Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

China Keitetsi: I think the more voice, the more you would win. But those fighting set on such a case is - You should make it personal. You should have passion and you should do everything with love, then you will win. For example, in the world or in poor countries again, there is a big corruption. If you don't know the other person, you can't be this person, or you can't get to this site. Even in politics today, in some countries it's corrupted. There is no pure leaders. It's about politics of the pocket. It's about politics of being rich. It's about politics of being - with power it's no more clean politics, so such a thing should be fought before you win it, before its dismantled, you shouldn't stop.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: Corruption is a fact of the politico-economic situation. There is here in Berlin the NGO(Non-Governmental Organization) Transparency International, which sets up complete statistics of the world-wide most corrupt states. One must admit that the European States are comparatively less corrupt, also the industrial nations and that the corruption in Russia is massive, in the former Soviet Republics, in Africa, in Latin America as well. One can only proceed systematically and concretely. The World Bank always reports that an amount of billion dollars is lost per year by corruption in the states of the so-called periphery. One knows that for instance, in Chad the World Bank had to lock up credits, because the presidents did not use the investments and its credits of the World Bank for social and education programs, but for a purchase of a massive weapon industry. Just in the past few months, it was successful with great effort in Chad to use the credits from the World Bank and the monetary funds for social education programs and not for the buying up of a weapon industry. Corruption is a fundamental malady, which causes world-wide billions of damage, in all states of the world. I also think of Burma, the dictatorial regime in Asia. One can proceed only systematically and again and again, and I mean what Transparency international does, as a NGO, which tries statistically to measure and to give reference points, really deserves respect, large acknowledgment. People should support it.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Cornel West: There is no doubt that the corporate globalization of the world is shot through with levels of corruption and graft. There is no doubt about that. So many of our governments are systems of legalized bribery, normalized corruption in terms of those politically elite being beholden to corporate economic elite. The question for me is not so much dismantling it; it’s a matter of trying to restructure it, to recast it, to both reform and in the end revolutionize and, of course, corruption is something that can go hand in hand with any movement, with any group, with any institution. It’s precisely why strong mechanisms of accountability and answerability have to be in place to keep track of all of us who often have proclivities toward corruption. It is, of course, the corruption of individuals that had to do with the kinds of choices, the quality of character, the kind of virtues that we have and are willing to act on. Then there’s corruption of systems that make it highly tempting, that make it seductive till we individuals become part of ways of life that somehow sidestep accountability. So, corruption is always a challenge. It’s always something to keep track of; but without those strong mechanisms of accountability that ought to go hand in hand with democratic globalization from below, that corruption will become more and more a part and become more and more integral to our corporate globalization that is now wrecking such havoc on too many, even as some of our mainstream intellectuals are singing the praises of such corporate globalization.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: In the point of view as an indigenous person, economic system are not inherently corrupt, but it’s the people who are making the economic system who are in their own way very corrupt. So, the question really is, how do we dismantle the system? The question is really hard because for me it’s not the system which is corrupt; it’s the people. And, therefore, we have to address the problem according to the source, according to the roots. And the people who are making the economic system are the ones who’s corrupt. And, for me, there is really a need to give value orientation especially to our economic planners who are making the systems and perhaps try to encourage a system that promotes good values on our leaders. So, for me, I still have 18 percent left on the confidence that our economic system still has hope to work and not much in a corrupt way so that if our political leaders, our economic planners will design in a way that it will benefit their constituents, then it will become favorable to everybody. And sometimes if it’s systemic and the problem is systemic, it’s really hard to dismantle it.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: I don’t believe, Mr. Glenn, that we can ever create an economic system which is resistant to corruption, and dismantling a system would mean creating another system which is just as resistant to corruption because each economic system is maintained, created and imagined by human beings and we, as human beings, have our weaknesses. I am born in a communist country where the idea of creating this system, which was not going to be corrupt, which will be equal, which would give equal opportunities and equal distribution of wealth to everyone and that would be a fair game all the way, turned out to be one of the most corrupt system ever being imagined and not because the idea was wrong because it was susceptible to human individual weaknesses--greed, lust for power, nepotism, fear, which I think is a big factor. I think the ethics in each economic system, whatever it is, has to be stronger and how, yeah I don’t think it’s about dismantling it. I think its about raising the consciousness of all the actors that create the economic system that we have today or that we’ll have tomorrow about the ethics of the whole game. And how do we do that? I don’t have an answer, but that need is really important about creating a consciousness about the ethical aspect of the economy and the global relationships we are facing today.