Corruption and ethics in Brazil in times of major events

Corruption and ethics in Brazil in times of major events

A text that serves as a reflection on the corruption that boasts stratospheric different corners of society by not choosing classes, genders, gender, ethnicity. Text of the best quality, especially when the living Brazil, close to perform two large-scale global events in which the visibility becomes predominant. Good and bad of our nation flourish and have the responsibility and commitment to do better without greed illicit profits by performing acts contrary to public morality. A good read.

Introduction
This paper analyzes the problem of corruption in Brazil and, consequently, answer the following questions:
* Corruption is increasing or decreasing?
* With the policies and actions currently implemented by the Brazilian state, is able to progress in fighting corruption?
To this end, we feel it wise to define what is outright corruption.
Corruption



According to Michaelis - Modern Dictionary of the Portuguese language, the term corruption (derived from the Latin corruptione) have the following meanings:
1: Action or effect of corrupting; decomposition, putrefaction.
2: Depravity, demoralization, debauchery.
3: Seduction.
4: Bribery.
Note that in none of its meanings the term has a beneficial or protective effect, facilitating or simplifying: the meaning is always harmful, aggressive, or abandoning, damaging, harmful, complicating.
Regarding the effects of corruption is always an action or effect of which does a disservice not only to a person, or a particular group, but the whole society, the whole nation.
Under law, the Criminal Code provides that the corruption can occur in two forms:
- Active corruption: characterized by conduct or promise to offer undue advantage to a public official to etermina him to practice, to omit or delay any official act.
Those who practice crime is the corrupter, who offers or promises any improper advantage.
The crime occurs even if the official does not accept the proposal;
- Bribery, when committed by public official who solicits or receives, for himself or for another person, directly or indirectly, any improper advantage or accepts a promise of such advantage.
In order to get out of public office, the official either requests or accepts a bribe or proposed to gain practice acts that are your responsibility.
However, in broad terms, corruption can be defined as "the phenomenon by which an agent is taken to act differently from established patterns in order to facilitate illegal or illegitimate interests." Thus, not only practiced by a public official, "but also may originate in particular." Depending on the case, corruption is carried out exclusively by one or the other. Examples of these hypotheses:
- The person offers a bribe or other advantage, but the employee does not accept;
- Or the public official requests the bribe, but the individual refuses to provide it.
In general, the two actors - corruptoecorruptor - corruption work setting, and both make use of the state, improperly, to obtain unfair advantage.
However, to define every situation that can be classified as corruption is no easy task.
"Payment of bribery within the country or in international business transactions, trading in influence, abuse of functions, illicit enrichment, bribery in the private sector, money laundering and obstruction of justice" - are acts that, in general, are defined as crimes corruption in various countries.
But to avoid any conduct that is excluded, the texts of the UN Convention Against Corruption and daConvenção American Convention Against Corruption, there is not a well defined, but bring about exemplary acts of corruption that should be considered.
Thus, those two treaties thus distinguish the types of corruption:
- Petty corruption: is what happens in the execution of daily activities of employees, when they have direct contact with the public. Example: a police officer who accepts a sum of money not to fine a citizen who was speeding. In this type of corruption, the amount of money involved is relatively small, and their effects affect mainly the poor;
- Grand corruption, although it is tied more to the level at which it occurs than to the amount of money involved, this type of corruption committed, yes, greater resources than the so-called petty corruption. Transactions are considered more at large scale and usually occur when high-ranking public officials have the power to decide on the allocation of public resources, benefiting from this situation. The term grand corruption is commonly used as synonymous with political corruption;
- Systemic corruption: it is applied to institutions that made corruption an integral part of their business. Thus, it is said that there is systemic corruption when the procedures of an institution no longer be operationalized according to formal rules. With well-structured networks of corruption, it is difficult to identify the relationship between the actions of public officials and the rewards, which hinders repression. Therefore, it is urgent to adopt policies to prevent corruption.
The impact of systemic corruption are difficult to measure, not only because it involves citizens' trust in public institutions, but also for impact, "negatively, the notion of state as the institution responsible for the design and implementation of public policies to serve the interests of citizens. "
Having already become systemic, it is necessary to revisit the problem is to identify its causes are cultural, éticasouinstitucionais.
