Lakoff was More on anti-corruption
Greetings Pen 'Ellers, Thanks Joanna for forwarding Lakoff's interview. I've enjoyed reading Lakoff, especially on philosophy and mathematics. Lakoff argues for 'embodiment' which I think helps to clarify the many muddy arguments about cognition and dissipate the mind duality that permeates the culture in the developed countries. Additionally, Lakoff was a student of Chomsky's and participated in the so-called language wars and broke with Chomsky over the issue of inheriting a grammar structure in the brain. So Lakoff to my way of understanding things, continues a solid left historical perspective on thought. Given that, Lakoff's approach to moral systems seems to me to have some problems. First is interpretation of framing to use in language to bind a social community. It seems to me not so obvious as Lakoff makes his system seem that framing can be used to build a left movement. What seems to me to be missing is a way to map a moral system so we can build with it. My first guess about moral systems is that they reflect values or the structure of emotion that binds cortex structures together. So if we talk about moral systems we have to really have a grasp of emotional structure as well as the language structures of metaphor. Secondly while Lakoff has powerful things to say about metaphor, and extremely useful, it seems to me that the structure of using that is not well addressed. What I imagine in this case is that an architecture of moral systems is possible to consider. This sort of reasoning on my part looks rather like the historical processes that religions try to accomplish. Essentially how to construct societies on the larger and larger scale where everyone can be together in very large units. To give an example if one considers the bible as an example, the prohibitions against killing probably reflected the conflict structure of groups being modified for a larger tribal structure than nomadic peoples previously could not have considered. In other words the emotion structure that previously led to groups killing individuals was being modified to adapt to a much larger social structure. Emotion structure underlies 'moral' systems. Moral systems as I think Lakoff rightly observes are metaphorical, i.e. neural network like, but without an adequate theory of value (emotion structure) using just metaphor is to me a laborious endeavor to track down how words are currently being used. This neglects the change that happens in word usage as well. If one incorporates emotion structure into a metaphorical system I think one could look at that as well as a labor process. So that to take the metaphor of architecture a step further, each person constantly helps build an overall 'moral' system of the whole society. So that we might consider how to automate parts of the architecture to increase productivity. thanks, Doyle
Re: More on anti-corruption
- Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-corruption information at http://www.nobribes.org/ and www.transparency.org . Transparency International has branches in several countries. For the Global Corruption Report 2003, see http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download.shtml Some of the analytical methods in these reports point precisely to the weakness of the definition of corruption given earlier. *Corruption is defined as the abuse of public power for private gain.* Rather than simply contest the definition, I'll relay a story and try to keep it short. A couple of years ago I was at a debate between a former Canadian MP, then working at the Canadian Consulate in Seattle, and a friend as well as one of those eminently replaceable PR people from the Chamber of Commerce. During the Q A the guy from Canada told how -I'm paraphrasing and compressing, in Canada, he was given $25,000 to run his election campaign, the reporting requirements and the like and if I spent one dollar over that amount I would be thrown in jail for [X] years. By this standard your American system is totally corrupt. He then went into a not too short excursus on the problems of political patronage as they relate to trade issues. Now, given the above definition, nothing US elected representatives do is considered corruption precisely because they are not abusing public office for private gain. They are simply using it to grant advantages to their campaign contributors. Sure it lines the coffers of the two parties, which after all, are caught up in the accumulation game themselves. Yet the system of political patronage in the US is not that different from the corruption many see in African states. Indeed one could make the argument that what has gone on in Africa for the last 50 years is not much different from the settling of the US in the nineteenth century. And yet the US scores