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Eliane Potiguara: The economic system as it has been for the ones who have the power, which typically is the government, is a unilateral system. By being unilateral the governments brawl with the people. They struggle and fight, it’s an individual form of living, competitive, egoistic and in the end they become corrupt. This is why we see governments all over the world which are 90% corrupt. On top of this corruption there a discussions about to build up a public policy for the people, for the working men, the opressed people for example. Well, this kind of policy doesn’t exist anymore, it is dismantled, it’s broken. The people themselves have to change this political system and to be motivated so that they would have the will to participate more in this governmental politics. The people should partecipate in governmental politics and not just observate that the government dominates. Honestly, in my opinion, the dictatorship goes on, it just changed clothes, it puts on new colors, new musics, new goods but it continues, it just changed clothes. The dictatorship continues, just that nowadays we know that to kill people is to violate human rights and this is not the right track but they keep violating human rights in another form.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Corruption is perennial and one will never have exchange of money without there being some levels of corruption. So, the question is controlling corruption. I think that in the United States, we are in a moment where the corruption in politics is something that’s unprecedented. The problem really in the US and in a few other countries now is television advertising and that, in order to be elected to any office, no matter how minor, you need millions and millions of dollars in television advertising. So, that money has to come from somewhere, and of course, the people who are giving the politicians money expect something in return. So, we have created a sort of strange situation where the only honest politician in the US is the billionaire because he’s spending his own money and you feel like he doesn’t owe favors to anyone, doesn’t have to pay them back in that sense and it has been a mistake of other countries. Many countries do not allow television advertising, but it has been a mistake of certain other countries, most recently in Mexico that they are now running their election campaigns in this way, so that these campaigns now costs a US presidential campaign close to a billion dollars to run. So, I think we’ve created an incredibly corrupt system of lobbyists that are basically setting the agenda in Washington and this is being replicated in certain other countries. So, while this is more a question of political corruption than economic corruption, I think this is one of our major questions.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: Thank you Glen from Capetown for your question about whether our current economic system is inherently corrupt and if so, how we should go about dismantling it. Our current economic system in the world is, yes corrupt and certainly highly inequitable. Not all people in the economic system are corrupt, but the system itself is corrupted in the sense that it is an unnatural system for a mature species. I talk like an evolution biologist because I am one. I watch humanity as a species. I watch human economics in relationship to natural economics such as the body economics, your body’s economics or a rain forest economics. And, what I find is that a mature economics system in nature is one that is very equitable and an immature one is one that is greedy for some and very much a win-lose system. Young species tend to go out and grab all the resources and territory they can get in order to multiply as rapidly as possible and takeover. So, they are highly competitive, they try to drive other species out. But, in a mature economic ecology, these species have discovered that cooperating is economically more efficient than competing in hostile ways. And so they set up all kinds of cooperative ways of feeding each other, of making product available to each other more equally. So, the human species right now is behaving like an immature species with an economic system that works for someone at the expense of others. But as we mature, as we grow up into mature economics, we will develop economics that work for everyone trying to run the world the way the World Trade Organization does is often at the expense of local economies. And, what we need is to work more like the body because you couldn’t run your own body at the expense of yourselves, could you? And, our bodies are mature economic systems, while our global economy is not yet a mature economic system.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Ervin Laszlo: The economic system is corrupt because the people who benefit from it are corrupt. The way to dismantle it is to create a new mentality that is more genuine, more sincere and tries to avoid corruption at all levels. It is up to people, it is up to people to all they consume, what they buy, what they support and how they decide to produce. It’s upto civil society.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: I think the current economic system are controlled by the political systems that are existing [old ones]. And the only way we can dismantle them is by mobilizing our people. Tthe communities today is to say enough is enough. We must now put in power people who are actually not about controlling and maintaining the economic systems that are existing, and that we need a different economic system. And therefore, we do have an economic system, we do have to have a different way of governance; we have different way of political system, and that’s the only way we can do that. Because the current economic systems are actually very much close to the current corruption systems. We think there is a lot of corruption that is existing all over the world and very common, in very low levels of communities, in the villages, in the rural areas, in the urban sectors, at the government level. Because we have been driven to believe accumulating wealth and been reached material gains. It is what actually we are heading to, and that’s what we need to. And so, it does not matter what channels you will use, you will use it anyway. And to get people out of your way to gain it, you must cheat. You must lie. You must do a lot of things that are not acceptable to be able to amass that wealth. And, unless we start interrogating what our understanding of development is -- is developing about accumulating wealth, which is what our, the economics systems that we have, accumulating power through economic wealth, through material wealth...

