“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion – but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”. Samuel P. Huntington

‘Corruption’ is essentially a pejorative noun, closely associated with bad morality and dishonesty. As a process it charts a path of decay, to ‘impurity’. Used in relation to computers, it is more associated with ‘containing mistakes’ – different from the original. A mistake is not necessarily a bad thing, or morally bad. In this circumstance you could formulate the equation that mistakes plus time equals corruption. An error is generally also a mistake, however an error can have moral implications, such as in ‘the errors of one’s ways’ – the ‘errors’ here being wrong behavior or beliefs. The difference is notably whether a procedure is accidental or not.

When, in the book of Genesis, God instructed Adam and Eve not to touch the tree of knowledge in The Garden of Eden, he knew they would disobey.  God’s human prototypes were created inherently corrupt   and placed in a landscape primed to be corrupted. The garden was God’s own interactive installation. The secret knowledge to be garnered was potentially mind-blowing and also the bitterest of pills.

There are few more view points of thinkers and you can read them here …

M R Venkatesh:  http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jun/25guest.htm

Ikram Sehgal: http://www.mediamonitors.net/ikramsehgal19.html

However I find all the above to be intellectually stimulating and thought provoking articles – but do not give the clarity on the “Cause” of corruption in the beginning.

Corruption in any form primarily indicates – either the lack of, or total absence of “Self-esteem”. This can be found to be individual or collective in a society. When a person aspires to – Have without Doing anything to Earn it … he is internally “degraded”. Unfortunately this degeneration is so intoxicating and addictive – he will never want to be out of it for fear of insecurity. He hardly realizes that this “material prosperity” is progressively causing irreversible “mental poverty”.

Easy money of corruption, which obviously cannot be revealed to the society at large, has to be some-how spent for luxury – and that is … Alcohol, Drugs & Debauchery!  What is the result? Medical treatments! Demand for more hospitals and doctors. What do they do? Try and rob these “robbers” of their loot. What is the end result? Innocent and poor commoners cannot afford these costly medical treatments for their genuine health problems. The vicious cycle of degradation & degeneration continues till a “Bloody Revolution & Blood Bath” destroys the entire society or a country. This cycle goes on. In the game of survival called “Life” – corruption is “contra survival” in the long run – a fact hardly realized by the corrupt.

Lord Krishna knew this fundamental human nature and said – Sambhavami Yuge – Yuge!