rather well compared to say, Nigeria on the corruption index. Most US citizens casually perusing left-liberal muckraking journalism on campaign contributions etc. have no problem seeing the current system in place as corrupt, yet their intuitions, which I have enormous sympathies with, are not captured in the above definition precisely because those in power have legalized the ever evolving norms of patronage as the political economy changes and grows. Hence the above definition is too thin precisely because it creates a blind spot regarding how the corruption got legitimated -cumulative causation and all that. I take the current structuring of patronage as just so much of a 'objectified corruption' as many commonly refer to capital as 'objectified labor' or 'dead labor.' Yet the moment we let the above definition serve as the baseline norm from which many other forms of corruption are excluded by definition, we concede too much to the political parties that are ruining governments across the planet. A perfect example is the SC passing Buckley v. Valeo. Am I the only one to see the corrupt conflict of interests involved in having Republican and Democrat judges legitimize the idea of money as speech which just so happens to ensure an enormous stream of cash for the parties of which they are members? I don't think so and neither do all the solid people pushing for substantive campaign finance reform, yet the above definition kind of pre-empts their ability to call the current system corrupt. If we say that the political process by which property rights are constructed and delegated to agents in the economy is not corrupt precisely because those who hold office have legalized the process whereby money is exchanged in order to secure legislation favorable to some interests vis a vis other interests by any definition of corruption [attuned to historical facts as much as the analytical coherence of our definition etc.] we care to articulate, then what is the normative basis from which we can declare that capitalist systems of property and contract are violative of the norms of democratic liberalism itself -freedom/justice etc.? Clearly the definition of corruption above attempts to define away the historical process whereby capitalist property rights became institutionalized even as we see how corruption today with the above definition, in many cases, bears an uncanny resemblance to the manner in which so-called primitive accumulation many centuries ago brought forth capitalism as we know it today. Usual caveats, Ian
Re: More on anti-corruption
These days the bourgeoisie likes to plunder with love. Privacy ? We will provide it for the working class. Lovers ? We will provide them for the working class. Jobs ? We will provide them for the working class ? Human decency ? We will provide it for the working class. The bourgeois are bourgeois, for the benefit of the working class. But you must remember, there is always a sackrifice to be made, and you must remember that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all our sins. And thus the blood shed in our humanitarian effort to integrate people into a peaceful market is not in vain, and history shall absolve us after we are dead. Jurriaan
Re: More on anti-corruption
And yet the US scores rather well compared to say, Nigeria on the corruption index... I agree that there's no way one could create a corruption index. It can't be quantified. Yet the moment we let the above definition serve as the baseline norm ... I didn't know that the discussion was normative in focus. As I noted, corruption is defined relative to bourgeois right, which is itself corrupt. Jim
Re: More on anti-corruption
- Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] And yet the US scores rather well compared to say, Nigeria on the corruption index... I agree that there's no way one could create a corruption index. It can't be quantified. Yet the moment we let the above definition serve as the baseline norm ... I didn't know that the discussion was normative in focus. As I noted, corruption is defined relative to bourgeois right, which is itself corrupt. Jim All your response does is to push the baseline norm issue 'back' one step. Corruption as a sociological term is irreducibly normative. All hail the hermeneutic circle :- Ian
Re: More on anti-corruption
I agree that there's no way one could create a corruption index. It can't be quantified. You mean it is an externality cost and we cannot establish a price for it ? Then of course it must be corruption ! A respected Jungian psychotherapist once told me that Marx was rubbish and I should drop that for my mental health's sake. It occurred to me that of course Marx had to be rubbish, because Marx operates with a concept of economic value which cannot be quantified. Or so they say. J.