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Fernando Solanas: Our system is inherently corrupt. The capitalist and colonialistic system (capitalism is inseperable from colonialism) are two things that the citizens of central countries of Europe, of the United States, of Southamerica don't see every day, but they get to see all their richness, the guarantees, the economial wealth which it enjoys, all those things are products of a big plurality, of a big delivery of utility, of benefits that are sent from the peripheral countries to the industrialized world. This system is inherently corrupt because it is based on individual ... and on richness. It is a system like a pyramid and not a horizontal system with a big participation of the people and of social organizations. It is a system based on the accumulation of power: economical power, from this economical power comes the construction of militarian power and of an institutional power to consolidate it. Thus our societies are all corrupt because everything is a farce, because their expressions are cynical and of total hipocracy. They are far away from serving for life, for the development of life, for the construction of a better society with better forms of social democracy, for assuring public liberties and participative democracy. The societies are far away from that, all is constructed for maintaining economical power that keeps the force and the domination of the means of communication.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: Well, I think that the system in itself is not corrupt. The question is more, are the players in the system playing it correctly or not. If one really uses a system in a transparent way, it has less a risk to be corrupt. But, we often see, when we choose our leaders, being it in a company, being it in a democratic system or those that work in dictatorships, that when they are in the so-called power, which is leadership, where they are meant to represent other people that they don't serve the other people, that they often serve their own interests than they serve their group's interest by exclusion of orders. And I think we would, all have to sit together and see if jointly we could open the economic system up and discuss with one another the situation at hand, and address one another on each one's responsibility and try to make changes. And I think these days, where on the other hand, we have the Internet and the World Wide Web that we could create root, movements from the grassroots and address these issues and bring them to the arena of leadership. An organization like Transparency International from Germany here, led by and set up by Peter Eigen is very hard at work to disclose all the corrupt issues in many countries in the world.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: The course of the history of mankind up to now implies a positive answer to this question. But in my opinion our species, the Homo sapiens is only at the beginning of his evolution. One day we will become beings that will be more mature than we are now and then a fairer society system will rule over human society. That is what I hope.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, the word “corruption” is a sickness, a terrible sickness where still we didn't find a medicine. We go to the pharmacy, buy something, you cure it. This sickness that we call corruption, again, again, always, always, we will arrive to education, will arrive to the situation the human being still didn't understood why we exist, the meaning, the essence of existence. And, until we will not find the ways, they are not [inaudible] because there exists ways. There is offer to us to follow a process of cultivation; a spiritual grown exists like religion, any religion. The purpose is to help us to follow the way of cultivation. The result speak by themselves. Of course, something wrong but corruption should be really, should be treated because what this corruption? Corruption is somebody that exploit you. Somebody they got a position, not for himself to be in a high position; he got the position to serve society and not to abuse it. Again, corruption is a sickness as a result of misleading the personal life of a person with the practice corruption, not a question of punishment, question of conscience level.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Yeah, yeah, it’s corrupt. It’s corrupt in the sense that resources, the economic systems oppose the concentration of resources to a few people or individuals. And, in this case, it is working at the disadvantage of the majority or of the greater part of the people. And, the best way to do this is to see - to break this system to make sure that we have a situation in which we divide the power - economic power, and also we make sure that all stakeholders, as have a stake in the economic system. This should apply not only at national level, this should apply at global level, the economic power should be divided between First World, Third World countries, Africa, Asia, and Europe, America, not to have one state, one continent, dominating and continue to dominate all the time. It is - sometimes it’s annoying to find out that if and when negotiations are being taken, for example, in the CBD or in some of these international conventions, the First World countries team up against the Third World countries to try to stop Third World countries from proceeding or from pursuing policies that will allow them to benefit from their natural resources, for example, the cure for access to resources. Right now, First World countries are refusing to put in international access and benefit sharing policy that would allow local communities and African countries and developing countries to benefit from their resources. All they want is to keep the developing countries at a different disadvantaged position by making sure that there is no law that will allow them to demand to benefit from the resources that come from their country. They want free access to resources without [audio ends]

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: Yes, it is inherently corrupt. It has been increasingly corrupt because of the purpose of economic system is to keep the few in a position of strength. It is an issue where the economic system is part of a political system. These laws, these rules are often helping the powerful, the privileged to remain powerful. How do we go about dismantling it? I think we need to, ourselves, become strong in a way that we are able to offer an alternative where we don’t get run over by the current economic system. We are able to exist by our own abilities to produce and distribute. That is how I see it possible. Unless we are able to operate in a manner that we are able to insulate ourselves, it is not easy to dismantle it, because there are people who continue to work on this issue of keeping it in the way it functions.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: The economic system inherently corrupt? I don't know what corrupt means. In any case it is hostile to life. It is not focused on developing the human being as such, but to strengthen the power of few people to enable them to dominate the many others better. In this sense they are not participating in the real development of life. Sustainability basically means making life livelier. It means to integrate more and more people in this evolution. Participating in this development. Economy is not corrupt in the sense that there is some kind of conspiracy but that the orientation is wrong. Taking as a standard what stresses the inanimate and reduces the living in its plurality. This leads to a powerful simplicity and not to a varied and organic diversity. But diversity is the starting point for further development of mankind to a larger unit in which mankind is more than the sum of the individual cultures, including everything and having a higher flexibility.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 10:40:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: Is the current economic system inherently corrupt and what is the basement, what is the ceiling? I think you have to think that the economic systems have the wealthy and healthy site and it have to be different. It is true the economic system has a problem, have to reform, have to improve it.

by Harry Wu