Why shortcuts keep mutating as the corrupt think they help

Many of us recall shortcuts on the way to primary school. They cut through neighbourhoods, homes, farmlands and even forests. Today, such shortcuts are gone.

Land was built up, and property rights became more entrenched. Noted the fences around properties? We used fences to restrain domestic animals, not to keep off human beings. 

Today, we follow much longer routes, roads. Motorbikes, or bodabodas, have saved us time we would have lost through shortcuts.

The last time I checked on my primary school shortcut in the white highlands, I noted it was a diameter; we now use the semicircle. Remember pi? 

But there is another shortcut that has cropped up and become more common.

Its name is corruption or nepotism. Economists like being diplomatic and call it rent seeking.

This shortcut devastates society and even the perpetrators.  If the corrupt could share their real feelings towards the end of their lives, you would stop being corrupt. 

The key victims of the current shortcut are the whole society. Every sector bears the scars of corruption. And because of the interconnectedness of the economic system, no one is safe from this shortcut. A policeman stopping a bus affects not just the passengers but whoever they are to meet.

Drains resources

An employee hired corruptly offers bad service for 30 or so years he works.

Think of a bad doctor or a teacher. Fake spare parts kill innocent people. Shoddy work on public projects drains resources from other projects. Shortcuts become long cuts across generations.

With time, shortcuts become part of our lives. That makes societal transformation so hard; we even compete over who can cut shorter than the others.

Innovations become rare, and we compete to share what’s produced. Being productive is frowned upon and seen as stupid.

Still wondering why some countries are stuck at the bottom of the growth trajectory?

Why do we allow shortcuts? The corrupt or the shortcutters can’t see beyond their actions.

They are either philosophically shallow or intellectually unendowed. Solution? Maybe some moral rearmament or return to traditional values.

Curiously, many of the corrupt think they are not corrupt; it’s helping or assisting. They rationalise the victims as “others.”

That is why corruption tends to be localised, perpetrated by men and women from the same socio-economic class, tribe or kinship.

Been a victim of shortcuts? Or are you a short cutter? Share your experience.