For political culture refers to the practices and political institutions, norms and traditions. Thus, make up the political culture of each social unit (community, state, county, neighborhood, social group):
- The customs spread among the inhabitants of the country;
- Citizens' knowledge about political institutions and practices;
- Trends in social behavior (such as distrust, "way" etc.).
- The standards - "the duty of citizens to participate in political decisions or the duty of public officials to respect the rules of the Public Administration."
Although important, we can not point out the political culture for the sole determinant of corruption in a country.
It is understood by cultural problem the lack of trust citizens have in the effectiveness of the state to provide solutions to their problems. Unbelievers that the state will have a satisfactory performance, citizens resort to bribery or other activities that involve any of the faces of corruption.
Although no direct causal relation to the available evidence indicates that trust and low levels of corruption are related. That is, in countries where there is political trust, new institutions - including those created for greater control of corruption - in fact exist and produce the desired effect.
Thus, studying the relationship between corruption and political distrust, the conclusion is that both levels of corruption influence levels of political distrust, as this influences the levels of corruption. Thus, both the public servant - by leaving corrupt - increases the distrust of citizens in public institutions such as the citizen, to bribe a public official acts to perpetuate corruption.
Corruption and lawlessness: How Philip Guatimosim Maciel points out in his monograph - Combating Corruption in Brazil: Challenges and Prospects - although large number of definitions of corruption, all have one thing in common: the illegality.
The illegality of corruption is in the public officer, invested with legal power to perform its functions, provide preferential treatment in return for taking bribes. Or perform a service, the rules, would be prohibited from offering. As understanding of Transparency International (non-governmental body that aims to bring about changes that the world is free from corruption), the first hypothesis, we have corruption in accordance with the rules and, second, corruption against the rules.
According to Michaelis Dictionary, it is considered bribery, crime of official who, in the exercise of his duties or because of them, receive rewards or benefits to omit in the practice of their functional duties, to the detriment of others
As we examine the specific case of Brazil, must be added prominently impunity, because this is the certainty that the public official accepts transact or trade with the corruptor. The inescapable consequence of this insidious form of influence, typically illicit, illegal and illegitimate, the wear is the most important feature of the political system: its legitimacy. For, as elucidated in the political scientist, Fernando Filgueiras, author of Corruption, Democracy and Legitimacy, for corruption to be a form of illegitimate actions of political actors, it becomes "his own illegitimacy, it is not subject to public justification" . After all, there is no way to justify the diversion of government revenue and flow of national income for members of the government to obtain personal benefits, gains of wealth or status, when this right has been granted not by law.
Filgueiras believe that if we want to discuss publicly the issue of corruption, we need to discuss the legitimacy issue "more broadly," because there is a crisis of legitimacy in contemporary democracies. As a result of such a crisis, the discussion should not only aim to reform the state, but of democracy itself, because, otherwise, it will become impossible to advancing the development of this political system.
For Fernando Filgueiras, corruption can take four forms:
- Policy when the central issue is to distinguish between public and private sectors, and brings to the fore the notion of decorum;
- Culture, when linked, for example, the question of integrity;
- Social, so when it involves the control of state power;
- Economic, exclusive of the private sphere and represented by accounting and financial fraud.
For the political scientist, although much progress has been made in relation to the institutional controls of corruption (for example, to enhance the work of the police and courts of accounts), and is already a central theme in several international treaties, lack democracies with a notion of public values. That is, besides discussing corruption in its institutional dimension, Filgueiras believes that the discussion should be continued also within the whole society, for "control of corruption can not be assumed only by the State, we must think in terms of values public. ".
As for transparency, he considers a very important innovation, but also needs to permeate the advertising. In this sense, Filgueiras argues that transparency should be "committed to whole societies, not just the state."
Values
We talk about public values, but what are we to understand by value?
The Greeks understood by both the utility value as the price of something, or even good performance or production of something.
In the field of philosophy, the term was first used by the Stoics, who argued the reason being "able to capture the values and indicate the safe way to perform well and the conquest of happiness." Value, then, what was the result of a choice on the part of the human will, enlightened by reason. As for the Stoics that mattered was to seek a life indicators for fair, honest and happy, the value was above all - the good - ethical, not economic, artistic or otherwise. The will, guided by the light of reason, would always choose the good.