Re: More on anti-corruption
The physics formula F = M.a is circular, because each term is defined by the other two. The concept of a point in geometry is also circular. These examples (and many others) suggest that there is nothing wrong with circular definitions, as long as one is clear about the nature of that circularity. of course, corruption is normative in the sense that it violates (official) bourgeois norms. But I didn't know that _pen-l's_ discussion was normative, i.e., that someone was proposing that corruption was _the_ problem to be opposed or something like that. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Eubulides [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 1:08 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] More on anti-corruption - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] And yet the US scores rather well compared to say, Nigeria on the corruption index... I agree that there's no way one could create a corruption index. It can't be quantified. Yet the moment we let the above definition serve as the baseline norm ... I didn't know that the discussion was normative in focus. As I noted, corruption is defined relative to bourgeois right, which is itself corrupt. Jim All your response does is to push the baseline norm issue 'back' one step. Corruption as a sociological term is irreducibly normative. All hail the hermeneutic circle :- Ian
Re: More on anti-corruption
Isn't this thread getting corrupted? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: More on anti-corruption
- Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 1:24 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] More on anti-corruption The physics formula F = M.a is circular, because each term is defined by the other two. The concept of a point in geometry is also circular. These examples (and many others) suggest that there is nothing wrong with circular definitions, as long as one is clear about the nature of that circularity. = There are virtuous and vicious circles in philosophy of science, epistemology etc. You are on the edge of a vicious circle regarding the relation between corruption and bourgeois right. Walter Gallie, anyone? of course, corruption is normative in the sense that it violates (official) bourgeois norms. But I didn't know that _pen-l's_ discussion was normative, i.e., that someone was proposing that corruption was _the_ problem to be opposed or something like that. = The discussion was normative from the get go even as no one suggested that corruption was *the* problem. I'm done. Ian
Re: More on anti-corruption
Jim wrote: The physics formula F = M.a is circular, because each term is defined by the other two. The concept of a point in geometry is also circular. These examples (and many others) suggest that there is nothing wrong with circular definitions, as long as one is clear about the nature of that circularity. In the tradition of Italian Marxism based on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci, Galvano della Volpe tackled this problem. ...della Volpe to unify the achievements of both philosophical traditions: that of reason coinciding roughly with the recognition of the necessity of meaningful conceptual relations (unity, deduction, contradiction) and that of matter with the recognition of the distinct and discrete nature of reality and our experience of it (multiplicity, induction, noncontradiction). It follows that scientific cognition requires the circular (concrete-abstract-concrete) process of testing hypotheses by experiment, that is, reason with matter (praxis). The use of historical determinate abstractions (in della Volpe's conception determinate abstractions are the opposite of idealist abstraction, in that the chain of abstractions can always be controlled and verified, the meaning generated by the process of abstraction can be followed back to its origins in empirical reality) was della Volpe's answer to idealist abstraction, where idea and reality are improperly mediated, giving rise to vicious circles and hypostases in the logical argument. His interest in logic and gnosiology found its crowning achievement in Logica come scienza positiva [Logic as a positive science - New Left Books] (1950, 2d ed., 1956, ed. Ignazio Ambrosio, 1969), where he elaborates the specific logic of a specific object (for della Volpe this follows from his conception of determinate abstractions: each field of scientific inquiry should rationally be limited by material or empirical properties of this field; the resulting chain of abstractions, hypotheses, theories, and sciences will thus be shaped by the object of inquiry). He also applied this methodological approach in working through the contradictions of opposing traditions in the realm of ethics and politics. The development of socialism out of bourgeois individualism (and its legal implications) was his principal concern, and the result was Rousseau e Marx (1957, 4th ed., 1964). Finally della Volpe extended his scientific method to the realm of aesthetics, countering the Romantic tradition by emphasizing the cognitive aspects of art rather than the fantastic. The resulting summa is Critica del gusto [A Critique of Taste] (1960, 3d ed., 1966). Source: http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/galvano_dell a_volpe.html Lucio Colletti was a student of della Volpe, but Colletti abandoned Marxism in the end. Colletti's theory of value seemed radical, Marxist and orthodox, but really wasn't. However at the John Hopkins University they appear to think