Munich, Germany - The Business of Bribes

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According to the article "The Business of Bribes", corruption is very much a "chicken or the egg" situation. Multinational corporations may bring on corruption by using their connection with an impoverished country to take advantage of its workers. In other cases, they may bribe country officials to keep quiet about a certain event or to encourage them to make a certain decision.

I believe that the being most responsible for the corruption caused by multinational corporations (MNCs) is the wealthy corporation offering the bribe to the government of a poor nation. I think so because when an offer so great is made to someone who has been living in poverty their entire lives and who has to see the horrible effects of it in their home every day, it is almost impossible for them to turn it down. It is true that they don't have to accept the offer for corruption, but it is also a bit ignorant to say that they didn't have to take the bribe. For example, in this article, Reinhard Siekaczek allowed bribery in his company in order to "keep the business unite alive and not jeopardize thousands of jobs overnight". He did not want to see the people he worked with lose their jobs and everything they had. In another example, the Behind the Swoosh documentary in Indonesia, if the country confronted Nike, Inc. about their discontent with the workers' pay, Nike threatened to leave the nation altogether. This would leave thousands of workers without a paycheck, and hurt the nation's economy. In situations like this, if bribery or corruption is not accepted, it could leave the country with a dangerously high unemployment percentage and do more damage.

For these reasons, I think MNCs are to blame for corruption in poor nations.

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