Contents

1.0 Introduction 2
2.0 Bribery in Economics 3
2.1 Punishment 4
3.0 Legal Analysis of Bribery 5
4.0 The Ethics of Bribery 6
4.1 Utilitarian Theory 7
4.2 Kantian deontology 8
4. 3 Justice 8
4.4 Objectivism 8
5.0 Conclusion 9
References 10










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1.0 Introduction

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica (2013), bribery is an act of promising, giving,
receiving, or agreeing to receive money or some other item with the corrupt aim of
influencing a public official in the discharge of his official duties. Bribery is not limited to
law officers. Act of bribery can be witnessed in a lot of situations such as in business, politics
and everyday life. Bribery impairs a persons judgement towards something because they
have been persuaded by monetary of invaluable items. Bribery can be in the form of money,
goods, actions, property, preferment, or privileges. Bribery neglects the official process of
decision in favour of a certain results thus it is viewed as unethical.

Bribery can be very different depending on social and cultural norms. For example,
political campaign requires a lot of money. Contributions in the form of cash are considered a
crime however in the United States, provided that they adhere to the election law, these
monetary transactions are considered legal. Therefore, it is safe to say that an act of bribery
can be viewed from different angles to justify its meaning. For example, imagine getting
pulled over by a police office and about to get a ticket for RM300 for traffic law obstruction.
Then the officer gives you two options which are; 1) To pay the ticket for RM300 or 2) give
the officer RM150 and he would just go away. From the moral point of view, you probably
would just pay the ticket price of RM300 because it was the right thing to do and you would
consider paying the officer RM150 as an act of bribery. However, in terms of economics,
paying the officer should be the first choice. By paying the cop, you save RM 150 which you
would consume. The cop would have and extra RM150 in his pocket which he would
eventually consume contributing to economic flow. You would also save some time from
dealing with legal matters and going places to pay for the ticket.




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2.0 Bribery in Economic

The economic analysis of bribery has two broad categories. First, economics can help isolate
the underlying factors that produce corrupt incentives, independent of the strength of bribery
laws. Second, economic principles can help one assess the laws and policies against bribery
to see whether they deter payoffs effectively. Different types of bribery have different costs
that depend on background conditions and it is possible in principle for some bribes to be
beneficial if they overcome unfair, inhumane or inefficient practices. For example, bribery
might permit someone to escape oppressive regime or it might allocate important quotas to
the most efficient firms. However, bribery is always a second-best outcome where if bribery
overcomes inefficient rules, the best policy is either to repeal the rule or to legalize payments.
The economic analysis of bribery suggests a way to think about reform strategies. For
example, do the payments produce harmful results? If there are harmful consequences, what
are the relative merits of redesigning the program to limit bribery, of legalizing a formerly
illegal activity or of implementing enhanced legal controls to catch and punish those who
receive payoffs?

Bribery in economics deals with government officials and politicians who take or
solicit payoffs. Some private-to-private corruption occurs because the police are ineffective
or corrupt. Organized crime groups may extort payoffs from shop owners in return for
protection from themselves and from rival gangs. However, there are cases where business
may benefit from organized crime connections if they succeed in frightening away potential
entrants and in producing monopoly profits to be shared between gangster members and
firms. Anticorruption policy concerns not only the way corruption undermines efforts to
control illegal; businesses but also the possibility that widespread corruption in one area will
spill over into other aspects of law enforcements, undermining the law and authorities. Many
bribe payers are better off in a corrupt than an honest system. For example, the briber obtains
a government contract over his competition, an honest person that does his work ethically. In
such cases, the program must be redesigned or a control must be established. Bribery is a
common problem in the developing world. One contributing factor is the propensity of
developing countrys intervention in their economics. They often attempt to guide, direct and
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control economic activity in order to promote the desired pace and style or economic
development.

2.1 Punishment

Bribery is a form of transaction therefore, there are two parties involved in the act of
bribery. The briber is often referred to as an active bribery while the recipient is
referred to as passive bribery. The bribe will not occur if the law can deter at least one
of the parties and bribe paying is worse than bribe acceptance. However, both parties
are still guilty of criminal offences and most statutes impose parallel punishment. This
is because neither side is truly passive because both parties must agree before
corruption can occur. There are some countries that do not give parallel punishment.
In Taiwan for example paying off an official is only a crime when the payment is
made to obtain illegal service. Under the Romanian law, making a payoff is not a
crime if the briber has been coerced in any way by the one who received the bribe
(Schroth and Boston, 2004). Legal distinction between bribery and extortion is not
straightforward and sometimes a person can be guilty of both. In practice, the briber
and the recipient may bargain over the size of the bribe in light of the expected
penalty functions that each one faces. These functions depend on both on the chance
that the deal will be uncovered and on the penalty levied on conviction. For example,
if the briber faces a maximum penalty, while the bribees expected penalty is an ever
increasing function of its gains, the division of the benefits will be affected by these
differing conditions. At some point, the bribe recipient will reach his or her maximum
bribe beyond which the costs outweigh the benefits. In contrast, the briber may be
willing to contemplate very large corrupt deals because beyond some point, the
penalties are not well tailored to the scale of the deal. The law, not only deters some
bribery schemes altogether but it also can influence the division of gains from corrupt
deals.


