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The Long Shadow of Corruption | Part III | A Perpetual Polymorphic Problem.

Welcome to the final part of our look back at the history of corruption. We've already been to India, Rome, China, Egypt, Babylon, and Greece - and seen that corruption is as old as civilisation. Even when God emperors ruled they were acutely aware of corruption - it seems to be a universal part of political life. The records we've looked at go back 4,000 years, but it's undoubtedly been around longer than that - since before records began. In this post we'll travel to China (again), Persia, Mahgrib (North Africa) and England. Ah, home sweet home, I would have been terribly disappointed if my land of birth and citizenship hadn't shown up here. Monarchy has always been big business - but they did take it a bit far back in the day.


Why the fancy word, what's polymorphic? It is simply something that can take multiple forms, shapes, or behaviours while retaining an underlying structure. For thousands of years, around the world (or galaxy as far we know, and George Lucas and Isaac Asimov are concerned) corruption adapts. It mutates and evolves, circumventing controls, laws, constraints and technology. Regardless of geography, language, or culture - corruption is almost assured.


We aren't dealing with the why's here but it's a human problem, maybe a built-in survive and thrive mechanism inherent to clever apes. It's safe to say that power and politics struggle to exist without corruption rearing its ugly, shapeshifting head. Time to go back in time...


Now that's gonna be a long shadow... // img: Unsplash
Now that's gonna be a long shadow... // img: Unsplash

CHINA (c. 653 CE ≈ 1,370 years ago)

Tang Code


Background of the Time


Let's go back a mere 1370 years ago, by the mid-7th century CE, China was under the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) - often considered one of the greatest political and cultural peaks in Chinese history. The dynasty emerged after the chaotic collapse of the Sui, a period of overbuilding, heavy taxation, and failed military campaigns. The Tang founders, Emperor Gaozu and especially his son Taizong, learned from those failures. They sought to build an administration that was both strong and predictable, governed by law rather than the whims of powerful individuals.


The Tang court presided over a vast, sophisticated empire: a centralised bureaucracy, provincial governors, civil-service examinations, religious pluralism, and booming Silk Road trade. Governing this machine required a legal framework that could keep officials disciplined, citizens protected, and political legitimacy intact. The solution was the Tang Code of 653 CE - a monumental legal text blending Confucian ethics with Legalist administrative logic.


This was not merely a criminal code. It was a political architecture designed to regulate behaviour across all levels of society, from palace ministers to village elders. And woven throughout it is a clear preoccupation: preventing corruption before it corrodes the state.


Types of Corruption and How They Manifested


The Tang Code contains some of the earliest and most comprehensive anti-corruption laws in world history. Unlike earlier Legalist texts, which focused on harsh punishment, the Tang Code integrates moral expectations with systemic constraints.


Key forms of corruption it identifies and criminalises include:


  • Bribery and graft: Officials who accepted gifts or payments in exchange for favours were punished heavily, with penalties scaled to the official’s rank and the value received.


  • Abuse of authority: Misusing office—whether by issuing unlawful orders, exploiting labour, or extorting taxpayers—was considered a crime against the state itself.


  • Misappropriation of state property: Embezzling grain, weapons, horses, or treasury funds was met with severe penalties.


  • Judicial corruption: Judges or magistrates who intentionally altered verdicts, delayed justice, or accepted bribes faced harsh consequences.


  • Nepotism and favouritism: Appointing unqualified relatives or allies interfered with the meritocratic ideals of the examination system and was subject to disciplinary action.


Central to the Tang Code is the idea that corruption is not just a legal violation but a breach of moral order - a concept drawn from Confucian thought. Officials were expected to embody virtue, fairness, and restraint. The Code’s commentaries emphasise that an official’s moral conduct directly impacts the stability of the empire.


This blending of ethical norms with legal penalties created an unusually sophisticated framework: corruption wasn’t only punished; it was defined as behaviour that violated the harmony between ruler, official, and subject.


