With the rapid development of economy and the gradual transformation of social form in China, the wind of corruption is spreading and expanding.
As an unhealthy economic phenomenon, corruption has diversified manifestations. This paper analyzes the economic root of corruption from the following aspects: the main body of corruption (corruptors) analyzes itself; The economic causes of corruption in the process of market economy transformation: during the period of system transformation, the legal system construction lags behind, the power balance softens and there is no independent supervision system.
Corruption harms the image of the government, affects the implementation of economic reform policies, seriously worsens the economic environment, leads to social and economic "internal friction" and hinders economic growth.
Based on this, the author thinks that corruption should be curbed and reduced through "institutional innovation", and advocates the establishment of a new economics discipline-"Corruption Economics", trying to analyze and study corruption as a human social phenomenon from the perspective of economics.
First, corruption-a morbid economic phenomenon.
Since the reform and opening up, with the rapid economic development and the gradual transformation of social form in China, corruption has also spread like a plague in China. Since 1982, China has set off five "strike hard" climaxes: 1982, 1983, 1988- 1990, 1993 and 65433. Today, corruption in the whole country has not been curbed, but has shown a trend of increasing scale and frequency. (See chart 1 and chart 2)
1988- 1992 During the five years, procuratorial organs at all levels in China put on record 2 143 18 cases of corruption and bribery, prosecuted 958 18 people in the people's court, and recovered 2.58 billion yuan of stolen money, involving 638 people at the county level.
1993- 1997, 387,352 cases of violation of law and discipline were put on record nationwide. Among them, corruption cases 102467, bribery cases 70507, embezzlement cases 6 1795, malpractice cases 5507 and dereliction of duty crimes 222 1 1. By handling the case, the country and the collective recovered economic losses of 22.92 billion yuan. In the past five years, * * * has prosecuted 18 1873 defendants for corruption, bribery and dereliction of duty, including 2,903 county-level leading cadres, 265 bureau-level cadres and 7 provincial-level cadres.
From 65438 to 0998, procuratorial organs filed 35084 cases of duty crimes such as corruption, bribery and dereliction of duty, involving 40 162 people, and recovered direct economic losses of 4.38 billion yuan for the state and the collective through handling cases. * * * Xu Bingsong and other three provincial and ministerial cadres, 103 bureau-level cadres, 17 14 county-level cadres were put on file for investigation, and corruption, bribery and misappropriation of public funds 1773 cases were put on file for investigation.
From 65438 cases to 0999 cases, 38382 cases of corruption, bribery and dereliction of duty were filed for investigation, an increase of 9.4% over the previous year. Through handling the case, the country recovered direct economic losses of 4.09 billion yuan. There are 206 county-level cadres1person, bureau-level cadres 136 people and 3 provincial-level cadres suspected of committing crimes.
At the turn of the century, 2000 was a year of frequent cases of corrupt elements: first, the former vice governor of Jiangxi Province was sentenced to death for accepting bribes, then Vice Chairman Cheng of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) was guillotined for accepting huge bribes of 37 million yuan, and then the smuggling case in Xiamen was made public. This is a smuggling crime case investigated since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Smuggled goods are worth 53 billion yuan and tax evasion is 30 billion yuan. The first batch of 14 people involved in the case were sentenced to death, and 25 people involved in party member were expelled from the party and public office, including 8 cadres at the departmental level.
These data warn us that the corruption rate in China is "advancing synchronously" far exceeding the GDP growth rate: on the one hand, the corrupt subjects spread, infiltrate and expand from the middle and low power levels to the high and even the highest power levels; On the other hand, the amount of corruption shows the characteristics of high and huge amount, which has an amazing high-speed development trend. (see chart 3)
The figures are shocking; The reality is even more shocking.
Increasingly serious corruption is endangering the image of the government and becoming a "blockbuster" of social and economic instability. People of insight pointed out with anxiety that the most likely factor to interrupt China's reform and modernization in the future comes from vicious corruption.
The grim reality forces us to make rational analysis and calm thinking on the unhealthy economic phenomenon of corruption from the perspective of economics.
From the perspective of political science, corruption refers to the behavior of public officials who violate recognized norms in order to realize their personal interests. The assumption of this definition is that a country's system and laws are perfect, that is, corruption is a power-related activity that violates the system and laws and is suitable for modern market economy countries.
From the perspective of sociology, corruption is a phenomenon of "institutionalized escape". Here, institutionalization refers to the degree to which social behavior conforms to the social norm system (that is, the specific social system and rules and regulations) and the process that conforms to it, that is, the formulation and implementation of the system.
