2003/06/01 by Richard White · 3 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #American History and Culture #Race, History, and American Society #Colonialism, slavery, and trade
paper · doi:10.2307/3659790
openalex publication_date 2003/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The corrupt, like the poor, are supposedly always with us. Corruption is a species of fraud that involves violation of public or private trust. A covenant of some sort, either implied or explicit, is violated. Corruption involves betrayal, often of a third party. The corrupt buy or sell what was not supposed to be for sale—a vote, for example, or public property. They turn to personal advantage their legal status as trustees of persons or property. Or they grant only to a privileged few what is purportedly available to all or available only through open and fair competition, such as public information or access to political officeholders or charters or contracts. Or, for a price or for personal advantage, they make public what was pledged to be private, such as state secrets or confidential business information. In the Gilded Age, the corrupt explored new frontiers: they corrupted information, particularly financial information, on a scale never before possible.