Impact and Response


The Tang Code became the backbone of Chinese governance for centuries, influencing legal systems in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Its impact can be understood in three major ways:


  1. Institutional Stability

The Code standardised punishments across the empire, creating predictability in how misconduct—including corruption—was handled. This helped strengthen confidence in the administration, especially among local populations who had previously suffered under arbitrary rule.


  1. The Bureaucracy as Moral Instrument

Because Tang rule relied on a merit-based civil service, the Code emphasised the moral obligations of those who held office. Officials were judged not only on performance but on conduct. A corrupt official was more than inefficient—he was a danger to the moral fabric of the state.


  1. Long-term legacy

The Tang Code remained influential for nearly a millennium. Its integration of ethics and law helped shape the East Asian understanding that corruption is both a moral failure and a governance failure. Later dynasties repeatedly returned to Tang principles when trying to control powerful regional officials or rein in bureaucratic abuse.


Yet, like all empires, the Tang eventually faced its own crises: warlordism, eunuch domination, and fiscal strain. Even with the Tang Code, corruption reappeared in cycles. But the legal foundation it laid—especially its clarity, structure, and moral grounding—remains one of the most enduring anti-corruption frameworks in early world history.



img: Unsplash
img: Unsplash

PERSIA (c. 1090 CE ≈ 935 years ago)

Nizam al-Mulk’s Siyasatnama (The Book of Government)


Background of the Time


We move to the 11th century Seljuk Empire, a vast political realm stretching across Persia, Central Asia, and parts of the Middle East. The Seljuks were Turkic rulers who adopted Persian administrative culture and Sunni Islamic legitimacy. Their empire was powerful but politically fragile - built on a system of military elites, provincial governors, local tax farmers, religious scholars (ulama), and an often overstretched central administration.


The man who held this complex machine together for nearly thirty years was Nizam al-Mulk (1018–1092), the empire’s celebrated vizier (chief minister) under Sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah. He was a statesman, administrator, and political philosopher. Late in his life, at the Sultan’s request, he composed the Siyasatnama (“Book of Government”) — a manual for rulers on how to govern justly, avoid corruption, and prevent the decay of the state.


The Siyasatnama stands out because it is not simply an administrative handbook. It blends history, ethics, statecraft, and cautionary tales, presenting corruption not just as criminal behaviour but as the “disease that destroys kingdoms” - a label that has rung true through time. His world was one in which assassins, warlords, and ambitious bureaucrats could all threaten the throne. Good governance, for Nizam al-Mulk, was a matter of political survival.


Types of Corruption and How They Manifested


Nizam al-Mulk witnessed firsthand how corruption hollowed out empires. In the Siyasatnama, he identifies several recurring patterns that are remarkably, yet unsurprisingly, similar to modern corruption typologies:


  • Bribery and influence-buying: Officials taking payments to grant favours, positions, or legal outcomes.

  • Embezzlement: Tax collectors and governors “skimming” revenue before passing it to the state treasury.

  • Abuse of office: Provincial administrators terrorising peasants, extorting merchants, or enriching themselves under pretext of military necessity.

  • Court intrigue and factionalism: Ministers forming cliques to dominate access to the ruler, distort information, and sabotage rivals.

  • Gatekeeper corruption: Palace administrators controlling petitions and access to the Sultan — and selling that access to the highest bidder.


Nizam al-Mulk’s analysis shows an acute understanding of political psychology. He believed rulers became corrupt because of distance from the people, reliance on flattery, and the absence of trusted information. Hidden from the realities of governance, they fell prey to manipulation by self-interested courtiers.


His prescription was clear: corruption thrives when the ruler sees only what others want him to see.


Impact and Response


The Siyasatnama is a call for active, visible, and morally grounded leadership. Nizam al-Mulk proposes several anti-corruption mechanisms:


  1. Regular inspections: The ruler or vizier should send disguised inspectors to judge the true behaviour of officials — a practice reminiscent of Kautilya’s spies and later Islamic muhtasibs.

