PERISCOPE

Basic inclination of big number of people in Bangladesh is now to cheat and carry out fraudulent activity for personal gain. They don’t  feel no shame and feel no fear of  law.

Many established respectable business now earn majority on their revenue through cheating

Many people now loiter around with fraudulent ideas of cheating in first available opportunity.

I am from that school of thought that basically humans are mostly self-interested and self-interest can lead to   cheating and fraud.

However, behavioral scientists of last two decades including the work of Nobel Prize winner Richard Theller have shown that human would always like to get a fair deal .

These two ideas may be contradictory but this contradiction is the reason why society have created laws and stigmatized cheating unlike many other animals.

And due to this basic behavioral tendency although self-interest can lead to a propensity to cheat  and fraud  but , cheating has been associated with certain social stigma and also human society have created laws to punish the cheaters to allow transactions to be executed without which society would crumble..

But both of these factors have been eradicated in contemporary Bangladesh.

Due to top down corruption in politics, society have seen that cheating has become an acceptable way to get to and hold on to power, prestige and wealth  and the corrupted power have also solved  the social stigma  problem by encouraging wide spread cheating and fraud in the  society. It was their way to absolve themselves from social vilification.

Similarly, they have also tear down the law which would have stopped cheating and fraud in society.

In absence of these two factors widespread cheating in business, in transaction, in law have become the norm rather the exception.

The situation is now terrible and regular flow of entrepreneurship have become impossible due to the widespread cheating and fraud practice in business and society.

Zia Hassan
Dhaka