Corruption
form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's private gain
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a crime that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities like bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement, and fraud as well as practices that are legal in many countries, such as lobbying. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.
Historically, "corruption" had a broader meaning concerned with an activity's impact on morals and societal well-being: for example, the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates was condemned to death in part for "corrupting the young".
Contemporary corruption is perceived as most common in kleptocracies, oligarchies, narco-states, authoritarian states, and mafia states, however, research and policy statements acknowledge that it also exists in wealthy capitalist economies. In How Corrupt is Britain, David Whyte reveals that corruption exists "across a wide range of venerated institutions" in the UK, ranked as one of the least corrupt countries by the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). In a 2022 speech on "Modern Corruption", USAID Administrator Samantha Power stated: "Corruption is no longer just about individual autocrats pilfering their nation's wealth to live large", but also involves sophisticated transnational networks, including financial institutions hidden in secrecy. Responding to Whyte's book, George Monbiot criticized the CPI for its narrow definition of corruption that surveys mostly only executives about bribery. Similarly, others point out that "global metrics systematically under-measure 'corruption of the rich' – which tends to be legalized, institutionalized, and ambiguously unethical – as opposed to 'corruption of the poor'".
Corruption and crime are endemic sociological phenomena that occur regularly in nearly all countries worldwide, in varying degrees and proportions.
“Corruption” enters the record as form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's private gain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Corruption, form and dishonesty can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Corruption” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Corruption, form and dishonesty provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q366. The Library of Congress control number is sh94002193. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Corruption” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.