Over the centuries, was passed by value to understand everything if you prefer or want - even outside the field of Ethics.
Commonly, it is customary to consider the same ethical values and moral values, but there is a subtle difference between the two:
- Moral values, which refer to how a company or an individual understands and puts into practice the idea of right and wrong;
- Ethical values: concern for the human person - considered in its dignity.
The subtlety lies in the fact that, despite individual or social approval, which is considered morally good can be ethically objectionable. Eg entrenched habits, such as the Brazilian way, may even be morally acceptable, but - ethically - is reprehensible.
In reverse, dignity, concern for the essence, independent of what can only be assessed externally (physical appearance, economic status, social status etc..). Thus, ethical values are those which relate to respect for their individuality both in person and in its social dimension. Ex: the businessman who evades taxes goes against the ethics because, primarily, undermines the common good, ie, by failing to implement an ethical value, does not accomplish the good of the people living in society.
Like most scholars believe that the ethical values exist by themselves - and it behooves us to discover them. Therefore, as education is necessary for learning in general is also essential for the acquisition of ethical values.
And so with the human person is a giant metaphysician, of extraordinary complexity and richness, the wealthiest are also ethical values. These emerge from the different ways in which the human being stands in the world, as it relates to herself and others. Being ethical, therefore, means to respect the many ways of being and report to the person - whether considered individually or collectively.
Some ethical values are essential and irreplaceable - justice, honesty, love, wisdom, freedom, responsibility, honesty, respect - and each represents an ethical principle, that is, a call to action.
Ethics: Corruption may be considered a problem of moral deviation?
But what is ultimately Ethics?
While many employ the terms - Moral and Ethics - indiscriminately, Philosophy of Moral clearly distinguished:
- Moral: meeting of customs or habits of an individual or a people, guided by a very general principle of "good" or "correct";
- Ethics: science and art of human conduct.
On this view, the moral is common to all the men, though not all are able to develop a critique of its contents. In the Ethics fits this task.
In a confrontation between morality, law and ethics, we have in the sphere of morality, society's pressure to make you act a certain way, in the purview of the law, the rules are enforced so coercive, implying obedience to what is required, and under the Ethics - autonomy, because the act will not be dictated by pressures of social or legal - but only by the individual conscience. It is obedience to what is not required.
Thus, ethics is the man who does not act so injurious to others for fear of a penalty, but he who does not do so be aware that actions governed by honesty, fairness, responsibility, honesty, respect not only result in the satisfaction by duty, but can become healthy and human coexistence.
One of the most important tasks of Ethics as a science is to seek the reasons for the person living the idea as well. In search of answers, there were several moral doctrines, divided into four main lines of the Ethics:
- Ethics of interest or utilitarianism: that line, the theories argue that the main goal of human action is to obtain the maximum benefit or utility. It is subdivided into:
-Egoistic utilitarianism, whereby the well-being is the ultimate goal to be reached. A single truth, there would be absolute: everything is relative - the man at the moment, a set of factors and circumstances. Although condemned by most thinkers of all time, has always been one of the most accepted and practiced, particularly in modern times;
- Altruistic or social utilitarianism, which claims to be taken decisions that positively affect as many people as possible, regardless of the burden that may occur on this or that person or institution. His most significant representative, Jeremy Bentham, advocated the principle of utility is the only reason that an act may or must be morally committed;
- Ethics of duty: defend the thesis that one should always aim to act - above all - to fulfill a moral duty, even if a heavy cost. They are based on the argument that, in the ethical sphere, a person's value is absolute. If the satisfaction of accomplishment outweighs any physical discomfort or financial loss, is merely because our dignity is the greatest virtue;
- Ethics of the situation (or relativism) contend that they must act in order to - above all - to fulfill a moral duty. To this end, efforts must be guided by the consensus of the majority or the situation should be evaluated so that the decision is determined by moral conduct. What was a good yesterday is not necessarily more today. What is right now probably will not be tomorrow or later.
- Ethical virtues: signed on the argument that the intellect must take precedence over the passions, desires and instincts. The virtues were forged by constant exercise of self-control: that is, the virtuous man does not arise from a single ethical act - but the permanent disposition to practice what is good and fair.