From the perspective of economics, the basic form of corruption is the exchange of political power and economic wealth, and its essence is "power and money transaction". Marx said that money is a special commodity, but in fact power is a more special commodity under certain economic conditions. Under the market economy system, due to the demonstration effect, as long as one person uses his power to seek special interests for himself, others will follow suit and disappear.
When the desire to charge is extremely high and the consumption level is extremely low, there will be a social phenomenon called "power generalization". Commodity exchange was replaced by "right exchange", and power became a special commodity. "Power listing" promoted the realization of power and money transaction, and then established the right exchange relationship. When it is exchanged with other commodities, including currency, power has continuous exchange value. Do it with power and society
Doing business and earning 100% of the money can be said to be profitable.
In 1970s, American scholar Ze Buchanan put forward a rent-seeking theory. He called "rent" the difference between supply and demand of various factors of production and preferential conditions, that is, the part of the remuneration paid to the owner of the factor that exceeds the remuneration obtained by the factor for any alternative use. These rents are the result of government supervision and market intervention. "Rent-seeking activity" means that enterprises pay bribes to government officials in order to obtain these price differences by rent-seeking. Generally speaking, rent-seeking is to obtain higher income or excess profits at a lower bribe cost. Ze Buchanan believes that the fundamental way to overcome the phenomenon of "rent-seeking" is to cancel the intervention and control of administrative power on the market and conduct fair competition through the market. The government should clearly regulate the management of micro-economy and improve transparency.
Although corruption brings benefits to rent-seekers, it does not increase social wealth. On the contrary, it increases the transaction cost of the whole society, consumes a considerable part of social and economic resources, makes resource allocation inefficient, wastes resources seriously, and leads to social and economic "internal friction". Because of the demonstration effect of rent-seeking activities, corruption becomes vicious. In the absence of market competition and technological innovation, rent-seekers can easily get high or even ultra-high profits, which provides a strong incentive for rent-seekers, attracts more people to join rent-seeking activities, and leads to a wider spread of corruption.
Corruption, a morbid economic phenomenon, as an anti-economic behavior of irrational occupation and possession of social and economic resources and public wealth through power listing, is not based on the effective and rational allocation of social and economic resources. It will only impact and destroy the economic order. Corruption is a response to economic development and social progress.
Second, the main manifestations of corruption
Formally, corruption has diversified characteristics, mainly including the following: corruption and bribery, abuse of power for personal gain, corrupt life, squandering national wealth, providing preferential facilities for special interests, cronyism, part-time business, serious dereliction of duty, graft, graft and so on.
During the period from 1988 to 1998, corruption and bribery cases showed a curve upward trend on the social coordinate map. During this period, procuratorial organs throughout the country filed 642,000 cases of various duty crimes according to reports from the masses, and investigated more than 6 100 leading cadres at or above the county level.
What needs to be pointed out here is that people often hate corruption such as abuse of power for personal gain and bribery, but they do not pay enough attention to the equally serious bureaucracy and dereliction of duty.
199 1 year, as many as 3 189 cases of dereliction of duty were filed for investigation by procuratorial organs at all levels in China, causing direct economic losses to the country as high as 830 million yuan, with an average of more than 260,000 yuan per case. Similarly, there are as many as 3,339 party member cadres punished by discipline inspection departments at all levels for serious bureaucracy and dereliction of duty, and the filing standard is limited to more than 654.38+10,000 yuan.
According to the most conservative estimate, serious corruption such as bureaucracy, dereliction of duty and dereliction of duty will cause at least one to two billion yuan in direct economic losses to the country a year, and the indirect economic losses are estimated to be about three billion yuan. Amazing figures mean that there are 65.438+0.2 billion people in China, and each person has to spend 2-5 million yuan each year to fill the economic "black hole" caused by serious bureaucracy and dereliction of duty, which means that the annual labor achievements of 65.438+0.00 million employees with per capita income of 3,000 years are wasted.
To some extent, the economic losses caused by serious bureaucracy and dereliction of duty are bigger, more and heavier than those caused by corruption, bribery and abuse of power for personal gain.
Third, the analysis of the economic roots of corruption.
(1) Analysis from the subject of corruption (corrupt elements).
L, the infinite expansion and expansion of desire exceeds the "balance point of desire satisfaction", at this time, possessiveness is in a strong dominant state.
