Goldman Sachs is the arch high priest of the investment banker's temple. Neither should be surprised that some of its frailer and greedier employees succumb to temptation. Both organisations operate in the same broader culture that celebrates individualism and wealth. At the same time, the glue of shared values that held it together as a public-service broadcaster has weakened.Īs for Goldman Sachs, the financial returns made by partners of modest talent for small risk go beyond the dreams of avarice as it has become a faceless profit-making machine. As it has tried to compete with the explosion of incomes in private television, the BBC has widened its pay differentials remarkably over the last five years. Goldman Sachs and the BBC qualify on all three counts. The third is a wider culture which does not encourage a sense of shame in relation to dishonesty while, at the same time, celebrating wealth and celebrity. The second is when an organisation's relationships become anonymous and based only on transactions, justifying the belief that the crime is victimless. The first is rapidly growing inequality that cannot be justified by merit, effort or performance and is, therefore, perceived to be the result of greed. Three preconditions need to exist for corruption to rise. Joyti de-Laurey and Jeffrey Everard Taylor are presented as one-offs, bad apples of which Goldman Sachs and the BBC were the unlucky victims. In her own mind, what she took was a reasonable return for her efficiency, small change beside the scale of reward her bosses made so effortlessly. She wrote to God pleading for more of 'what was mine' and for protection against her misdeeds. They nor the firm would miss a mere million or two, she reasoned. Paid less than £40,000 a year, she was simply stunned by the money made by the men and women she worked for. Joyti De-Laurey, the secretary to three executives in Goldman Sachs who was imprisoned last year for seven years for stealing £4.4 million, offers a window into the mindset of the corrupt. Who is going to shame them, especially if there are no victims? Presented with the opportunity, they go for the money. They are no less deserving, no less needy of the good material things in life and if they behave corruptly, the old social pressures to behave well are felt less keenly. Once employees start to believe they are paid too little in relation to those above them, the corruption seed is sown. But are there really twice as many greedy people in Britain as there were just 12 months ago?Ī more likely explanation lies in the progressive breakdown of the norms that hold the greedy back. Only last year, another BBC executive, Jeffrey Everard Taylor of BBC Worldwide, was imprisoned for 20 months in Hong Kong for accepting bribes to peddle particular companies' toys.įraudTrack says that the impulse for fraud is simple greed and desire for lavish lifestyles, and the British are just getting greedier. Last week, it emerged that the BBC's Toby Grosvenor, who was in charge of the technical wizardry of the recent Dr Who series, is being investigated for the suspected theft of £330,000. In Britain, accountants BDO Stoy Hayward, in its annual FraudTrack Report, says that fraud - from identity theft to fiddling the books - doubled in 2004 and is rising exponentially. Unless Africa can clean up its act, we should be wary of aid and debt relief.īut the conviction for fraud last week of Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, former chiefs of US manufacturer Tyco International, was a salutary reminder that the West has its share of corruption. Generous Western aid only gets spent on a private jet or Swiss bank account, runs the argument. In the run-up to the G8 summit in Gleneagles, every commentator worth his or her salt has felt compelled to identify Africa as the hopeless centre of a corruption epidemic, challenging the case for debt relief made by Messrs Geldof and Brown. Yet all round the world, adherence to the internal norms that hold back a drive to behave corruptly seem to be weakening. Certain financial reward today is, for some individuals, better than the uncertain reward of behaving properly and conforming to social norms. Be sure there is always somebody ready to take the corrupt course of action. It comes with the territory of being human. T he one reliable prediction you can make about any group of human beings is that one or two will have a proclivity to cut corners, accept a bribe or be ready to pursue a dishonourable means to achieve their end.
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