Regardless of the ethical option elected, our choices have repercussions in all areas and our lives - at home, street, etc. in the company. But, for us to classify human actions in the context of ethics, it is urgent that three basic requirements are met:
- Freedom, human actions must be undertaken as a free conscience;
- Awareness / knowledge: in a sense, already present in the previous condition, determines that the human act with knowledge and awareness about the ethical implications of what you're doing;
- Standard: there must be an ethical standard that indicates how to proceed in a given situation.
These are transcendental conditions of any act in the ethical sphere, since, with greater or lesser extent, precede and accompany their practice.
In our times, postmodern writers have decreed the "death of the ethical," the replacement of the aesthetic and ethical celebrated the "final emancipation" that would follow. For these, whether journalists or academics, postmodernism brings emancipation from moral standards, free of duty and dismantles the moral responsibility.
One of the most important advocates of this line of thought is the French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky, who in his book "The twilight of duty", he suggested that we finally enter the era of post-duty (l'apres devoir), a post-season deontological , that our conduct was oppressive releases of the last remnants of "duties inifinitos", "commandments" and "obligations" absolute. The idea of self-sacrifice was Disenfranchised, people are no longer stimulated nor are willing to throw in the pursuit of moral ideals and ethical values in action, put aside the political utopias in the past and those who were idealists became is pragmatic. Individualism is free of scruples, unadulterated, which seeks the good life, limited only by the requirement of tolerance. This was, after duty, morality only admit a very "minimalist" and in decline. A situation "totally new", according to Lipovetsky, and he advised us to celebrate the freedom that it certainly would come.
Critical thinking in this way, the Polish sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, in his Postmodern Ethics, Lipovetsky questions by presenting what it should explain how the explaining. Because if today we are faced with a life where the pure "is" that is not guided by any "must", the role of a sociologist is to show how he succeeded to the desencarregamento of moral regulation. It should also not accept something as true just because it exists.
For Bauman, would be left see if postmodernity pass "to the story as twilight or as a revival of morality."
Even Zygmunt Bauman in his book presents a study of powerful persuasion. For the sociologist, "the great themes of ethics - such as human rights, social justice, peaceful balance between cooperation and self-assertion, synchronization of individual behavior and collective well-being - have lost none of its topicality. Just need to be seen and treated in a new way. " He portrays the contemporary society as "'modern' in that it tries endlessly to no avail, 'embrace the unfathomable', replacing diversity with uniformity, and ambivalence in order coherent and transparent - and to try to do it, produces constantly more divisions, diversity and ambivalence than that it got rid of. "
At this point, we would add that harmony is not necessarily uniformity. We can be different - as we really are - and interact in a socially healthy, harmonious. And this coexistence of peace, to recognize the right of others to have different opinions or even diametrically opposed to ours, not to stimulate the various forms of prejudice (whether racism, gender issues, bodily differences and intolerance to individuals with special needs) to tread the "middle way", without the common good and individual interests overwhelm without that impede the continuity of social groups and even the human species.
Do whatever they think or do what you think about it?
Individualism fully in mind not only that recussássemos solidarity, but we really could do without the other. But the truth is that we are social beings and our evolution - and our comfort - depend on the other. Subjects can not be made leakproof or parts that act apart from each other. We must act in solidarity and responsible for the welfare of members of society. We can not escape the fact that we all interdependemos. We are individual beings to have different qualities and skills and also because of our idiosyncrasies. But our sense of individualization in the disappearance of social relations, apart from the existence of various social groups, would prevent us from developing our qualities and skills and experience and many different emotions.
While there are still heads of state and government to defend, as did Margaret Thatcher that "there is something you can call 'society', there are only the government and families," that men and women as individuals must find solutions individual problems created by society and individually, to implement them with individual help and resources, that is not only useless but counterproductive to join forces and subordinating individual actions to a common cause. It was identified erroneously values and ethical ideals with the idea of a welfare state.
The current global financial crisis is forcing nations to join because if the problem was created individually, which now reaches the entire globalized world (the same formula that was to generate private profits skyrocketing, today generates losses socialized), the solution does not seems to be in charge of a single nation.
G20 Action Plan is uncertain pace of implementation

Increased or decreased corruption
According to the Corruption Perception Index, which annually are produced and released by Transparency International (TI - non-governmental organization whose main objective is the fight against corruption), Brazil is seen as a country with serious problems of corruption .
