing social welfare. Politicians and government officials are selfless saints and "public figures" with the sole purpose of promoting public interests. But is this really the case? In reality, the power operation mechanism based on the assumption that human nature is good relies too much on human self-discipline, which is seriously divorced from the reality of selfish humanity and provides a rich material foundation for corruption, so that corruption is rampant.
1, Introduction to the Theory of "Economic Man"
Modern biology has proved that biological nature is self-interested, otherwise it cannot survive in the cruel choice of nature. As a part of living things, human beings have gone through countless natural selection before they evolved into today's human beings. Therefore, people's original nature, that is, their natural creatures, must be self-interested. People always think for themselves and strive to realize their desires. On this basis, the theory of "economic man" has become the theoretical cornerstone of the western economics building. This theory holds that human beings have the will to increase their own interests as much as possible, and "economic man" refers to a person whose basic motivation is to pursue the maximization of personal interests or personal utility. As Adam Smith said, "Everyone is trying to use his capital to get the maximum value from his products." Generally speaking, he doesn't try to improve the welfare of the public, and he doesn't know what welfare he has improved. What he pursues is only personal happiness, only personal interests. In doing so, an invisible hand guides him to push a goal, which is by no means what he pursues. "[1 1] The theory of economic man mainly includes the following aspects: First, people's self-interest, that is, everyone should plan for themselves and always pursue what they think is valuable. This kind of value, as long as it is worthy of personal pursuit, can be both material interests and intangible interests. The second is the principle of maximizing interests, that is, people always seek to satisfy their own interests to the greatest extent. Through the cost-benefit analysis, economic man can weigh and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each scheme and take the most favorable action, so as to maximize his own interests. Third, people's rational assumption is that people have rational knowledge and computing ability, and can collect necessary information, compare alternatives and make choices that are more in line with their preferences.
In the scope of application of economic man, the development of public choice school has made a major breakthrough, applying the hypothesis of "economic man" to the political field, and thinking that individuals are also pursuing the maximization of interests and utility in the process of political activities and collective choice. Buchanan, a representative of the public choice school, pointed out that there is no reason to think that the same person pursues personal interests and their maximization in the private sphere or economic activities, but pursues the maximization of public interests and social interests in the public sphere or political activities. Similarly, a government composed of politicians and administrative officials is also an organization with personal interests. The theory of public choice extends the theory of "economic man" to the political field, which can well explain the phenomenon of official corruption. Because of the "economic man" characteristics of public decision-makers, the motivation of pursuing their own interests in the policy process drives them to formulate self-interested policies, which leads to corruption.
A recent survey of leading cadres at the county (department) level shows that "rational economic man" is the basic human characteristic of leading cadres. [12] The cadres' thoughts of striving for lofty ideals are relatively weak, and their values of life have a strong utilitarian tendency. For example, the idea of quick success and instant benefit, regardless of actual needs and effects, engages in image projects, performance projects, and so on; Or in the case of setbacks, they become enterprising, do not seek success, but seek nothing, and even plan for the interests of small groups and individuals. For example, 66.6% people think their team is a "performance team". If we focus on the industrial park project, which is listed as the object of state regulation, only 30.6% are really willing to clean it up, and even1.1%people choose to "continue to do it for the local economy." And their subordinates think that their tendency is stronger, that is, only 14.3% people are willing to clean up, and 28.6% people are willing to take risks. The biggest problem of style is formalism, accounting for 53.8% and utilitarianism accounting for 30.8%. After careful analysis, we will find that formalism is for people to see, but it is still utilitarian in essence.
2. Officials are faced with choices.
No matter how many resources a society has, there is always a limited amount. Compared with people's infinite desires, the quantity of resources is always limited and insufficient. This is what economists call "scarcity". Scarcity determines that every society and individual must make a choice. The choice is to maximize the limited resources. When making choices according to this idea, people often aim at maximizing income, profits or other interests, and officials are no exception. They are also faced with choices: one is the choice of public decision-making and officials' own interests, and the other is the choice of corruption and incorruptibility.
There is a contradiction between public decision-making and the private interests of officials. On the one hand, the more correct and timely the decisions made by the public, the greater the interests of the organization, and the greater the interests shared by the people in charge of the organization. Moreover, officials can also get higher and greater benefits (or utility) than ordinary members, such as material rewards for political achievements and job promotion. On the contrary, the worse the effect of public decision-making, the greater the loss of officials may be than other members of the organization. This is the identity of contradiction. On the other hand, there is a conflict between public decision-making and the private interests of officials: this conflict stems from the differences and deviations between the organizational costs and benefits of public decision-making and the private costs and benefits of officials. Not every public decision can maximize the interests of public organizations and specific decision makers at the same time, so organizations and officials have two different goals: maximizing the interests of organizations and maximizing the interests of officials themselves. In the absence of effective supervision, officials will use their power to make public policy choices according to the goal of maximizing their own interests, which may be at the expense of organizational goals. There are two manifestations of officials' behavior: one is the lazy motivation and hitchhiking behavior of specific decision makers, which belongs to the category of dereliction of duty or dereliction of duty; Second, specific decision makers use their powers to directly seek personal gain for themselves, including embezzling public property and interests and accepting bribes, which belongs to corruption.
When public interests conflict with officials' own interests, there will be opportunities or incentives for corruption, that is, officials abuse public power to seek benefits for individuals or groups. When there are opportunities or motives for corruption, officials usually have two choices: corruption or honesty. If the agent chooses honesty, he will get corresponding remuneration, including immediate income and expected income in the future, plus moral satisfaction as an honest official. Immediate income includes salaries, allowances and bonuses of officials, and expected income includes housing, pension and medical insurance. Moral satisfaction is a utility function, which is related to officials' ideological quality and sense of social responsibility, as well as social atmosphere and social praise. For those officials who are altruistic and highly "serving the people", they may stand firm on the issue of corruption, so the utility function of their moral satisfaction is very large, even infinite.
If an official chooses corruption, he will get direct bribe income, but he will pay various costs for it. Corruption cost mainly includes explicit cost and implicit cost. Explicit cost mainly refers to corrupt direct investment; Hidden cost is determined by many factors, including legal disposal cost (legal cost), economic punishment degree (economic cost), spiritual or reputation loss (spiritual cost), and future income loss (pension, housing and medical insurance, etc.). ), and the moral cost of corruption and bribery. His utility function is complicated, and there are two possible outcomes, depending on the probability of being investigated and the probability of escaping.
Whatever officials choose is a rational choice based on their own conditions. Is corruption an economic rational choice? The answer is yes. First of all, corruption is a rational behavior. We often see on TV and newspapers that those corrupt elements in prison bitterly say that they were confused for a moment and did something wrong, and now they regret it, and then they squeeze tears for the camera. This confession of corrupt elements means that their engaging in corrupt activities is a temporary irrational emotional impulse, not a rational behavior. Common sense of economics tells us that they still lie to us like bragging about ordinary people on the stage. Choosing corruption or giving up corruption is an absolutely rational behavior of individuals under given constraints and risk preferences. For a person, this is a major choice in life, and it can't be decided on impulse. In fact, it is rational for him to choose to lie today, because he tried to minimize his corruption cost-punishment. In fact, corruption is a series of carefully managed business activities, and every step has concerns about profits and risks. If you are not careful, you will lose money and even bury the curse.