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3.0 Legal Analysis of Bribery

Bribery is an obstacle in socio-economic development. It creates major distortion of trade as
well as undermining the democratic development of emerging markets. In the United
Kingdom, the Bribery Act 2010 was established that covers the criminal law relating to
bribery. The act renewed the countrys stand on bribery by repelling all previous statutory
and common law provisions in relation to bribery. It replaces the laws provision on the crime
of bribery such as being bribed, bribery of foreign public officials, commercial organisations
failing to prevent bribes being paid on their behalf and the failure of a commercial
organisation to prevent bribery on its behalf. The act was dubbed as the toughest anti-
corruption legislation in the world and rising above the standard set up by the United States
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

An honest law enforcement system can deter the act of bribery unfortunately;
corruption law enforcement itself is widespread and can affect the incidence of all types of
crimes. In developing countries especially, law enforcement officials are often not paid well
enough and cannot be deterred by fines that exceed their familys wealth.

From a legal point of view, bribery is an act of two parties an active and
passive bribery. Active bribery in legal point is defined as the promising, offering or giving
by any person, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage [to any public official], for
himself or herself or for anyone else, for him or her to act or refrain from acting in the
exercise of his or her function. Passive bribery is defined as the request or receipt [by any
public official], directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage, for himself or herself or for
anyone else, or acceptance of an offer of a promise of such advantage, to act or refrain from
acting in the excuse of his or her function (Mauro, 1995).

Bribery usually occurs in organizational hierarchies and in structures with
multiple potential payoffs. Some corruption occurs at the top of government hierarchy where
officials sign major procurement contracts, award concession. Bribe demands not only
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determine law officials and firms divide a fixed pool of tents but also influence frim
behaviour. Bribes are being paid at the bottom of the bureaucratic pyramid but low level
officials share them with superiors. Those at the top organize the entire hierarchy as a bribe-
sharing machine and may pressure those farther down the chain both to become part of the
corrupt system.

Law analysis can help set priorities for anticorruption campaigns, suggest reforms in
program riddled with corruption, recommend law enforcement priorities, and help design
workable law enforcement strategies. Criminal law should not be the first and only line of
attack. Programs should be design, redesign or eliminated and government should operate in
an accountable and transparent manner.

4.0 The Ethics of Bribery

Bribery is definitely an unethical behaviour. There are no pro-bribery points of view in ethics.
Bribery involves inducing someone to violate a duty of loyal service, and it diverts resources
that ought to go to more legitimate ends. For example, suppose person X wants to sell
material to company A. In order to gain sales, X pays bribe to the purchasing agent of the
company. It is difficult to see what X has done which the law would consider as illegal. from
Xs point of view he lowered the price charged to company A by paying a rebate to the
purchasing agent. X would be just as happy to charge ta lower price directly though
presumably he did not so because company A should scarcely be Xs responsibility. The
illicit action here, instead, solely the behaviour of the purchasing agent, the bribes recipient.
The purchasing agents employment contract clearly requires him to purchase materials to the
best of his ability in the interest of the company. Instead, he violated is contract with
company A by not performing as their proper agent.

Another example is in a case of payola that repeatedly arises in radio programs that
play popular records. In a typical payola scandal, a record company bribes a disc jockey to
play their artists record. Presumably, the disk jockey would either not have played the record
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at all or would have played the record fewer times; therefore the record is being played at the
expense of other artists which would have been played more frequently if the disc jockey had
evaluated the record purely on the basis of his or her own or even the publics taste. In a
moral sense the public is being betrayed by the disc jockeys sincerity that turns out to have
been a foolish one. However, the public has no property rights in the radio program and so
they have no legal complaint in the matter. In both cases, bribery causes a legitimate party so
suffer because the act of bribery prevents them from performing their work properly. When
decision makers take gifts or bribes, their decision becomes unpaired in favour of the gift
giver. This action only benefits the briber and the legitimate party suffers due to the
unfairness of the decision. There are four ethical theories can discuss the acts of bribery.