Although place annually, the issue of corruption in the global agenda, these indexes must be analyzed and interpreted with caution because they do not quantify corruption - just measure the perception of businessmen and analysts have corruption in each country surveyed. The indices therefore do not measure - objectively - the corruption, but as the whole of society perceives - subjectively - this phenomenon in each country.
Each year, more countries are evaluated and given them notes, ranging from zero (maximum index of corruption) to ten (minimum rate).
But criticism is addressed to ICP:
- There is no guarantee that the views collected to produce the index are independent from each other - and most likely are not. And therefore, the views expressed do not reflect a personal experience, but heard the opinion of others;
- There is the possibility that the ideological leanings influence the "rise" or "fall" of the notes. And Chile is cited as an example, because from the moment that this country has aligned its trade policy with the U.S., went on to win positions in the Index. If so, how the notes are issued may be contaminated by a kind of patronage, to provide protection or favoring by ideological issue;
- Corruption or the last received prominence in the media for isolated cases may influence the perception of those surveyed;
- It also criticizes the formula for calculating it difficult to project that the indexes on statistical series;
- Rises and falls in the ranking may not reflect improvement or worsening in the real world;
- The integrity of the institutions are not evaluated, nor its evolution over the years. And the actual construction of the mobility index prevent scale.
Claudio Weber Abramo How argues in his article - Perceptions swamp - because they are the secret acts of corruption, and the portion found nothing to report on "the aggregate volume of illicit transactions", direct measurements are impossible. As for indirect, as the CPI, do not yet have a reliable information content.
But who makes use of these indirect measurements of corruption? It is believed that international investors, mainly because they would guide in their decision-making processes. In these countries seen as most corrupt are less attractive because it would require higher transaction costs and, in particular, greater uncertainty about the validity of contracts. Abramo intuits that compared to factors such as cost of labor, labor, taxes, availability of raw materials, infrastructure, transport etc., Considerations of corruption tend to be quite subsidiaries.
And excluding such investors, whom the CPI more interested? Do the inhabitants of the various countries listed would be interested in being informed about how their country is seen by representatives of transnational corporations - more or less intact than any other?
Well, George Walker Bush, U.S. president, has given a use for such an alarming rate: that the assistance provided by USAID to other countries will take into account the perception of corruption existing one. As low GDP per capita and low notes in the CPI is the main statistical correlation exists, it is easy to conclude that the poorest will be hardest hit with this criterion. And here, again, seems to me that the whole process a contamination by a patronage which aims to always generate the weakening of horizontal relations, nation to nation, to offer privileges from external entities. Unfortunately, the offer of privileges always sows the disinterest of collaboration between the entities and sponsors a contest that ends up desenfrear up and lead to unethical behavior among them. Consequently, a mechanism to combat corruption, can be distorted and stop promoting it.
But ultimately, we can assess whether there was an increase or decrease in corruption? Most likely, if we basing only by the increasing frequency of reports on corruption in the media, we have no doubt that the country is completely dominated by numerous gangs - which is not true. But, influenced by a news "espetaculoso" (including being on the eve of a questionnaire of perception of corruption), people can express opinions that are not supported in your own reality, in his own day-to-day.
The trend towards a more negative perception about their own country is much more common among the inhabitants of the countries of the Third World. It's a feeling quite harmful to nationals of those countries, which leads them to discredit themselves, either individually or collectively, but that benefits its competitors. Realizing this benefit, many of these to encourage this sense of self-deprecation, which renders them good opportunities and business.
At the conclusion of his article, Abramo said the findings about the perceptions of corruption should be interpreted with caution, "it tell little about the empirical phenomenon of corruption."
Unlike Abramo, however, think that given the financial crisis currently plaguing our globalized world, we can conclude that the populations of poorer countries are more vulnerable to petty corruption - which is easier to view - while the populations of rich countries are at the mercy of grand corruption (or political corruption, which is a recurrent example Japan), or systemic corruption in its major financial institutions.
According to recent research commissioned by the Reference Center for the Public Interest (CRIP), Federal University of Minas Gerais, the institute Vox Populi poll, to 75% of respondents growth was not corruption per se, but the number of verified cases.