In the market economy, officials, as economic people, have self-interest motivation and pursue the satisfaction of desire, and human desire is the driving force of economic behavior. In economics, rational economic man always pursues his own interests. Therefore, it is not unusual for government officials to have self-interested motives. However, in the case of extremely high consumption desire and extremely low consumption level, the difference between the trend of unlimited expansion of human desire and the actual state of social and economic satisfaction of desire is getting bigger and bigger, which means that people's "suppression" of satisfying desire is enhanced. In order to make up for this difference, people have the need to "supplement depression". Therefore, driven by the interest motive, the desire of corrupt subjects gradually pushes into or goes beyond the "equilibrium point of desire satisfaction", and the satisfaction of this desire can be realized through the successful listing of power and the trading of power and money.
2. The expansion of selfish motives (leading to) the alienation of public power (obtaining) personal special interests (inducing) seeking officials, running officials and important officials (forming) "power fetishism" ("power fetishism")
In real economic life, due to the expansion of public officials' self-interest motives, they may turn their public goals (interests) into his personal goals (interests). When this possibility becomes a reality, the actual alienation of public power appears, and its essence is to turn national goals and public interests into personal goals and interests of officials, that is, officials get special interests. This phenomenon lures people to "seek", "run away from" and "be important", and even "buy" officials at great expense, and then make money from them. Power and official position represent fame and fortune here. In the relationship between power and money, power occupies a dominant position, which makes power cast a mysterious and attractive aura, and the size of power and status becomes the value standard to measure people. As a result, "power fetishism" ("power worship") prevailed in the whole society. Because people are convinced that no matter how the economy reforms, as long as the government is in charge of the economy, power will always be the most valuable asset.
3, the demonstration effect of the main behavior, leading to corruption.
There is a vicious circle in rent-seeking activities. Because rent-seeking activities have a learning and demonstration effect, which is an attempt to gain monopoly and special interests and undermine the fairness of market competition, other people or departments will feel "disadvantaged" and then want to "get something for nothing" and "get something for nothing", thus prompting more people to participate in rent-seeking activities. As a result, from top to bottom, from officials to people, corruption is more common and extensive than before.
(2) In the process of market economy transformation, unfair competition based on the listing of economic privileges and monopoly rights, price distortion and dual-track system caused by excessive government intervention in the micro-economy, vague property rights and asset loss of state-owned economy, and money worship, hedonism, extreme individualism and speculative psychology induced by the principle of maximizing the interests of market economy are all economic reasons for corruption.
L, power listing forms unequal competition.
As mentioned above, the listing of power promotes the realization of power and money transactions, and then establishes the exchange relationship of rights. This kind of economic concession or monopoly that violates the principle of fair competition and goes beyond the legal and institutional restrictions, once put into the market as a market factor, has a continuous exchange value and guarantees a profit of 100%.
All this completely violates the principle of "equal opportunity" in economics. In the market economy, competition is a mechanism to create personal income. Only on the basis of equality can the income brought by competition be regarded as the second equality principle of "equal contribution and equal remuneration". Competition, in layman's terms, is people's struggle for the first place in the market and people's efforts for it. The so-called "competitive basis" actually refers to the size of the property rights of production factors that individuals have mastered before participating in the competition, the possibility of individuals finding and entering the competitive place, and the fairness and consistency of law enforcement by "judges" during the competition. People also call the equality of competition basis the equality of winning opportunities, that is, "equal opportunities".
The non-economic violence caused by the listing of power as a market factor has caused unequal opportunities and unfair competition, which has made economic subjects at different starting lines from the beginning, so it is impossible for different subjects to win.
2. Price distortion and price dual-track system.
Since the reform, under the condition of market economy transformation, excessive government intervention has caused price distortion, the degree of marketization of production factor prices is still low, and the dual-track system of commodity prices still exists. With the rapid expansion of marketization, the dual-track system of commodity prices is tending to transition to the single-track system of market prices. At present, the prices of agricultural and sideline products directly controlled or planned by the state, the retail prices of social goods and the prices of means of production account for a small proportion, but some rents still exist, which provides corresponding market activity space for rent-seekers.
