Ethics, out of the window

Like evil spirits, corruption haunts human civilisation.

- ANITA PRATAP

The Rig Veda, Old Testament and Quran warn against bribery. The Arthashastra lists 40 ways how bureaucrats embezzle. China had its Book of Swindles. The first recorded cases go back 5,000 years to Egypt, when bribery, embezzlement and nepotism were rampant in the judiciary. In Greece, politically ambitious families bribed the Delphic Oracle. As former British prime minister David Cameron said, "The evil of corruption reaches into every corner of the world."

Corruption is criminal but also political. Left-oriented socialists view corporate influence, foreign interference, dark money, fat-cat donations and tax-avoiding schemes as corruption. Right wing conservatives see corruption in voter fraud, union meddling, graft in bureaucracies, deep-state conspiracies and left-wing bias in public institutions that misuse or waste taxpayers' money. This ideological divide exists in all democracies from Australia to the US. Whatever the form, corruption destroys both faith and state.

These days, corruption masquerades as "foreign lobbying" and "the US is the Mecca of dirty money", says Ben Freeman, author of