Exerting influence and exchanging things leads us to the anthropological and juridical spiral of the so-called principle of reciprocity 1. And even if the search for the essence of the concept of democracy is a bold challenge, it’s hard to deny that this very essence has to do with exchanges and with the tools we handle during the decision-making process 2.
[...]
Thus, the decision of a person which affects the juridicaleconomic sphere of another person, raises the question of the actual degrees of independence and autonomy with respect to advantages of any kind that the decision-maker obtained (or would like to obtain) from that very decision. And we can’t even begin to talk about corruption if we don’t face the question of the utilitarian nature of human interrelationships. So that considering suspicious an exchange between social actors affected by the decision made by one out of those two, can be seen just as a matter of the chosen time frame. This is then the place where the Marcell Mauss principle of reciprocity takes the floor and begins to play 3. And it translates into the countless possible functional equivalents of the bribe 4. Resulting it into the choice to formally define them or not, to be inclusive or not in regulating them, to trace or not an area of (social) juridical acceptance 5. As long as we have to deal with bags full of wads of cash, there is no matter at all. It’s a bribe, and exchanging it results into an action of corruption, into a crime of corruption. Things, though, begin to get more complicated once we left the profane of the bribe-bag and we have to understand if a gift for a bride who happens to be the daughter of a decision-maker is to be considered a kind of bribe. As well as the special dinner served in a starred restaurant where took place a meeting, or presents given during a particular occasion and because of a special personal relationship, or like being invited to a glamorous charity gala, or attending corporate conventions or private parties: is that something we should consider as a functional equivalent of the profane bribe? For certain, phenomenologically we are here far beyond the sour smell of wrinkled cash kept inside a bag. [dal primo capitolo]
