
A cutting-edge legal mind turns to an age-old problem: corruption  - makimaki
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/11/a_talk_with_lawrence_lessig/?page=full
======
Tichy
I think corruption is less of an ethical problem than an organizational
problem. If the structure of society is such that people have the power to
become corrupt, they will become so (for example if the law is defect).

In theory it would work if people could be convinced to just be more ethical,
but I don't think that is a feasible solution.

~~~
radu_floricica
I wish it could be that simple. In societies with low corruption it is this
way mostly because people don't think about it, or are ashamed of it, much
more then having mechanisms that catch them. Short term, yes, it's an
organizational problem. But long term it can only be an ethical one, and it's
not easy to solve this way.

~~~
Tichy
I think it is not only mechanisms that catch them, it is putting people in
positions where they can abuse their power to begin with. I would expect that
most of the time in "western" societies people in power don't have the
absolute power, they are more bureaucrats. For example, suppose you want to
start a business and you need approval from a state official. In a corrupt
country, maybe if that official says no, you are screwed. In other countries
there are regulations for what you have to do to start a business. If one
official tries to reject you even though you did everything the right way, you
could go to court and force the official to approve your business. So the
official does not have the absolute power he has in other countries.

------
gruseom
If you like this, Terry Gross did a good interview with Lessig recently:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9859100...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98591002)

------
jderick
I think it is great that he is working on this. It will be interesting too see
what kind of ideas come out of it.

