The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

In light of all this, the question of corruption begins to take on a somewhat different hue. Given the role of Britain, the United States and various European countries in facilitating illicit flows by building and maintaining the global tax haven system, and in light of the role that the WTO plays in making it difficult for customs officials to clamp down on mispricing, it seems a bit strange that rich countries appear in corruption-free yellow on the Transparency International map. One of the problems with TI’s methodology is that it measures people’s perceptions of corruption, rather than corruption itself. People who live in Britain may not normally think of their country as being particularly corrupt, but that may be because corruption is something that they have been taught to associate with countries in the developing world – not with the rich world. In this sense, Transparency International might be helping to create the very perceptions that it seeks to measure.