3. The vague property rights of the state-owned economy lead to vacant property rights and loss of assets.
Property right here refers to the collective name of enterprise asset ownership and control, that is, the separation of enterprise asset ownership and legal person property right. In reality, due to the vague property rights of the state-owned economy, "self-management, self-financing, self-risk, and self-restraint" have failed, and the effective supervision mechanism for the operation and maintenance and appreciation of state-owned assets is blank or imperfect, which makes enterprises not bear the responsibility for maintaining and increasing the value of assets to investors, resulting in the loss and waste of state-owned assets. Traditional state ownership is public in theory (ownership is empty), but it is empty in reality (leading operators to be separated from the means of production). This ambiguity of the subject of property rights responsibility violates the requirements of the modern market that "enterprise ownership, operator's rights, responsibilities and interests are clearly defined, and both of them perform their respective duties and cooperate with each other to ensure the effective operation of enterprises".
4. The principle of maximizing the interests of the market economy will inevitably lead to the expansion and expansion of people's personal desires, thus inducing money worship, hedonism, extreme individualism and speculative psychology.
(3) During the period of system transformation, the construction of legal system lags behind, the power of checks and balances softens, and there is no independent supervision system.
In the process of transition from planned system to market system, some original laws and regulations have not adapted to the needs of economic development, while new laws and regulations have not yet been promulgated, which leads to the lag of legal vacancies and directly affects the economic order and the norms of economic subject behavior. In addition, driven by the relative balance of departmental interests, some people in power in the judicial organs use their power to seek personal gain by law, take bribes, and embark on the road of law enforcement and breaking the law, which directly leads to judicial corruption.
During the period of system transformation, the political system reform lags behind, the external power of power balance softens, and the restraint mechanism hangs, which makes power lose effective supervision and restraint, thus leading to the generalization and abuse of power, making it enter the market as a factor, and the power and money transactions prevail, leading to rent-seeking activities and corruption breeding and spreading.
Fourth, the economic destructiveness and harmfulness of corruption
(1) Endangering the image of the government and affecting the implementation of the economic reform policy.
Corruption, bribery and abuse of power for personal gain have distorted the government's economic policies and national laws and regulations, undermined their implementation and enforcement, harmed the image of the government and damaged the reputation of reform and opening up. However, the unhealthy trend in the industry embarrassed enterprises and workers as economic subjects, which further dampened their enthusiasm for production and led to social unrest and instability. They are government gravediggers.
(b) In the transition of market economy, corruption has become the biggest social and economic pollution in China, which has seriously deteriorated the economic environment.
Market economy is a commercialized and monetized economy. All goods are measured and bought and sold by money, which often crosses the border and is extremely corrosive to power. Due to the listing of power, the order of market economy and the behavior of economic subjects are distorted, which leads to market competition at a different starting line from the beginning, and the principle of equal opportunity appears helpless and powerless in front of power elements. This non-economic violence directly slows down the pace and process of market-oriented reform, seriously worsens the economic environment and becomes the biggest social and economic pollution in China. The vicious trend of corruption can even ruin the achievements of China's reform and modernization.
(C) lead to social and economic "internal friction", inefficient allocation of resources, serious waste, so that public wealth was plundered and destroyed, and public interests were directly damaged.
Although corruption will bring personal benefits to rent-seekers, it will increase the transaction cost of the whole society and consume a considerable part of social and economic resources. Instead of using the "invisible hand" to allocate economic resources fairly, reasonably and effectively, it gains the monopoly interests of departments through the excessive intervention of the government in the micro-economy, and damages another part of economic subjects in the competition. The inefficiency and serious waste of economic resources make social wealth destroyed and plundered in unequal competition, while public interests are directly damaged.
Corruption hinders private investment and economic growth.
Corruption causes economic and environmental pollution, which makes investors flinch from the market, and some investment projects that should have been put into practice are also "aborted". Under the unequal competition mechanism, investors' investment behavior is hesitant, and the investment curve shows a downward trend, which hinders economic growth.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) is an economic means to curb and reduce corruption.
(A)' institutional innovation theory'
Some scholars believe that the current social corruption in China is related to the process of market economy transformation, including institutional defects, institutional changes and imperfect legal system. When corruption becomes a common phenomenon in society, it is necessary to eradicate the hotbed and soil that breeds corruption with institutional innovation.
The so-called "institutional innovation" is to establish a modern market economic system; Creating a fair competitive market economy environment includes abolishing the dual-track price system, economic privilege and economic monopoly, promoting the free flow of factors and trade, limiting special interests, correcting excessive government intervention and reducing the degree of government failure. By plugging the loopholes in the economic system, the hotbed of corruption will be eradicated.
Therefore, in this sense, anti-corruption and market-oriented reform are not contradictory, but interdependent and mutually reinforcing.