According to Professor Fernando Filgueiras, researcher at the Center of Reference of the Public Interest, "both the poorest and the richest realize that corruption in Brazil has increased due to increased work of the institutions of control, in particular the Federal Police." He adds, "irrespective of whether regional or social class, this increase in perceived corruption occurs because it is no longer 'swept under the rug."
It is also what it seems.

Forward to fighting corruption with the actions implemented by the State
Fernando Filgueiras has found that barriers to the growth of corruption have been imposed, not only in Brazil but also in other Latin American countries, as well as in the EU. But he warns against the growing corruption in international relations, especially in trade: "We know very little about the relations of governments and large international conglomerates, an area susceptible to some controls."
To the Comptroller General (CGU), the best way to combat the phenomenon of corruption is to combine punishment with prevention, because even punished, the cases recur.
Among the preventive measures is the creation of mapping and evaluation of areas of greatest risk of corruption and implement measures to reduce potential sources that may weaken public institutions.
"What Brazil needs to do to fight corruption effectively?" It was with this question, the site Universo Online (UOL), created an Internet forum, where they were posted for a month and a half, about 2000 critical on the subject. In the survey conducted by Open Accounts on these comments, it was evident that for the Legislative Internet is the most corrupt power. However, recent headlines about the wiretaps and the release of banker Daniel Dantas also meant that the credibility of the judiciary was shaken: 51% of the comments associated with the corruption of political action, and especially of Brazilian jurists.
To eradicate corruption, 11% suggest that education, while 10% believe the country has no solution.
For 1985 respondents (82% of total), lacking new laws with tougher penalties and higher, a clear criticism of the Legislature.
Many netizens voiced their dissatisfaction with the performance of the judiciary, requiring, for example, speeding in court and that wealthy defendants, against whom there is strong evidence of corruption, are not benefited by decisions of the Supreme Court.
With regard to individual responsibility, one respondent states: "I am a public servant and I see almost every day servers using work material in private use. There are millions of servers in the country if everyone uses a sheet of paper per day in this particular service will have a huge disservice to society, "he warns.
As for education, another surfer said to prevent corruption perpetuated it must set a good example to begin to be taken indoors. And keep the streets, at school, at work etc..

Conclusion
"Corruption is a waste of money and undermines human rights."
Barack Obama
Corruption is not new, but it helps explain how even great empires find their defeat when they fail to undermine corruption.
Regarding the levels of corruption, often more than shed light on a real problem that arises is under a magnifying glass, generating a wave of lies designed to discredit organized, first, the main institutions until the country will become ungovernable. With the distrust sown among members of society, it becomes weak to combat the ills that plague - while others are strengthened.
I do not believe that this effect may occur in Brazil today. I think a significant portion of Brazilian society is mature enough to learn to identify the real problems of the country and fight them.
I agree that education is the best prevention - but not the one we have in most educational institutions. The predominant model of education has not prepared the young for life - in society and / or professional. The individual has been at the mercy of influences immoral, amoral, unethical, and the result has been violent youths, who believe that everything can confuse liberty with license, licentiousness, with acting unruly, disrespectful and irresponsible. An individual with no sense of moral values and ethical values is easily drawn into the world of corruption. Why not developed respect for their fellow citizens, because they have no awareness of the consequences of their acts of serious and irreversible damage that can cause an excessive ambition to other people and society as a whole.
It should be noted that ethics and hypocrisy is never consistent and false ethics, the expression of feelings, or virtues that really has not - is the worst poison to democracy. If the greatest Athenian philosophers - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - did not consider democracy as the best of the schemes is because its benefits are only fully felt if citizens know if it leads - through ethics. Because democracy is perfected only when citizens know the meaning and pleasure reassuring to be guided by ethical values as - justice, honesty, prudence, freedom, responsibility, honesty, respect.
Without ethics, the system can be transformed by a ruthless authoritarian democracy, or freedom that it gives a distorted for a license and tolerance becomes indifference to everything that occurs to the round about, bringing impunity ensues as an inevitable consequence of all the distrust against all. No regime can be successful without the confidence of people in institutions and in their fellow citizens.
This is what the current global financial crisis is to teach us.
By Silvia Lucilia Lopes