ADVERTISEMENT
Music and Art at the Ukrainian Institute of America
Posted by Petunia on August 26, 2005 at 22:48:50:
I came across a piece written by a Peace Corps volunteer and wanted to share it here. Harsh living conditions always lead to people engaged in survival mode and engaging in behavior that they would not under ideal conditions engage in. The most extreme example is when people have resorted to cannibalism of the dead in order to survive - Donner party, plane wrecked in South America, ...
A Short History of Corruption
Mark Raczkiewycz
BE XXII, Ivano-Frankivsk
Some things never change. Corruption and everything associated with it (graft, nepotism, bribery,
clout) is one of them. Defined as the abuse of public office for private gain, the NGO Transparency
International ranked Ukraine 125 out 146 in 2004 on the degree of corruption seen by business people
and country analysts. It used 10 surveys to determine this and gave Ukraine a score of 2.2 where
10 is “highly clean” and 0 being “highly corrupt”. Needless to say, bribery and corruption
is counterproductive to a smooth running economic system. The reasons are obvious for it produces
cynicism and a general distrust of institutions. It destroys people’s trust in the integrity of
professional services, of governement and the courts, of law enforcement, religion, and anything
it touches. It treats people as commodities whose honor can be bought and sold, thus it tends to
degrad the respect we owe to other human beings.
This is the easy part. It’s easier to ask the right questions than answer them correctly, which is this
article’s main endeavor: how has corruption deeply rooted itself in the Ukrainian psyche, people, bureaucracy
and business institutions? Linguistics offer clues. In Ukrainian, a bribe is khabar, which is Old
Slavonic for obtaining something for nothing or without any effort. Khabar is synonomous with
its Russian equivalents of vzyatka (to acquire or take), baryshi (an economical term meaning
the amount of money remaining after one unit of sale), nazhyva (a person who loans money on
percent – shylocking, loan sharks), pozhiva (to receive something for free).
Historically speaking, bribery and corruption evolved gradually so that today it’s considered a normal
part of life; moreover it is institutionalized. These practices have existed for a minimum of two
centuries during Russian, Tsarist, and Soviet rule. Prince Bakunin noted in the 19th century that, “there
is stealing and corruption everywhere, including in the most honest Germany, but in Russia I think
there is more stealing and corruption than in any other state.” As is well-known, under the Soveit system
of restrictive resource allocation, economic crime, theft, ad bribery constituted an inextricable
part of citizens’ subsistence strategies. Even the highest Soviet officials acknowledged the
impossiblility of obeying every rule. “No one lives on wages alone, “ former Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev once said. “I remember in my youth we earned money by unloadig freight cars. So, what
did we do? Three crates or bags unloaded and one for ourselves. That’s how everyone lives.”
The first reason for pervasive corruption is ill respect for the law. Bypassing “unreasonable”
regulations or laws via bribery is wholly logical. This is why it is easy to bribe traffic police and
why it is justifiable when taxes regulating business activity are perceived as too restrictive. Some
proverbs paint a vivid image: “Wherever there is law, there is also insult” (gde zakon, tam i
obida); “law is a pole of a cart, you can handle it as you like (zakon dyshlo: kuda zakhochesh, tuda i
vorotish).
Another reason is the existence of an informal network of favor exchanges called blat, which is
very much part of Ukrainian society. Established to deal with restricted resource allocation, blat
helped people to obtain even the most basic consumer goods and services, where were otherwise
unavailable due to the shortcomings of the planned economy. Already, by Brezhnev’s time during
the 1970’s, twenty percent of the Soviet economy was in the shadows.
Connections were and still are a vital elemnt of successfully closing deals with officials – without
them, one could hardly buy a TV set, car, washing machine, proper medical treatment, etc. A
real-estate lawyer I interviewed said she regularly pays bribes to the passport agency when she
needs expedient service. The passport agency, according to policy, issues a new passport in 10 days,
for a $100 she could receive it in three. Other times, she just discreetly “leaves” a bag full of goodies
in the room filled with champagne, candies, whiskey, sausage and meets as well. This explains
why Ukrainian today still prefer to use their connections in their dealings with officialdom. People simply
fel more comfortable being acquainted with, for example, a physician in a local medical center.
