Bribery is a complicated art that needs to be mastered. And it is also big business, where the bribe-givers and bribe-takers do a pantomine of reciprocation to accomplish a certain goal: To enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers’ money to support their whims and caprices in life.
A common practice in most developing practice, a feat that was handed down since biblical times, bribery had been perfected through the ages. It has developed into a network where those with sheer influence and power are the ones that thrive.
A big factor that contributes largely for the commission of this illegal act amongst people, especially those that have been engaged in big contracts in Third World countries is the attraction of huge sums of "grease money" changing hands, as a means to secure easy approval of things that are either illegal or substandard in nature.
Until now, there’s not a concrete data that could quantify how much money went to bribery throughout the world. But certainly, this elicit activity is committed almost daily without letup under the noses of corrupt officials who are in cahoots with businessmen and private individuals, whose hunger for money has become a lifetime obsession. But it comes without the price to pay.
In short, "grease money" is a plus factor in facilitating for the immediate attention or approval of business transactions. And stopping it is like shooting for the moon. As the late American political economist Henry George said: "To put political power in the hands of men embittered and degraded by poverty is to tie firebrands to foxes and turn them loose amid the standing corn; it is to put our eyes of a Samson and to twine his arms around the pillars of national life."
He continues: "A corrupt democratic government must finally corrupt the people, and when a people becomes corrupt, there is no resurrection. In corrupt democracy, the tendency is always to give power to the worst. Honesty and patriotism are weighted and unscrupulously commands success.
But why do some people succumb to bribery? The Economist’s article entitled The Etiquette of Bribery stated: "It is that their daily lives are pervaded by endless hassles, big and small." And to escape detection, payer has deliberately designed a system that would make the illegal deal look clean so as to avoid prosecution.