  2. Merit-based appointments: Offices should go to competent individuals, not relatives or favourites — a direct attack on nepotism.

  3. Just taxation: Taxation should be predictable and humane; oppressive collectors undermine the legitimacy of the ruler.

  4. Protection of the poor: A recurring theme: injustice toward common people is the root of uprisings and divine punishment.

  5. Punishment of wrongdoers: Corrupt officials must face swift consequences to signal fairness and regain public trust.


Nizam al-Mulk frames corruption not merely as administrative failure but as an existential threat:

“The kingdom may survive with unbelief, but it will not survive with injustice.”

His blend of Islamic ethics, Persian administrative tradition, and real-world observation creates one of the earliest integrated theories of anti-corruption governance.


Sadly, the political instability he warned of was already brewing. After his assassination by the Nizari Ismailis (the “Assassins”), the Seljuk Empire began to fracture, evidence that strong institutions often depend too heavily on strong individuals. This individual vs institution argument is ever-present in anticorruption rhetoric, here the idea is that misled by bad actors - courtiers and flattery, bad rulers are made, not born.





ENGLAND (1215 CE ≈ 810 years ago)

Magna Carta (The Great Charter)



Background of the Time


In early 13th-century England, the reign of King John (1199–1216) had become a textbook case of monarchical overreach. John inherited a kingdom already strained by the costs of crusades, wars in France, and internal aristocratic tensions. But he made everything worse: he lost Normandy, levied crushing taxes to fund hopeless military campaigns, seized estates arbitrarily, and sold justice to those who could pay. His rule was marked by a climate of fear, coercion, and greed.


England was a feudal monarchy, where kings ruled through a network of barons who supplied armies and collected taxes. It was not democratic, but there were expectations: that the king would respect customary law, consult barons on major decisions, and uphold the rights of the Church and nobility. John ignored all of it. He fined nobles into submission, extorted money through “reliefs” and “taxes,” and manipulated the courts for profit. Even the Church turned against him, placing England under an "interdict" - banning it from the rites of the church.


By 1215, the barons had had enough. They rebelled and forced John to negotiate at Runnymede (in Surrey, and now run by the National Trust). The result was Magna Carta (“The Great Charter”), a document that, while not democratic in the modern sense, was fundamentally about restraining political corruption and limiting arbitrary power.


Types of Corruption and How They Manifested


Magna Carta doesn’t use the word “corruption,” but the behaviours it addresses are unmistakably corrupt practices tied to monarchical abuse:


  • Selling justice: John routinely took money to influence court decisions, accelerating or delaying cases for a price.

  • Arbitrary taxation: Scutages (paid by a vassal to his lord in lieu of military service) and fines were levied unpredictably and excessively, enriching the Crown at the expense of stability.

  • Abuse of feudal power: John exploited feudal rules to seize inheritances, kidnap hostages, and pressure barons for cash.

  • Violation of due process: Individuals were imprisoned or dispossessed without lawful judgment - the medieval equivalent of state overreach.

  • Offices sold for profit: Sheriffs and local officials bought their positions, recouping the costs through extortion and bribery.


Magna Carta responded to these patterns with specific clauses aimed at curbing corruption through law, procedure, and accountability.


Two of the most famous clauses speak directly to abuse of power:


  • Clause 40: “To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.” This is an explicit anti-corruption measure—condemning pay-to-play justice.

  • Clause 45: “We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only those who know the law and are minded to keep it well.”


A direct attack on nepotism and incompetent officeholders (though we know that incompetence is not corruption - these officeholder likely gained their roles via nepotism/cronyism). In short, Magna Carta is an early attempt to force government to operate within rules, not personal whim and fancy.


