The Price of Integrity

The question is not if we tend to whore ourselves for money. The question is at what price? We all have a price. Many have a low price, and these people get judged the most. The ones with a high price are often beyond judgment, but there’s always a price. It is rare to find someone who is completely incorruptible.

Corruption. Now that’s a strong word. Just because we all have a price doesn’t mean we’d do anything for that price. Show me someone who’s been paid their price and stood by values. The spectrum of corrupt behaviour is wide. And just like, until death, you shall not know what’s beyond the gates of heaven, so too, you shall not know your level of corruption until you’re offered your price.

I have found corruption, bribing, and greasing the wheels of progress a logical part of business, especially in highly corrupt and bureaucratic regions where there is no alternative. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be an illegal bribe but a higher payment than the competition or whatever. But on a personal level, I have found this price that we all have alarming. It has scared me. The idea is that everyone out there can be bought. I have the highest respect for those rare gems who will sooner die than name their price, let alone have a price.

For in all honesty, as much as I wish I were like them, I don’t know if I don’t have a price. So far, nobody’s been able to pay me to do terrible things, but nobody’s offered me my price, and my price in my mind is very high, which in a way is my protection. So perhaps my price is so high that this makes me, in effect, incorruptible. But again, until I’m offered that payment, I won’t know. And even then, perhaps there would still be so much I wouldn’t be willing to do.

So on one hand, I appreciate the power—the power that can be had with money, the amount of people that can be bought and ruled while keeping one’s own hands clean. Yet I still find myself terrified that the homeless man will murder for the gift of shoes. That the young woman will prostitute herself for a plane ticket. That the judge will send an innocent person to jail for a promotion. These all make the world a scary place.

But then surely, if you have the money and power, this environment is to your benefit? But is it? As long as these things don’t happen where you live. As long as they don’t affect yours and what’s close to yours. The successful cartel honcho does not feel successful when his kid becomes a drug addict—or does he? Again, assumptions, as I’ve yet to be a successful cartel honcho. But I do know of a Greek man who ran a carjacking business in Johannesburg and quit crime the day he saw his daughter’s car in his garage, being told the driver was executed for resisting. Surely this was success—until it hit so close to home. Back to Greece in sorrow, he went, paying a price he wasn’t prepared to pay.

When we think of our price, we easily say we won’t steal or kill for this price. But often, looking the other way is not that much less. Then again, surely I’m exaggerating. How does a college girl whoring herself for $50 hurt the world? How does a $100 bribe to the border guard hurt the world? I guess all it does is make it very hard for the incorruptible to stay incorruptible. And perhaps that is the true challenge—to not let money move you right or left.

But if you give up on your dreams for $1,000, what will you give up on for $100,000 or $1,000,000? What part of your soul and body will remain yours? And why is the free and cheap violation of both abhorred, but the correctly priced one not? What will that friend who is hating you for not paying back $20 do for $1,000? Isn’t it frightening? It frightens me.

But perhaps it frightens me because I know myself and trust myself but don’t know others and don’t trust them. For how many were willing to send the Jews to gas chambers for a free apartment? Are these not whores, even if they prayed to Christ and kept Sunday as a rest day? So perhaps the biggest challenge in this world is not to find meaning but to find your price and keep your clothes on.