ABSTRACT
The chapter explores some of the psychodynamic variables that make corruption possible at a personal, organizational and social level. In order to consider what corruption might be, it makes reference to the concepts of envy, jealousy, and the oedipal configuration, in relation to both power and authority. While the chapter acknowledges the importance of specific contexts such as impoverished economies, it argues that the potential for corrupt behaviour is an integral component of our psycho-social makeup, and, as such, it is abetted by internal conflict in the individual and the group. Unless we understand the vicissitudes of our envy of power, this is disavowed and we turn a blind eye to the potential in ourselves and others for acting corruptly.