Impact and Response


Magna Carta was not an instant triumph. Within weeks, King John tried to repudiate it, sparking civil war. But after his death in 1216, his successors reissued the charter—several times—because they needed the legitimacy it provided. Over time, Magna Carta evolved from a peace treaty into a constitutional symbol.


Three major impacts stand out:


  1. Institutionalising Rule of Law

The idea that the king himself must obey the law was revolutionary. It planted the roots for later English legal traditions, including due process, habeas corpus, and constraints on executive power.


  1. Anti-Corruption Governance

Many clauses were explicitly aimed at reducing abuse: predictable taxation, fair justice, regulated weights and measures, and clearer procedures. These are foundational elements of good governance.


  1. Long-Term Legacy

Over centuries, Magna Carta became a rallying point against arbitrary power—invoked by Parliament, colonists in America, and legal reformers worldwide. It is often mythologised, but the core principle remains powerful: unchecked authority inevitably becomes corrupt authority.


Though the barons who championed it were protecting their own interests, Magna Carta became far more than a feudal contract. It is an early example of using law to restrain arbitrary behaviour and became a prototype for holding rulers accountable, centuries before modern constitutions. Its symbolic legacy often outweighs its original intent, but the anti-corruption message endures.




MAGHRIB (North Africa, c. 1377 ≈ 650 years ago )

Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah


Background of the Time


We end in the 14th century, with one of the most remarkable political thinkers in world history: Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). He lived during a period of profound upheaval in the Maghrib (modern Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) and across the broader Islamic world. The region was fragmented into rival dynasties; the plague had devastated populations; trade networks fluctuated; and nomadic tribes frequently challenged fragile urban regimes.


Ibn Khaldun served as a diplomat, judge, court official, and at times political hostage - giving him a front-row seat to the rise and fall of regimes. His famous work, the Muqaddimah (“Prologue”) - written in 1377 - was intended as an introduction to a universal history but became a groundbreaking treatise on power, corruption, economics, sociology, and the cycles of empire.


Where earlier thinkers described corruption in moral or administrative terms, Ibn Khaldun mapped it as a historical process—a pattern repeating across cultures, eras, and civilisations.


Types of Corruption and How They Manifested


Ibn Khaldun argued that corruption is not an event or behaviour but a predictable stage in the lifecycle of a dynasty. He introduces the concept of ʿasabiyya—group cohesion or social solidarity—which fuels the founding of new states. Over time, as rulers grow accustomed to luxury and power, ʿasabiyya declines and corruption spreads.


Key forms of corruption in his analysis include:


  • Fiscal abuse: Excessive taxation imposed to feed the extravagant lifestyles of the ruling elite.

  • Patronage and nepotism: Offices distributed to favourites and relatives rather than capable administrators.

  • Extraction and predation: Officials enriching themselves at the expense of farmers, traders, and craftsmen.

  • Judicial manipulation: Judges bending the law to suit political or financial interests.

  • Luxury and decadence: Rulers losing discipline and becoming detached from the hardships of ordinary people.


One of his most famous lines encapsulates the economic cost of corruption:

“Injustice ruins civilization.”


Unlike earlier thinkers, Ibn Khaldun treats corruption as structural. When a ruling group becomes comfortable, it shifts from production to consumption, from maintaining order to extracting wealth. Administrative corruption is not a deviation — it is a sign that the state is entering decline.


Impact and Response


Ibn Khaldun’s key contribution is not that he offered an anti-corruption program (he didn’t), but that he provided an explanatory model for how corruption destroys states. His theory has three major insights:


  1. States begin with integrity and end with corruption.

New dynasties are tough, simple, cohesive. Over generations, rulers distance themselves from the people, taxation rises, and corruption becomes inevitable.


  1. Corruption weakens the state’s ability to defend itself.

When officials steal and citizens lose trust, revenues fall and military strength declines. The dynasty becomes vulnerable to external conquest or internal rebellion.


