外国语学院2002英语教育（1）班　陈潇

       What is official corruption? According to some critics, corruption is an official’s behavior that deviates from the normal duties of public service and violates the laws and rules in exercising the public power for the personal interests. So, specifically official corruption may refer to such behaviors as bribery, nepotism, and misappropriation in administrative activities. In this sense, corruption can only appear in the gaps of the normal pattern for official practice left by laws and administrative regulations of a nation. Different social systems may have different frequency of corruptions due to the different legal systems that are basically determined by political ideology. Under the socialist system the officials’ consciousness of personal morality is over-emphasized in the official practice, while under the capitalist system most of the administrative behaviors are brought into the control of laws. Therefore, it is not the difference of social systems that cause the different frequency of corruption but the difference of legal systems that provide the different opportunities for corruption.

      We often complain that official corruption is much more serious in socialist society than that in capitalist society. A further thought may bring us to the reasons. Socialist system has only a short history—a factor that leads to the incomplete development of its legal system. Some officials may make use of that lacuna to do illegal things without punishment. Take China, a highly “standardized” socialist country, for example, as a consequence of the underdevelopment of the legal system, before the 1980s, there was a serious confusion between the concept of law and that of power. Even today many people still cling to the convention that power is law (but not the other way round). Law in China is far less powerful than the power controlled by the officials. So in China it is officials’ taste that decides whether something is right or wrong instead of the justice of law. As a result, officials have their say in different affairs and power leasing becomes inevitable. When law loses its power and the power gains its dominance without effective supervision, morality may become the only protection of social justice. But morality is venerable to the temptations of lures in reality. Before the strong temptation of money and other material interests many official would give up their moral principle. Those who enjoy high official positions would take the advantage of their status to acquire personal interests. What is more, the so-called public ownership increases the difficulties for laws to limit the officials’ abuse of the public power, for under this ownership to have power means the control of public property without any interference: a manager has the privilege to handle his property, and no one will really care about the management of the property when it belongs to too many people, so no accusation is likely to be presented in the case of mal-management.

       On the other hand, capitalist social system has a much longer history than that of socialist system. It has been perfected by time and space. Its legal system has highly developed, and has a complete supervisory system. Capitalist countries follow the principle of “separation between power and legal system”. In capitalist countries, parliament, government, and court officiate independently legislation, administration, and jurisdiction. And the three organizations hold each other in play. That is to say, the courthouse has the absolute power to supervise the official departments. In other words, the officials’ administrative behaviors are under the supervision of laws rather than morality. As a result corruption is always a risk of punishment by law. Moreover, in capitalist society, the government officials have slim opportunities to control such things as “public properties”. But that is not to say that under capitalist system there is no official corruption but that the cost of corruption is much greater than it is the case under socialist system.

       In conclusion, official corruption, the use of a public power to get one’s personal benefits appears in both socialist and capitalist systems. But the different social systems may present different degree of risk to the corruption. The incomplete legal system in socialist countries leaves so many gaps for the official corruptions that the abuses may escape from any punishment. So government officials are apt to play the games without any risk and cost.  

（李荣宝教授　批阅）