all this is mysticism, and no match for good old American pragmatism, and what we need in this great nation, is a pragmatic approach to Iraq and other world problems, a bit of fellatio and Bob's your uncle, why the fuss and why all the theoretical ostentation ?Well the fuss really is that idealist abstractions can kill people, even if pragmatically advanced, and of course della Volpe had the experience of Italian fascism, which Americans do not have. The whole point of Marx's dialectical approach is to break out of tautologies, to import the empirical in a non-arbitrary, reasoned way which escapes from circularity. His argument is that price theory is ultimately circular, because it assumes what it tries to prove, explaining prices in terms of prices, and thus cannot explain why a price level must necessarily exist when supply and demand coincide (see my previous posts on equilibrium). Rather than abstract from time in the consideration of prices and thus succumbing to the logic of the commodity form, in which exchange-value negates use-value and vice-versa, for the parties in the price negotiation, and thus converts price into a static, impersonal datum, a thing abstracted from a relation, he argues that the problem must be tackled through historical thinking, i.e. the problem of valuation can only be tackled by including the historical, temporal dimension and understanding the real sequence of events, where goods are produced, then priced, and then sold. Only by going beyond the spere of competition in the market place, where tradeable obkject are bought and sold, can we discover the social framework which contains the market and provides it with its dynamics. In economics we could approach the circular flows of transactions from any number of different angles, but not all ways of viewing economic life can provide a consistent theoretisation. But Marx acknowledges that the lack of a consistent theoretisation can be in fact the product of the very object being theorised itself, namely an economic object of
Re: More on anti-corruption
Jurriaan Bendien wrote We only make progress if we extract the hidden logic behind the metaphors that paralyse our thinking. Yes. True. Interestingly enough, the following was posted to LBO a few days ago. I knew Lakoff at UC Berkeley when his star was rising. He was doing interesting work and so was his ex wife, Robin Lakoff. There's a lot to work through in his observations and suggestions, and I would be interested in a discussion if anyone cares to respond. I'm in deadline mode at work right now, which is why I haven't forwarded this sooner. But, hell, there's always the very late evening hours... Joanna __ Message: 3 From: alex lantsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LBO [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 13:14:39 -0800 Subject: [lbo-talk] Lakoff on language and politics Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003 BERKELEY With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff. The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive. In 2000 Lakoff and seven other faculty members from Berkeley and UC Davis joined together to found the Rockridge Institute, one of the only progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S. The institute offers its expertise and research on a nonpartisan basis to help progressives understand how best to get their messages across. The Richard Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the College of Letters Science, Lakoff is the author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, first published in 1997 and reissued in 2002, as well as several other books on how language affects our lives. He is taking a sabbatical this year to write three books ? none about politics ? and to work on several Rockridge Institute research projects. In a long conversation over coffee at the Free Speech Movement Café, he told the NewsCenter's Bonnie Azab Powell why the Democrats just don't get it, why Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and why conservatives will continue to define the issues up for debate for the foreseeable future. Why was the Rockridge Institute created, and how do you define its purpose? I got tired of cursing the newspaper every morning. I got tired of seeing what was going wrong and not being able to do anything about it. The background for Rockridge is that conservatives, especially conservative think tanks, have framed virtually every issue from their perspective. They have put a huge amount of money into creating the language for their worldview and getting it out there. Progressives have done virtually nothing. Even the new Center for American Progress, the think tank that John Podesta [former chief of staff for the Clinton administration] is setting up, is not dedicated to this at all. I asked Podesta who was going to do the Center's framing. He got a blank look, thought for a second and then said, You! Which meant they haven't thought about it at all. And that's the problem. Liberals don't get it. They don't understand what it is they have to be doing. Rockridge's job is to reframe public debate, to create balance from a progressive perspective. It's one thing to analyze language and thought, it's another thing to create it. That's what we're about. It's a matter of asking 'What are the central ideas of progressive thought from a moral perspective?' How does language influence the terms of political debate? Language always comes with what is called framing. Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like revolt, that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame. 'Conservatives understand what unites them, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.' -George Lakoff If you then add the word voter in front of revolt, you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like voter revolt ? something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the
