When a living being is corrupted, what it does is undergo a transformation. It remains what it is, but in a deteriorated, degenerated form. Corruption, from the Latin corruption-ōnis, is a degradation of what is considered the ordinary or "normal" state, a lower state toward which any living being is exposed to transition. In the case of people, the meaning is not only biological, but also moral and, by extension, often legal. In the latter cases, we refer to the transgression of a code that the man or woman had agreed to respect. Political corruption has different expressions and dimensions, as many as the norms that can be violated, often more than one at a time. Economic corruption, therefore, constitutes only one of the possible forms of political corruption, although it is one of the most common and the one that generates the most rejection in society. It occurs when someone takes advantage of their political power to illegitimately obtain a private benefit. Often, it involves money, but by no means exclusively.
As someone has said, corruption has existed since the very moment Adam decided, having the ability to avoid it, to complain about the apple Eve offered him. I mean that the transgression of norms, of commitment, of any kind, is as old as humankind. People become corrupt, or perhaps the one who becomes corrupt is the one who, in fact, was already corrupt, and what has happened is simply that this intimate and latent condition has found the moment, the opportunity, to manifest itself.
Political corruption of an economic nature, which is hotly debated today as in the past, exists in three broad categories. First, there is someone who, as defined above, takes advantage of their position to obtain money or other individual benefits. The second type is the case of someone who uses their position to raise money for their party or organization. Typically, in Spain, this is in exchange for public works contracts. The third type, which is common, is a hybrid of the two previous types and occurs when a person takes advantage of raising money for the party to pocket it themselves, often without the knowledge of their superiors. It's worth digressing here, asking a question: Should someone who steals for the party be morally considered the same, should someone who steals to keep it for themselves? Personally, I think the second is worse because, while the act is the same, the intentions and motives are not. All the major cases of political corruption of an economic nature in the contemporary history of Spain and Catalonia fit into the taxonomy of three categories. From the Filesa case to the Gürtel scandal, through the 3% and the ERE case, to the scandal involving Ábalos, Cerdán, and Koldo García.
Pocketing money inevitably involves at least one other transgression, since it requires simulation, dissimulation, and lying. The magnitude of the outrage and scandal will depend on the scale of the theft, but also on the depth of the deception. By this I mean that the more honest and loyal the corrupt person is considered until the moment of being unmasked, the greater the corresponding surprise, disillusionment, and outrage. Often, the corrupt person who has not yet revealed himself to others as such spends many years pretending not to be corrupt. He acts this way out of obvious necessity, since not appearing corrupt is a necessary condition for being corrupt. In turn, this deception contributes, if he is a good actor, to making him less and less suspicious, strengthening and solidifying his appearance of integrity and honesty. And his trustworthiness. This latter circumstance, by the way, becomes a danger for the corrupt person, who, overconfident, may forget precautions and take ever greater, and often ultimately excessive, risks.
When talking about these things, it's sometimes added that right-wingers tend to be less shocked than left-wingers by corruption of this kind. Aware that generalizing is always a lie, I tend, however, to believe that the cliché is sufficiently in line with reality. This is probably because the right has a more instrumental and positive relationship with money—to the point of believing that wealth is proof of a person's virtues—while the left has a more conflictual relationship, which causes opulence to manifest negative implications in their subconscious, related to deeply felt guilt.
