Corruption in
historical
perspective
Prof Mark Knights
Corruption is not a new phenomenon:
It was seen as pervasive in sixteenth, seventeenth,
eighteenth and early nineteenth century GB
Contested definitions led to
contested causes
Corruption is in the eye of
the beholder
Two types
of
explanation
1)
Corruption
was the
result of
personal
vices
Charles James Fox
The body politic
– His right ribs
are 'Duplicity',
'Drunkenness',
'Whoredom',
'Gambling',
'Envy',
'Inconsistency',
'Prophaness';
His left ribs:
'Enmity',
'Cruelty',
'Madness',
'Distress',
'Treachery',
'Ingratitude',
'Despair'.
Flattery
Idol
Worship
(1740)
"Wealth",
"Pride",
"Vanity",
"Folly",
"Luxury",
"Want",
"Dependance",
"Servility",
"Venality",
"Corruption"
and
"Prostitution"
the devil as agent and
collaborator
So we have a
very wide
definition of
corruption and
its causes
Perceptions and
reputations:
Samuel Pepys
• naval reformer who
complained about the
corruption of others
and in 1665 resolved
not to take bribes
• John Evelyn described
his dead friend as a
‘universally belov’d’
Corrupt Pepys?
Sexual corruption: procuring sex
Pepys and Hewer must ‘refund all the
money they have unjustly taken …
from Sea-Captains, Consuls,
Lieutenants, Masters, Boatswains,
Gunners, Carpenters and Pursers; or
from their Wives or Sons or
Daughters; Or from Some of the
Officers in the Dock Yards; as Master
Ship-Wrights, Master of Attendance,
or Clerk of the Cheques, and
Storekeeprs &c
Pepys raises important questions
about ‘causes’
What is the relationship between private and public
corruption? What private virtues are necessary
and does public corruption inevitably follow
private vice? And how was virtue defined in an
era of increasing secularisation, when religious
virtues seemed less prized?
Are accusations of corruption esp. failings of an
individual, part of a political game?
Is there a tendency to focus on individual wrongdoers rather than the system in which they
operate?
2) Systemic explanations of corruption
William Cobbett saw
an interconnected
‘system of public
corruption’ that
operated like an
‘immense machine’
to oppress the
people – he called
it ‘the thing’.
John Bull
oppressed
by the
weight of
taxcollectors,
courtiers,
lawyers,
soldiers,
clerics and
the
monarchy –
the system
in action
John Bull flattened by a ‘tax machine’
John Bull ground down in another
machine
Or the metaphor of a monstrous system: a hydra of bad
government with interconnected heads of
‘Despotism’, ‘tyranny’, ‘oppression’, ‘secret influence’
So what key things underlay ‘the
system’?
Contemp
analysis
differed
and
priorities
and
weightings
varied:
• Rotten
political
system
• A parasitical court, church and legal system
• a rotten financial system. It was the Stuart
problem in the C17th. Exacerbated after the
financial revolution after 1688. Cobbett
advised readers with money "Put it into no
funds, no saving banks, no societies, no
common stock; for, all these must, at last, rest
upon the Paper System, than which a cobweb
is not more fragile" (Register 39 [1821], 125-26)
Undue access to central resources: money being turned
on like a tap for those with the right access
• The growth of a ‘fiscal-military state’
– Financial system increased state’s resources
– Control of state’s resources was part of the
political game
– It yoked money and power together
– It began to demand a bureaucracy and hence
changed the nature of office-holding service
performed out of public duty to one resting on
mercenary, self-interest
– It was capable of fighting large scale war and
hence expanded the armed forces
• The growth of an
empire
– Different cultural
norms (Warren
Hastings)
– An empire fuelled by
semi-private
enterprise (e.g. East
India Company):
blurred boundaries.
– Corruption aided
imperialism (empire
as the product of
corruption?) but
also the industrial
revolution
The press
The growth of the press
increases the perception
of corruption but also
acts as a restraint (how
effectively?)
For some, the press was an
agent of corruption –
government propaganda
justified and legitimised
and spun corrupt
practices