Re: More on anti-corruption
- Original Message - From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jurriaan Bendien wrote We only make progress if we extract the hidden logic behind the metaphors that paralyse our thinking. == In the above, extract is a metaphor and the assertion itself relies on space/motion as a metaphor. Surely there are *other* ways of metaphorizing making progress. Nothing is hidden. [Wittgenstein]
Re: More on anti-corruption
In California they claim to have a handle on this problem, and ensure that through good sexual development all abstract concepts are correctly anchored in the brains of the individual, creating consistent behaviour in which no corruptions or inconsistencies can occur. And then they elect Arnold Schwarzendegger. J. - Original Message - From: Eubulides [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 1:02 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] More on anti-corruption - Original Message - From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jurriaan Bendien wrote We only make progress if we extract the hidden logic behind the metaphors that paralyse our thinking. == In the above, extract is a metaphor and the assertion itself relies on space/motion as a metaphor. Surely there are *other* ways of metaphorizing making progress. Nothing is hidden. [Wittgenstein]
Re: More on anti-corruption
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] forwarded this article for comment: Jurriaan Bendien wrote We only make progress if we extract the hidden logic behind the metaphors that paralyse our thinking. Yes. True. Interestingly enough, the following was posted to LBO a few days ago. I knew Lakoff at UC Berkeley when his star was rising. He was doing interesting work and so was his ex wife, Robin Lakoff. There's a lot to work through in his observations and suggestions, and I would be interested in a discussion if anyone cares to respond. I'm in deadline mode at work right now, which is why I haven't forwarded this sooner. But, hell, there's always the very late evening hours... Joanna __ From: alex lantsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics Conservatives use money to buy mouthpieces to set the political agenda. Whoever sets the agenda of a meeting can dominate the debate. This is something which most leftists should have digested by this day and age. By Bonnie Azab Powell, Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff. They hire a out a stable of intellectuals who then churn out appropriately worded documents which are given voice through their extensive ties to media conglomerates which, in turn, want to make money by selling ads to businesses. They won't be selling many ads to businesses if the ideas which they promote aren't pro-business. The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive. This has a lot to do with the fact that most 'progressives' do not understand nor do they promote a critique of Capital. The conservatives set the political agenda (how best to run our country) and the 'progressives' respond to it in an equally pro-business way. snip.. Lakoff was quoted saying: The background for Rockridge is that conservatives, especially conservative think tanks, have framed virtually every issue from their perspective. They have put a huge amount of money into creating the language for their worldview and getting it out there. Stick a pin there. The conservatives have a lot of money. They put their money where their mouths are. They have an overwhelmingly loud voice as a result. Progressives have done virtually nothing. Even the new Center for American Progress, the think tank that John Podesta [former chief of staff for the Clinton administration] is setting up, is not dedicated to this at all. I asked Podesta who was going to do the Center's framing. He got a blank look, thought for a second and then said, You! Which meant they haven't thought about it at all. And that's the problem. Liberals don't get it. They don't understand what it is they have to be doing. The base of the left no longer understands the basic critique of the wages system to wit: the workers create all social wealth not found in Nature. The workers get only a small share of the wealth they create because the legal structures of the bourgeois State enforce a kind of legalized robbery from them. This robbery has become the norm. To go outside this norm (i.e. to use the State to tax the rich and funnel the money they've stolen back to the poor via programs) is to be labled silly or unrealistic by your average Joe on the street, who after all is said and done, aspires to one day be rich himself (women included of course). So, the conservatives set the political agenda. They appear more 'realistic' than the liberals. They are more realistic because they are not perceived as being namby-pamby. They let things work as they are supposed to (naturally, according to human nature) rewarding the most daring of the risk takers (isn't Bill Gates great!) with the greatest share of the wealth created by their employed wage-slaves. Liberals don't want to face up to this fact because they either fear the consequences of abolishing the wage system (Stalin tried that--well maybe). So, they remain forever as the image of those who would tax *US* and make *US* ever poorer and throw our tax money at trying to mollie-coddle the poor (who are really just lazy). Rockridge's job is to reframe public debate, to create balance from a progressive perspective. It's one thing to analyze language and thought, it's another thing to create it. That's what we're about. It's a matter of asking 'What are the central ideas of progressive thought from a moral perspective?' Stick another pin there. The left needs to see that the right appeals to self-interest both perceived and real. It should be fairly easy to turn the tables on the conservatives as the wages system is not in the self-interest of
