Accounting firm Grant Thornton estimates that fraud in the construction industry worldwide costs $1.5 trillion dollars. Corruption is endemic because many big projects are financed by governments and are one-offs, like Sochi’s ice arenas and ski jumps. It is hard to estimate the cost of a unique building, but the more expensive it is the bigger the bribes that can be hidden in the total cost. Putin told the world that Russia would spend $12 billion on Sochi; the final total is closer to $50 billion, bigger than the education bill for all of Russia, and paid out of tax revenue! The proportion of bribes is said to be huge.

Paolo Mauri of the IMF says that corruption is bad for economic growth, skews government spending, causes uncertainty”. “Arbitrariness kills”. Honest people do not thrive in it. Since it easier to collect bribes on new construction than it is on maintenance, governments prefer new projects to repairing old ones, and they prefer buildings to training people. As James Surowiecki says in The New Yorker (2/10/2014) “Crony capitalism leaves us with too few teachers and too many ski jumps to nowhere”.

Years ago one of my salesmen came to my office and told me about a large contract he wanted to clinch. It was for a firm of architects, building a huge shopping mall. We could have the business if we “reserved” ten per cent of the total value and put it into the bank account of the buyer at the architectural practice. I said “Not on your life! If we can’t do business honestly we should get out of the business”. I should like to think that was the Epicurean way. Unfortunately, it is very difficult indeed to do business in many countries, where bribery is normal. There is supposed to be legislation to stop Western countries partaking. Hah!

Epicurus would have said that you cannot have a pleasant life if you are corrupting others for the sake of money. Better to be a bit poorer and keep your integrity.