Is the love of money the cause of corruption in our society?

HUMAN beings do not want to easily believe that money is the root of all evil and yet most of the evil activities that humans do are basically related to money. The saying ‘money is the root of all evil’ came out from the human’s heart itself.

The human heart acknowledges it to be so and the body demonstrates it in deed. Human beings are trying to establish laws on how money is earned and spent decently but money is so good that it has become a ‘second-to-God’ commodity in the society.

A friend of mine has ever said to me that without money no one in our contemporary society would survive. Poverty is always associated with lack of money. Money can buy almost everything.

Money is used for redeeming both evil and good deeds. In evil intentions, money is mercilessly used for redeeming evil deeds for evil purposes and outcomes.

When money is paid to someone with ulterior motives, the money is called under-carpet, bribe or gratis.

But there are the noble and divine purposes of money. These purposes are the ones that really develop the world. The family is an example of a place in the society where the painstakingly earned and ill-spent money is inevitably and yet honestly done by parents.

For example, it is parents who consistently and without escape or relief pay for government taxes, fares, fees and bills. Some parents bear the responsibility to pay for a large sum of money for the treatment of cancer.

Thus, any government’s welfare subsidies should rightfully go to the poor family. Other uses of money include booking for tickets, winning a lottery, touring, buying coffins, paying dowry, exotic foods, building crafts for sending men into space, etc.
Money is considered a sacred commodity when given to God in the houses of worship as tithes and offerings.

The reason for writing this article is to remind ourselves of the effects of money on human activities and the consequences of doing such activities to our society.

Naturally, human beings have insatiable desire for money, be it for good or evil intention. The uncontrolled or unregulated activities of acquiring money have led to rampant corruptions and cheatings in our society.

Human love for money can only be controlled by two ways: divine and bureaucratic.
In Malaysia, capitalism is the system advocated for regulating the economy of the country. Capitalism has been the economic system of the capitalistic world for more than 200 years up to now, unrivalled by communism and socialism.

In capitalism, godliness of the people especially the capitalists is important.
Godliness guides a capitalist to spend money wisely and regulates his or her attitude. He or she can act godly in any situation even without being seen by the human eyes.

The first Principle of the Rukun Negara says, ‘Belief in God’ and the National Philosophy of Education (NPE) acknowledges ‘belief and devotion to God’ as the basic foundation of acquiring good education in Malaysia.

But this godly or divine character as is demanded by our religious faiths is rivalled by secularism and the latter is becoming a stronger preference of character in modern societies.
Bureaucracy means using less humane means (machines) to regulate or control human activities of acquiring money. Bureaucratic machines such as hidden cameras, efficient machines or office monitoring systems can be used to regularly check on corruptive or deceitful attitudes of human beings.

For instance, if thumb-print is used instead of punch-card, or a cheque issued by the bank instead of LPO signed by a ranking officer is used, corruptive activities might be reduced if not eliminated in our society.

Effective office monitoring system will periodically scrutinise on the attitudes or activities of a ranking officer in a department or in an organisation or a company.

One of the advantages of an officer being put under close government’s office scrutiny is that the scrutiny gives him no chance to commit a corruptive act so to avoid him from going to jail.
When an individual is not exposed to regulations, he or she tends to fail in his or her good characters.

Scrutinising on the quality of work performance of staff may presently be easy with pen and paper but future monitoring of the transient characters or attitudes of individuals will need to use modern monitoring systems.