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Comment by hedonistbot | Hacker News Reader

Alternatives methods for corruption will always exist. If you ban one method another will be used shortly after and those most capable of switching are usually the people with biggest illegal funds. Bribes are illegal and yet they are common, then why do you think that another law will help? A better treatment would be to better apply the current law but this too will fail if the culture of corruption is not diminished. Changes on this scale are not achieved in a fortnight but I agree that the Indian government is showing resolve to work on the problem.

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You are in error about my post -- I recommended no additional law. My post was regarding the experiment and it's stated purpose of reducing the parallel (black) economy.

The evidence I'm seeing suggests that the experiment is not yet yielding the expected results. Hence my suggestion of certain changes which could help it along.

Full-blown economics discussion, and what could spur the economy, is a large enough topic that I would not tackle it via a HN post.

And I am saying that no changes (law or not) can be effective in fighting corruption as long as the incentives for it are present (broken institutions, culture of accepting bribes, mainly cash economy). Also in the business of government changes are usually implemented through laws. Hence my usage of the term.

Edit: The evidence I provided was that current legal framework is explicit enough in its treatment of corruption and yet corruption is still present which suggests that the problem is not in the rules.

Also, I don't like how you equate parallel economy to black economy. Those are different terms in Economics and the majority of economic transactions outside of regulations and laws are not bribes but a part of the informal sector (grey economy) [1]. And India is considered one of the countries with biggest grey sector in the world [2].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_sector

[2] - http://www.ibtimes.com/india-has-second-highest-rate-shadow-...

Thanks you for your considered opinion on corruption, which is not something I commented upon above.

The 'parallel economy' is a non-colored word for the non-white economy, which is is transactions that the government does not know about, usually referred to as the 'black economy'. If you do not like the use of the term, you may perhaps launch a petition to change the popular usage?

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