  1. Corruption is self-reinforcing.

As revenues shrink, rulers raise taxes; higher taxes suffocate the economy; officials extort more to compensate; and the cycle accelerates toward collapse.


This is perhaps the earliest fully articulated theory of state failure through corruption - centuries before modern political science.


Ibn Khaldun himself lived through these patterns, serving multiple dynasties that rose and fell exactly as he predicted. His insights influenced later Ottoman thinkers, European historians, and contemporary scholars of development and governance.



Change it seems, is not inevitable.


AT THE END OF TIME


Something crucial underlines the ideas of Ibn Khaldun - corruption as a historical inevitability, as an inherent part of politics and government. It is a phase in a dynasty’s life cycle, tied to prosperity and complacency. These historical models and modes of early anticorruption sentiment mirror modern observations on state fragility, kleptocracy, and institutional decay. Change it seems, is not inevitable.


For me, corruption starts not in the mind but in the elbows of the powerful. A slight nudge, the smallest and most subtle of touches from the elbow of a bad actor can direct the next person along to take a dubious road. Unseen unless you watch the surveillance footage, if there was a camera, if it was zoomed in, if the lighting was suitable, and if there aren't dummies dotted all around. It's the same problem it was 4,000 years ago.



CONCLUSION


Over millennia, across the globe, from Egypt and Babylonia to Greece, India, China, Persia, England, and the Islamic world - corruption emerges not as a local quirk but as a universal feature of political life. Every civilisation wrestled with the same uncomfortable dilemma: those who enforce the rules are the most capable of breaking them. How do we find the sweet spot between anarchy and tyranny?


What ties these 12 examples together is a simple, enduring pattern, corruption arises when:

  • individuals concentrate power without oversight

  • incentives are distorted

  • institutions are weakened

  • injustice spreads, the people suffer.


Some societies sought to deter it with harsh laws; others with ethics, virtue, audits, inspectors, public accountability, or constitutional limits. None found a permanent cure. But each advanced the global conversation about integrity, justice, and the conditions required for a state to remain legitimate. A conversation that's been going for more than 4000 years. And it continues to baffle.


Corruption is polymorphic, it is moral, economic, systemic, structural, cultural and political. It is different things, to different people at different times. But it is always unjust, always wrong, isn't it? My moral compass says so, but yours might point elsewhere.


Moral relativism is a problem, what is right for one person is not for another. A freedom fighter to one, is a terrorist to another. So, integrity isn't fixed, corruption isn't defined in law, and the long shadow lies over all of Us humans alike. We push back, redesign, monitor, reinforce and we continue to fight and continue to log, to build on what has already been learnt. Since records began.


The prospect of the greater good is of utmost importance here and it requires a human perspective. A planetary perspective. We are all the same. Our differences are minor, our commonalities are major. What the anticorruption policies, laws and guides of civilisations past have been promoting is equality, justice and impartiality. Zero corruption means a better baseline for everyone. Though that line remains a dot to us.

So, what can we do about it, what do we have now that they didn't have back then? Airplanes, vitamin D spray, Facebook, a large hadron collider, the James Webb telescope, vaccines, supercomputers in our pockets - modern technology. It has been used to undermine power and politics to great effect, but it can also bring like-minds together and foster solidarity and security. Can it bring enforcement of rules and laws to a point where committing such heinous crimes against populations is unthinkable? Can machines learn enough to start teaching us. I mean really teach. Is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) our only hope. At this point, we remain in the long shadow so I guess it's worth a shot, anything other than waiting another 4000 years for humans to try and figure it out....oh, as long as the bad guys don't get hold it of it.


Thanks for reading.



Alvin




Sources & Disclaimers.


This article was created in collaboration with an AI research assistant.


General Inspo.

A Very Short History of Corruption.

Corruption: A Short History (The Short Histories).


CHINA


PERSIA


ENGLAND


MAHGRIB

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