[20] Outlook, 65:115 (May 12, 1905).
[21] Political Science Quarterly, vol. xviii (1902), p. 188.
[22] Atlantic, vol. xcv (1905), p. 781.
[23] J. E. C. Bodley, France, bk. iii, ch. vi, p. 306.
CORRUPTION: A PERSISTENT PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE
III
CORRUPTION: A PERSISTENT PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE
In its broadest significance, corruption has been defined as “the intentional misperformance or neglect of a recognised duty, or the unwarranted exercise of power, with the motive of gaining some advantage more or less directly personal.” Evil of this sort may occur not only in the state, but also in the church, the family, in business associations, and every other kind of social body. One may infer from the nature of corruption itself that if developed to an extreme degree it will cause the dissolution of any organisation affected by it. Every social body requires as a prime condition of its existence a certain subordination of individual interest to the general interest. Corruption essentially means the preference of the former to the latter. If self-interest continuously grows more potent while group interest pari passu declines, evidently the social organisation so affected will weaken and finally die. “The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it.” Universally triumphant corruption, therefore, would destroy the body from which it had drawn the sustenance for its own parasitic life. Anarchy would be far preferable to the extreme logical consequences of corruption. For anarchy seeks to destroy only the compulsory political forms of human society, leaving men free to associate voluntarily in all other ways, whereas ultimate corruption would loosen every social bond and reduce humanity to the state of nature as Hobbes conceived it:—bellum omnium contra omnes.
Corruption, then, is a social disease that may terminate fatally. Social death does not always occur because of it, but from the social point of view it is always a pathological condition. Few of the great tragedies of history involving the fall of nations or of mighty institutions can be explained fully without reference to the antecedent corroding influence of corruption. It had a part in the decline of Greece and Rome, in the Protestant Reformation, the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty in England, the partition of Poland, and the French Revolution. Other causes contributed to these events and were perhaps more largely instrumental in bringing them about,—ignorance, inefficiency, tyranny, immorality, extravagance, and obstinacy,—but in each instance corruption was also present on a large scale. Even in cases of historical catastrophes where the crushing force was applied from the outside it is usually possible to discern how the victor’s path was smoothed by the disintegrating effect of corruption upon the social structure of the vanquished.[24] For this reason Europe fell more easily before Napoleon from 1796 to 1812, imperial France before Germany in 1870-’71, and Russia before Japan in 1904-’05.
While the disastrous consequences of widespread corruption as shown by such instances are not to be lightly underestimated, it is evident, on the other hand, that corrupt conditions may exist even on a considerable scale without bringing about the extreme penalty of disintegration or conquest. Recoveries little short of the miraculous are sometimes noted in this field of social pathology. It
would be difficult to conceive a lower stage of degradation than that reached by the English ministry and parliament during and immediately following the time of Walpole, yet to-day England enjoys the reputation of possessing one of the most honest and efficient governments in the world. American municipal reformers sometimes despair of any efficacious remedy for the corruption which prevails in our cities. They should take heart upon observing the degraded conditions which prevailed in Prussian municipalities prior to Stein’s Städteordnung of 1808, and in England prior to the Municipal Reform Act of 1835. In both instances formerly corrupt conditions have been succeeded by honest and efficient municipal systems which are observed with envy and commented upon with admiration the world over.
The conclusion which the foregoing illustrations seem to warrant is that while corruption is a pathological condition which in an extreme degree may lead to social death, it is also susceptible to treatment which may bring about recovery with renewed and even enhanced vigour. Between these two extremes every degree of partial strength or weakness may exist in a social body as a result of the presence or after effects of corruption. The Roman Church suffered a tremendous loss of influence in Western and Northern Europe as a result of the Reformation. It has never recovered this territory, but it survived as an institution which, modified by internal reforms, has acquired a greater influence and a greater number of communicants than the mediæval church ever dreamed of. Spain, partly through corruption, lost her colonial empire, but the mother country remains intact. True Lord Salisbury called it a “decadent nation,” but at least it is not in ruins. Germany was victor over corrupt imperial France in the last great European war. The progress of the Vaterland since that event seems phenomenal, but already uneasy voices, troubled at contemporary conditions, particularly in the army and the emperor’s immediate entourage, are raising the question: “What does the future hold for us,—Jena or Sedan?” Conquered in 1870-’71, the French, in Gambetta’s deathless words, nevertheless remained “a great nation which does not wish to die.” The history of the Third Republic has been besmirched at times by scandals of the most offensively corrupt character. Yet in spite of this and other national weaknesses the outside world is probably altogether too much inclined to underestimate the latent strength of modern France.