(B) the theory of "treating both the symptoms and root causes, comprehensive management"
Scholars who hold this view believe that the so-called "standard" is an already formed corruption phenomenon, and the so-called "root" is the main reason for corruption. System, mechanism, legal system, thought and world outlook are the fundamental reasons. The temporary solution is to punish corruption, and the permanent solution is to eliminate the root causes of corruption and the soil where corruption can breed. Treating the symptoms and curing the root causes complement each other and promote each other.
There are several different views on the focus of palliative and radical treatment: one thinks that radical treatment should be strengthened and "prevention first"; The second view is that according to the characteristics of corruption and the situation of anti-corruption struggle, we should determine the countermeasures of palliative and radical treatment and the tasks of various working institutions, so as to focus on each other; The third point of view is that in the current situation that corruption has not yet been cured and the measures to cure it are not strong enough, we should continue to pay attention to treating the symptoms, and at the same time strengthen the efforts to cure it, and closely combine the two.
(C) "International Anti-Corruption Convention Agreement" theory
With the increasing internationalization of corruption, some people point out that it is necessary to take effective anti-corruption measures internationally, reach an international anti-corruption agreement, and punish domestic enterprises of member States for bribing foreign government officials. Scholars who disagree believe that although everyone understands the harmful consequences of corruption in the world, it is difficult for the international community to take concerted action, because there is a "prisoner's dilemma" in international corruption, and all parties concerned can benefit from a world without corruption, but there is little incentive for a country to unilaterally take anti-corruption measures.
Tracing back to the source, rent-seeking activities in China are rampant at this stage, mainly because the right to allocate resources is in the hands of governments at all levels. Compared with the real market economy system, the allocation of resources is not undertaken by the "invisible hand" of the market, but by governments at all levels on behalf of market functions, so that the seriously deformed hand of power participates in the allocation of national resources, leading to the spread of corruption and rent-seeking activities.
Based on this, this paper believes that corruption should be curbed and reduced through "institutional innovation". The "institutional innovation" here includes five levels: first, economic institutional innovation, that is, promoting market-oriented reform and creating an economic environment with equal opportunities and fair competition; The second is the reform of government behavior, that is, political power retreats from economic activities, or, as Hayek said, society and the state should be separated; Third, the perfection and perfection of the legal system, that is, strengthening the construction of the legal system and truly moving in the direction of "ruling the country according to law"; Fourth, build a powerful power balance mechanism and news supervision system, and say "no" to rent-seeking activities; The fifth is the innovation of national consciousness, that is, improving the overall quality of the nation, establishing and advocating the national consciousness of "taxpayer", democracy and hardship.
As a latecomer to modernization and modern market economy, China can learn from the institutional innovation experience of developed countries that took hundreds of years and paid a huge price, including institutional framework, economic system and legal norms, and give full play to the so-called "latecomer advantage".
Sixth, the urgency of establishing "corruption economics"
In today's civilized society, corruption is regarded as a public enemy and called "gray plague". Looking around the world, no matter in developing countries, developed countries, or under any social system, corruption exists to varying degrees, seriously damaging social public interests.
When the China government held high the banner of "fighting corruption and promoting honesty" and declared war on corruption without compromise, some people of insight in other countries began to exclaim "Wolf!" . Germany's Economic Weekly once warned the world that corruption is becoming international with the topic of "bribery sweeping the world". Faced with the breeding and spread of corruption, foreign economists worry that corruption hinders private investment and economic growth and will have harmful consequences all over the world. Therefore, the international community should take strong anti-corruption measures, and then reach an international anti-corruption agreement to raise the "sword of Damocles" to the unhealthy economic phenomenon of corruption.
Corruption harms the image of the government, affects the implementation of economic policies, is the grave digger of the government, and is a factor of social and economic instability. The breeding and spread of corruption has become the biggest social and economic pollution, which has seriously deteriorated the social and economic environment. Just as investment risks are inevitable, corruption, as an economic phenomenon, cannot be completely eliminated. We can only contain and reduce it to the maximum extent, control it in the smallest scope and degree, and make the social and economic resources get fair and reasonable allocation on the basis of marketization and standardization. Therefore, economists should, like doctors, treat pathological social organisms in time to make them recover as soon as possible.
From this point of view, it is imperative to analyze and study the corruption phenomenon in human society from the perspective of economics, and it is indeed necessary to establish "Corruption Economics", a new economic discipline to study the root, manifestation, harm and governance of corruption.