More on anti-corruption
The British Statistical Office estimated that fraud accounted for maybe 11 billion British pounds of foreign trade and up to 0.2 percent of GDP. See: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/economic_trends/ETAug03Ruffles.pdf In the industrialised countries, annual crime victim rates are from one in three victims to one in six victims. In Eastern Europe, the incidence of car theft is especially high. In the Third World, one in five people annually are said to be victims of corruption, and the other big sources of crime are consumer fraud and thefts from cars. For some fraud statistics, see http://www.epaynews.com/statistics/fraud.html Anti-corruption information at http://www.nobribes.org/ and www.transparency.org . Transparency International has branches in several countries. For the Global Corruption Report 2003, see http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download.shtml For statistics on world crime, see http://www.uncjin.org/Statistics/statistics.html and http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/crime_cicp_surveys.html A table showing total recorded crime per 100,000 inhabitants per country is shown at http://www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/sixthsurvey/TotalRecordedCrime.pdf The UN anti-corruption treaty text, adopted by consensus but yet to be ratified, spells out measures to prevent corruption in the public and private sectors and requires governments to cooperate in the investigations and prosecutions of offenders. It establishes a commitment to criminalize bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering, and requires that governments take action in a number of areas - for example in public procurement, public financial management, and in regulating their public officials. Politicians and political parties must declare openly how they finance their election campaigns, and countries must return assets obtained through corruption to the country from where they were stolen. Private-sector bribery is not a crime in the United States. We get at it in other ways, said a U.S. official. This is an area quite distant from determining what is proper conduct in the public sector. It would be intruding into purely private-sector conduct. But Jeremy Pope, executive director of Berlin-based Transparency International, argues that business corruption undermines public confidence in the private sector and can have serious economic and political consequences. Source: http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=1056view=next The new Treaty text complements another landmark treaty, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which entered into force Sept. 29 and requires ratifying countries to cooperate with each other in combatting money laundering, organized crime and human trafficking. According to a 1998 UN declaration, corruption bribery was defined as a) The offer, promise or giving of any payment, gift or other advantage, directly or indirectly, by any private or public corporation, including a transnational corporation, or individual from a State to any public official or elected representative of another country as undue consideration for performing or refraining from the performance of that official's or representative's duties in connection with an international commercial transaction; (b) The soliciting, demanding, accepting or receiving, directly or indirectly, by any public official or elected representative of a State from any private or public corporation, including a transnational corporation, or individual from another country of any payment, gift or other advantage, as undue consideration for performing or refraining from the performance of that official's or representative's duties in connection with an international commercial transaction. The World Bank claims corruption is the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development. It undermines development by distorting the rule of law and weakening the institutional foundation on which economic growth depends. The harmful effects of corruption are especially severe on the poor, who are hardest hit by economic decline, are most reliant on the provision of public services, and are least capable of paying the extra costs associated with bribery, fraud, and the misappropriation of economic privileges. Corruption sabotages policies and programs that aim to reduce poverty, so attacking corruption is critical to the achievement of the Bank's overarching mission of poverty reduction. The World Bank's proposed strategy has the following elements:1. Increasing Political Accountability 2. Strengthening Civil Society Participation 3. Creating a Competitive Private Sector 4. Institutional Restraints on Power 5. Improving Public Sector Management. Jurriaan
