Corruption: it’s not a scheme. It’s a system.

Imagine intervening in a large corruption system involving high-ranking political agents and prominent actors in a country’s economic system. There will certainly be “vibrations” in other systems, such as the electoral and social systems, with consequences that are difficult to predict in the long term.

• original in Portuguese published on JOTA.info, on March 02, 2024.

Every time you hear about a “Corruption Scheme,” replace the word “scheme” with “system.” This will make a big difference. It’s like clearing fogged glasses with the sleeve of your shirt. “System” is one of those words trivialized by everyday use, but its meaning is extremely useful if correctly understood.

The term “systemic corruption” is routinely used to mean corruption spread across various spheres of power, by various public bodies and entities. In layman’s terms, we would say we have systemic corruption when “corruption runs rampant throughout the government”.

In reality, this perception describes the result of the phenomenon, but it doesn’t exactly translate its meaning. Adjusting the focus regarding the word “systemic” allows us to see how corruption operates and deal with the problem effectively.

The world is a large system made of systems. You live in a city (urban system), probably work for an organization (system), and have a family (system). To read these lines, you had to learn to deal with a system called the alphabet, which led you to the system called language. When you were still learning to articulate words, you were inserted into the education system. Your good performance in the educational system was only possible because your human body system collaborated decisively. Yes, you are made of systems (digestive, respiratory, neurological, immune), and your systems are made of other systems (cells and tissues).

Therefore, a system is a set of things (anything, it can be cells, animals, people, countries, planets, among others) whose connections and relationships produce, over time, a behavior as a whole.

Some systems are simple because the interaction of their elements produces predictable effects, as is usually the case with machines in general (computers, airplanes). On the other hand, there are systems whose interaction among their elements can produce unprecedented and unpredictable behaviors. These are called complex adaptive systems. In this category are “living” systems, such as natural systems and social systems.

So, when we view corruption with “system lenses,” we realize that corruption is not just an isolated phenomenon that occurs sporadically, like an earthquake shaking the earth from time to time and then ceasing. Nor is it a simple system whose behavior follows predictable rules like a computer faithfully obeying commands.

Corruption, in reality, is a product of various social systems interacting. These are, by definition, complex and adaptive systems. This means that the interaction among their elements can produce unprecedented behaviors, not found in any of their elements when viewed in isolation.

Moreover, complex systems adapt and learn from experience, which makes their behavior uncertain, especially in the long term. And it is precisely here that the key to understanding the phenomenon of corruption lies.

The first step is to understand that complex systems have their own characteristics, which we cannot see when we look individually at each of the system’s elements. Systems are basically made up of elements, interconnections (relationships, interdependencies), and purpose (function). The latter two are especially important when dealing with complex systems.

A criminal organization dedicated to the practice of crimes against the Public Administration, for example, is a complex system whose elements are public agents, businessmen, and money launderers. This system has various interconnections among its elements and also with other systems (political, economic, informational). The purpose of this criminal organization is to embezzle public funds and gain political power through corruption practices.

We tend to see corruption as a straight line, connecting corrupt and corruptor. However, it is more akin to a large web where one cannot determine exactly where it begins and where it ends. And, more importantly, a web in which a simple touch (intervention) at one end will generate vibrations (consequences) at the other ends of the web (other systems). Imagine intervening in a large corruption system involving high-ranking political agents and prominent actors in a country’s economic system. There will certainly be “vibrations” in other systems, such as the electoral and social systems, with consequences that are difficult to predict in the long term.

Notice how seeing the problem in a systemic way changes our perspective on things. Seeing the System instead of just the Scheme (a singular event) has practical repercussions because you start to see the whole problem and not just one facet of the entanglement. And, most importantly, the solution to complex problems generally lies not in the most visible aspect. Properly understanding a problem represents a large part of the solution. Albert Einstein said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend 55 minutes trying to understand the problem and five minutes trying to solve it.

In the case of corruption, the opposite usually happens. A lot of energy is spent trying to solve a misunderstood phenomenon. Seeing corruption with system lenses is the first step in understanding the problem.∞