Recently, I was working on a material about penitentiaries and in the meantime, I once again was convinced that being a convict costs expensive in Armenia. The corruption system has been developed over the decades, under which, for instances, the inmates are fed by their relatives, except for the extreme poor. It enables the penitentiary staff:
a/ write out money for food and “pocket” it,
b/ take a bribe for each food-package delivery.
But this is not the worst. Suppose, someone came and sincerely wanted to demolish this system and organize everything in compliance to the law. It is very likely that in this event, the convict would not get food at all, and “hunger insurrections” will begin in the penitentiaries. For the corrupt and criminal system, good or bad, is functioning, while there is no interest in creating a legitimate system, nor how to operate it.
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Similarly, about the shadow turnover. If the Armenian entrepreneurs, at least partly, do not work by the “black horseshoe”, most of them would be shut down. A “black horseshoe” means corruption and theft, not just the tax and customs authorities, but also any official, from which any or at least a minor economic issue is dependent. To demolish or, if you wish, to dismantle this criminal system, the psychological foundations of which were laid in at least 50 years ago, would mean to dismantle the currently existing economic ties.
There was a Soviet film called “The Train Stopped” (1982), where the investigator, Oleg Borisov’s hero, was sincerely trying to figure out why the accident occurred. But eventually, he was explained that if everything were to be legal and in compliance to technical norms, then no train would be moved from its place in general. Certainly, preserving the criminal system is also catastrophic, the “Soviet’s” future fate is its bright evidence. But let’s admit that we failed in creating a fundamentally different system after 1990.
This consciousness, unfortunately, is still missing. “They are bandits and steal, but perhaps the honest ones will come, would not steal”, these primitive conversations perhaps are consolatory for the lumpen mass, but their value is zero. It is excluded not to steal in this system. And how to create a “non-stealing” system, we have a vague idea about it.
The only thing that I can suggest is to stop searching for guilty and take on the entire responsibility for your own life.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
If the self can not stop itself from stealing then the other way is for an independent, effective justice system to take its task seriously and enforce the law equally without regard to rank and position. That is what is needed in a free society where individuals are treated equally.