[Vnbiz] Intel Vietnam refuses to pay bribes

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear CACC,

I think I have made my points fairly clear for now.  No need for me to
repeat it.  In this message, I'd just like to synthesize some points made by
various brothers/sisters, hoping that it does reflect some degree of
consensus among us (and maybe some degree of non-consensus as well) and make
things clearer and less confusing for many folks who have followed this
thread, especially the younger students who take a primary place in my
heart.

1.  Obviously we all agree that every thing--law, economics, ethics--works
together in a comprehensive system, nothing should be excluded.  Good!

My problem here is that when we talk about law and economics, the discussion
would go well, but as soon as we talk about ethics, there would inevitably
be opposition from some corner. Why?  I don't understand it.  In fact if we
look around, ethics plays such an important role in raising up good
citizens and building up our society, but ethics teachings is very skimpy.
Other than your parents when you are little and your teachers in primary
school, who is teaching ethics, where?  I am glad that the VCP sees the
importance of teaching ethics, as chi Bich Lien mentions.  But, sorry folks,
that is still lip service.  Where is ethics being taught in Vietnam?  Is
there a course of ethics anywhere?  I have mentioned ethics teaching at
universities for business students for a decade, in this forum and other
places, and do we have one ethics course in Vietnam yet?

2.  Of course, the level of economic well being of the population may have
something to do with ethics.  We Vietnamese says, "Co thuc moi vuc duoc dao"
(You have to eat in order to save ethics).   And in Vietnam's current
development, we often say that as the economy advances, the legal system
will work better and the government will become cleaner and more ethical.
That is generally the evolution process (to use brother  Andi's
terminology) in which everything goes hand in hand toward a higher level.

However, generally I try not to talk about economics when discussing
corruption, because a number of potential issues:

a.  The economy advances very slowly.  We need immediate solutions for
corruption.  For immediate solutions, law and ethics work much faster.

b.  The causal relationship between economic advancement and improvement in
ethics is unclear.  What is the cause and what is the effect?  Does economic
advancement cause ethic improvement, or does ethic improvement cause
economic advancement?  In other words, (1) you are ethical and your ethics
helps you make a lot of money, or (2) you make a lot of money while still
unethical and your money helps you become ethical later?  I think,
intuitively many of us may agree with the first scenario.  My experience in
management is that ethics helps my company makes money.  And I haven't seen
an unethical company becomes ethical after it makes a lot of money.

c.  The statements "As the economy advances, people become more ethical,"
although
accepted by most of us as the truth, may carry with it a racist
and discriminatory tone if we think hard about it.

It basically says that the poorer you are the less ethical you are.  This is
a very condescending attitude that may not have any truth in it.  There is
nothing to say that the farmers in the countryside, who are poorer and in a
less developed area than the city dwellers, are less ethical than city
dwellers. Indeed I think that most farmers are more ethical than city
dwellers.  And there is nothing to prove that people of Vietnam, who are
poorer than the American, are less ethical than the American.

So, when we say "as the economy advances, people become less corrupt (or
more ethical)," we really talk about the standards of business and
government practices SET BY ADVANCED NATIONS.  That's fine, when you are
poorer and work in the same marketplace as the very rich guys, you have to
follow the rich's standards.  That is life.  So "The poorer you are, the
more corrupt you are" is a statement from the rich guy's point of view and
rich guy's standards.  Fine, with me.  As I say, in a market, the poor guy
has to follow the rich guy's standards.  But I don't like that
discriminatory and condescending and potentially racist tone.
If we use Vietnamese ethical standards to measure the advanced nations, then
the advanced nations may not be so ethical either.

d.  Economic advancement may have something to do with the conduct of the
general population, but obviously it has nothing to do with the truly
corrupt people.  Truly corrupt people will engage in all kinds of unethical
conduct regardless of how much power or money they have.

For the above reasons, while I generally agree that economic advancement
does have relationship with ethics, I don't think economics is very
beneficial when discussing a solution for corruption.

I hope this summary helps.  Have a great day, everyone.  Great discussion.

Hoanh


On 8/16/07, Bui Bich Lien <lien.bb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
>  Pls allow some additional thoughts/observations:
>
>
>
>    1. Yes, no arguments whatsoever about the essentiality of ethics.
>    But, in order to look further into the issue of how ethics work/contribute
>    to economic/social development of a developing country like Vietnam,
>    economic/legal perception and analysis would be useful.  Further to Anh
>    Andi's economic analysis, I'd recommend a book called "Law and Economic in
>    Developing Countries", published by the Hoover Institution, that includes
>    some interesting economic analysis of systematic official corruption.  The
>    approach taken here, in my view, is very sensible because it attempts to
>    examine the complex relationship between law, governance, and
>    economic/social development instead of single out one particular
>    factor/area.  And more importantly, such relationship is put into the
>    context of developing countries.
>
>
>
>    1. Agree with Anh Phong 's point re. the rule of law.  But a country
>    like Vietnam will need a long long march towards the rule of law.  To reach
>    this goal, we all will need to work very hard, and I'd love to see the
>    system improved before I die. In the current context, Intel move is indeed
>    smart and deserves to be applauded.  Hopefully, we'll see more examples like
>    this in the future.  I'm not attempting, however, to judge/categorize
>    whether Intel's action/intention is practical or ethical - only Intel policy
>    makers know it.  Anh Hoanh lost a large deal in Vietnam, but was deservedly
>    compensated other deals IN THE US.  I dearly hope that, the same thing would
>    happen to an ethical lawyer IN VIETNAM.
>
>
>
>    1. As personal experience of being a lawyer to a number of
>    Singaporean business clients, the common question that I was asked is how to
>    get a deal done in the legal/bureaucratic environment of Vietnam (that
>    included some very direct questions).  Again, I have no personal judgment of
>    whether they are more (or less) ethical than Americans, Europeans,
>    Australians or other Asians doing business in Vietnam.
>
>
>
>    1. Re. legal vs. ethics, the case of chemical companies is a perfect
>    example.
>
>
>
>    1. Teaching ethics to people is a great idea.  Anh Hoanh may be
>    interested to know that it is in fact mentioned in a Party's resolution on
>    judicial/legal reform.
>
>
-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz/attachments/20070816/f440e5fe/attachment.html