Caveat: Rule of Law

I think "rule of law" is important. 

I have been depressed and alarmed, of late, by the number of offers for illegal employment.  I realize that this is an endemic problem in Korea, and I will acknowledge that the often inconsistent and bizarre application of the poorly designed laws that surround employment of foreigners in Korea probably encourages the practices in question.

But it's just frustrating.  I think one area where Korea's made so much progress in recent decades is in "cleaning up" its reputation for corruption.   It's part of what has led to its remarkable growth and new-found prosperity, too.  Although that's an unsubstantiated opinion. 

Basically, people find out I'm looking for a job, and they make offers for me to teach English (as a tutor or as a classroom teacher) in exchange for cash – without getting a regular work visa and without participating in the formal economy.  On the one hand, my sympathy for the situation of "illegal immigrants" in the US causes me to question my own discomfort with these sorts of arrangements, but I worry a great deal that the Korean immigration authorities are sufficiently competent that if I were ever to be caught, their system of deportation and blacklisting for illegal workers would essentially ban me for life from Korea – I like it here too much to want that to happen.

But there's a broader philosophical concern:  I truly believe in the importance of rule of law.  I'm not going to make the outrageous claim that I'm a 100% law-abiding citizen.  Clearly not.  There are the occasional downloads.  The jaywalking.  The 10 miles-an-hour over-the-speed-limit.  And, when traveling in Latin America, things get much more problematic than that, very quickly.  I've paid bribes to border officials in Central America, for example.  And to cops in Mexico, in the 80's.  Most famously, in my own life, is the fact that my work in Mexico in the 80's was irregular – it was, essentially, the "gringo's revenge," because I was an illegal immigrant in Mexico, working a hotel job without visa or paperwork.

These are part of existing in societies made of imperfect laws.  But, in general, I feel badly about these violations.  I make rationalizations about why they've occured.  I suppose, I could easily make rationalizations about working illegally in Korea, if it came to that.   But I really think that one should make at least some degree of effort to "follow the rules" even when they appear illogical and inconsistent – as Korea's immigration and work-permitting processes so clearly do.

It's one thing to race across the street between crosswalks late at night when the light refuses to change.  It's another, somehow, to take envelopes of cash from people who feel their government places undue restriction on their ability to hire "foreigners."  Maybe the difference has to do with where the petty violations become unduly wrapped up in financial gain – something like the difference between illegal downloading for personal use, which feels OK, and illegal downloading for financial gain, which feels wrong.  Is this irrational?  Probably.  But it's pretty much the way I seem to draw the line, in my own mind.

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