Moral Corruption Maintain Societal Cooperation

Investigations conducted by experts in the United States have revealed that moral corruption and power asymmetries are in fact phenomena that help maintain overall cooperation within societies.

The discovery is counter-intuitive to say the least, but the experts have conclusive evidence to support their claims. The research itself was focused on the link between power and corruption, on one hand, and their immediate effects on society, on the other.

Everyone is surely acquainted by now with at least one or two politicians who preach family values and morals, before getting caught cheating on their spouse with ladies and gentlemen of questionable affection.

At the same time, many of our elected official preach the benefits of tightening the purse strings, while their bank accounts continue to add up at a steady pace.

What the new research demonstrates is that this type of behavior may not be such a bad thing after all. Experts Francisco Úbeda and Edgar Duéñez provided the reasons why in a new study, which relies heavily on game theory.

Úbeda, who holds an appointment as an evolutionary biology professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, cooperated closely with Duéñez, who is based at the Harvard Unversity.

The black-and-white conclusion of the investigation was that people tend to cooperate so that they don't get punished. The presence of agents responsible for punishing non-cooperation (government, the justice system, police, etc.) is what's keeping people in line.

“Law enforcers often enjoy privileges that allow them to avoid the full force of the law when they breach it. Law enforcing results in the general public abiding by the law,” Úbeda explains.

“Thus law enforcers enjoy the benefits of a lawful society and are compensated for their law enforcing by being able to dodge the law,” he goes on to say, quoted by Science Blog.

In other words, the investigators say, without power and corruption, law enforcement officials would have no incentives to do their jobs.

This would have catastrophic consequences on society as a whole. Cooperation would most likely break down, and anarchy would ensue.