4.1 Utilitarian Theory
The utilitarian theory insists that an action is considered to be right or wrong based on
the consequences of the action and its effects on the majority of people. This means
that the action or practices is ethically correct when it produces more positive
consequences in comparison to negative ones to those who are involved (West, 2004).
The utilitarianism goes by the rule that an action is evaluated to be ethical based on a
set of rules or principles that can bring the greatest usefulness to the greatest amount
of people (Mill, 2006). Tools such as cost benefit analysis and risk assessment are
often depended on by utilitarian for decision making purposes. However, there are
some arguments regarding the greatest happiness principle that is set forth by
utilitarianism. This is due to the difficulty in measuring unit of happiness or in order
to determine an action that will bring the most benefit comparing to other actions.

From the utilitarianism perspective, bribery is a right thing because more
benefit can be gained compared to the normal way. Utilitarianism says that no matter
in what condition, the right action or policy is which give more benefits or less cost.
Indirectly, utilitarianism supports the action or policy that provides the maximum
benefits for the least amount of cost. Utilitarianism views bribery as right in moral
even though it is not fair.

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4.2 Kantian deontology
Kantian deontology stresses that an action is considered to be ethical if it can be
accepted as a universal law by every individual (Makkreel and Luft, 2010). The
Kantian deontology believes that morality must follow a set of rules without any
exceptions. Therefore, this school of thought looks at categorical principles whereby
they are imperatives and instructions are given on the way one must act. Kantianism
also emphasizes on treating each other with respect. A person should not be used as a
mean to get to an end. This means that an individual is bound to their duty to follow a
set of maxim in order to determine whether their actions are ethically right.
Kantianism views bribery as unethical and wrong. It is wrong because of its
dishonesty and the act of making a person as a mean to get to what they desire.

4. 3 Justice
Justice can be defined as the importance of getting fair treatments, equality and
having rights (Rawl, 1999). The theory of justice called Justice as Fairness is the
main principle of this theory. The first principle advocates that every individual
should have equal rights to a fair distribution of social goods such as education, food
and housing. The second principle stresses if there is any existence of social and
economic inequalities, they should benefit members of society who are at the most
disadvantage. Therefore, it supports the redistribution of wealth and taxes to those
who are socially and economically disadvantage. Bribery would be considered as
unjust because it violates the principles of equal liberties and of minimal social
economic inequality.

4.4 Objectivism
Objectivism theory, introduced by Ayn Rand is teleological and egoistic. It is
teleological because it look at the life consequences of action and egoistic because it
encourages each individual to pursue their own selfish interest. The social application
on objectivism is laissez-faire capitalism because the principle that guides and
controls human relationship under capitalism is the principle of trade. The principle
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states that each individual should pursue their own interest, neither sacrificing oneself
to others, nor others to oneself, and deal with one another on a strictly voluntary basis,
trading value for value. Laissez-faire capitalism however should not be confused with
the contemporary economists notion of perfect competition nor with the might make
right form of Nietzschen egoism. This theory opposed to bribery because it involves
dishonesty but not on deontological grounds. Dishonesty is unethical because of its
effects on ones own life. Dishonesty means pretending that something is not what it
really is. Refusing to perceive the facts, is immoral because that act negates and
operates to destroy, the necessary, the objective condition of sustaining ones life;
namely the use of mind and reason to guide ones action. Dishonesty denied the
efficacy of one own mind and makes one dependent on minds of others (Rand,
1964).

4.0 Conclusion
Bribery is definitely a crime when viewed from economic, legal and ethical point of view.
This is because bribery defies an innocent or legitimate party their share and impair the
judgement of the person in charge in favour of the briber. bribery requires two parties, the
briber and the bribe recipient and if caught, both party have to face the law and convicted of
their crime.









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References

Makkreel, R. and Luft, S. 2010. Neo-kantianism in contemporary philosophy. Indiana
University Press. Indiana
Mauro, P. 1995. Corruption and growth, Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (3): 681 712.
Mill, J. 2006. Utilitarianism. ReadHowYouWant. Sydney.
Rand, A. 1964. The Objectivist Ethics in The virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of
Egoism, New American Library, New York
Rawl, J. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Schroth, P.W and Boston, A.D. 2004. International integration and national corruption. Int.
Organ. 57: 761 800
West, H. 2004. An Introduction to Mills Utilitarian Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge

Internet Reference
Bribery Encyclopaedia Britannica
(http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/79186/bribery ) 6 July 2013