The bedrock, however, for the development of such an institution was laid much earlier by the
agrarian character of the Ukrainian population. A rural community is characterized by a prevalence
of so called “ascribed trust” – trust within kinship groups and extended families. Hence the
prevelance of nepotism when hiring employees. Personal connections play a significant role in a
community’s subsistence ability: the closer the ties among the members are, the more likely they are to cooperate
and make the community competitive on the market of basic agrarian products. Indeed, a considerable
amount of Ukrainians live in the countryside, while first and second generation descendant of peasants
now residing in towns and cities comprise another large segment of the population.
Then there’s the “master/slave” relationship that encourages “clientism” also originating in the
Soviet era. Clientism is a society with vertical ties (as opposed to horizontal relationships among
equals). Relations between ordinary citizens and state officials resemble those between patron and
client. Subjected to the Polish, Russian, and Soviet authorities, the mostly rural or agrarian Ukrainians
have always been in a position of “client” to their Polish and Russian overlords. The Tsarist
and Soviet bureacracies were especially designed according to this type of kleptocracy, with land taxes
not only generating income, but also ensuring the maintenance of dependency and loyalty. For instance,
the head accountant of a sausage factory I spoke to gives 30-40% of the VAT government
refunds straight back the the Tax Administration she deals with while she pockets 10% of it for
arranging the refund – many companies in Ukraine still are owed VAT refunds dating back to several years.
This type of operation is called “otkad” in Russian, literally meaning “recoil”.
Therefore, clientism creates a rigid hierarchy that leaves little or no place for relationships of equality
between the public and officialdom. This manifests itself in feeling of inequlity and is bolstered by
Ukrainians’ lack of awareness of their rights – another situation for corruption. By the way, Ukrainian
law considers any gift, monetary or otherwise a bribe when over 17 UAH.
Going further back, bribery is a remnant of the old system of kormlenie (feeding). In Kievan-Rus,
the ruler and his agents conducted poliud’e (a tribute collector) through each district of the territory. Article
42 of Russkaya Pravda, the oldest collection of laws supposed to have been compiled under the Yarolsav
the Wise (ruled 1015-1054), prostulates the amount of money and food for official tribute collectors
and their horses which were to be provided by local residents for one week which were to be provided
by local residents over one week. This is called the kormlenie system. When the Tartar-Mongols came they
didn’t stay as occcupiers, they just collected tributes from fiefdoms. This exacerbated bribery in the sense
that the more powerful Russian princes would pillage their own lands to gain favor (and be granted more
power/autonomy) with their overlords until they grew in might and refused to pay.
Distrust of justice and the police is also historically deep-rooted. The judicial system in Tsarist Russia,
especially before the 1864 reforms, may be characterized by “disorder, brutality, arbitrariness and corruption”.
It was organized on a class basis, with seprate courts and different punishments for the nobility,
the clergy, the urban population, and the remnants of the free peasantry. Courts also had a reputation
for ineffectiveness. At the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I there were 2,000,000 cases
awaiting decision, and 127,000 persons in jail, expecting sentence. Thus evolved “legal nihilism” or
“moral dualism” so prevelant today. Customary law (informal) evolved as reciprocal human interactions
within a community (ponyatiye), while bureacratic law (formal) is the law formed through
the vertical relationship of order and obediance within power relations of the state. An overwhelming majority
of Ukrainian law has been of the bureacratic or administrative type. Thus, the law which the citizens
have independently established in order to create internal order of the civil society forms “moral dualism”
and denial of actual laws that are in place.
Now its tougher on the supply side of bribery. Once there was one bribe-taker: the party/state apparatus.
Today, additional bribes are needed, especially in business and academia. So what for many is a
common day occurrence, to the Westerner its shocking. Taking the high, moral road, isn’t too wise. 19th
century America was riddled with graft. Chicago still is thanks to the Daley clan complete with “clout”,
shady deals in winning city contracts and the like.
http://pcukraine.org/content/ukraine/issues/04-05.pdf