Zero-rupee note
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The only time I’ve seen them mentioned is in news reports about their existence as a campaign, never actual usage.
Another interesting campaign around corruption is ipaidabribe.com to gain some data around this. Unfortunately, both giving and taking bribes is illegal, thus you need anonymity for reports resulting in a lower data quality.
To fix that, there’s proposals to make it legal to pay “harassment bribes” (the ones where the bribe giver does not gain undue advantage).
> Giving complete immunity to the bribe-giver would ensure higher reporting and co-operation of the giver in bringing to justice the bribe taker. The present law acts as a deterrent to reporting of bribery.
https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/should-bribe-giving-be-legal...
Isn't that the point of the bribe? Why else would they pay it?
This paper [1] seems to use the term to describe bribes given to obtain things you're already legally entitled to, which makes a bit more sense. There's an old Indian meme about pensioners having to pay a bribe to get their monthly payment for instance.
It defeats the whole purpose of a bribe, doesn't it? If officials were gonna be intimidated by a note, there are probably other recourses that would've done the job.
Except none of them have. Officials are obviously aware that bribery is illegal. It's the idea that they "can get away with it" that needs challenging. If it's true, then the agency of the citizen is minimal; it's the agency of the relevant watchdog that needs strengthening.
> Satindar Mohan Bhagat, an Indian expatriate who is a physics professor at the University of Maryland and the director of Association for India's Development, Inc. US, is credited with originating the concept of the zero-rupee note in 2001
I appreciate the sentiment, but it really reflects the disconnect between people who don't live in India and people who do. There is hardly a single bribery situation where this would be useful. The only cure to bribery is knowing more powerful people than the corrupt official - ie, bribery won't work on the elite and well-connected, unless the official is a fairly significant fellow.
In an era where arbitrary income tax raids, "anti-national" accusations or just plain old Kafkaesque "punish them with more process" recourse are what meets people who challenge the regime...hard to see a valueless note gaining traction. If anything, it's a free pass for the official to get you accused of counterfeiting notes. Will it pass it court? no. but you'll be in jail for months before you see a judge. perhaps forever.
As well as the disconnect between academics and the real world.
It seems to me the note is a socially well known form of protest, which may go down better than a direct interaction.
It’s like tipping, in the USA — so pervasive that it’s invisible. And these days with digital point-of-sale systems, you have to take affirmative action _not_ to tip, and people in line around you can see, so the social pressure is enormous.
So the note is proof that the person not paying the bribe is not alone, that they are part of a movement, that their actions are acceptable to at least some portion of their society. This makes is feel safer, and puts the onus on the briber to either escalate or to back down.
It also relies on the sense of shame of the briber. Since bribes are commonplace, some civil servants depend on them for their livelihood, or at least their lifestyle. Confronted with the evidence of a social movement saying that their actions are not ok, they’re more likely to feel some shame, versus just feeling anger at a random citizen confronting them.
You meant the sense of shame of the person being bribed? I ask to avoid a misunderstanding.
The person requesting the bribe payment = person being bribed or "bribee"
The person paying the bribe = briber
However GP wrote "shame of the briber". Oops!
A foodtruck I watch on twitch has everyone choose an option. No tip, some pre-set amounts, or custom. So no social pressure there, as no one else will know. They are using the square register.
Incidentally giving out fake dollar bills as tip is or was a thing. At least enough for a handful articles:
https://www.businessinsider.com/20-tip-bible-pamphlet-2015-1...
The difference is that wait staff effectively get paid 20% less than they would otherwise, on the expectation of getting a 20% tip. According to US labor law you can even pay servers less than minimum wage, as long as their tips make up for the difference. So by not tipping you're shorting workers of their wages.
If you want to end tipping culture, call the restaurant owners and tell them to bake tips into the menu prices.
Yes, and the only reason restaurant owners can get away with this is because there is a labor market of servers willing to work for 20% less based on the expectation that they'll get the rest back in tips.
I agree that you should apply pressure to the system at multiple points, not just by foregoing tips. Tell managers straight up that you don't intend to tip and to pay their staff proper wages.
By definition, the server cannot get paid less than minimum wage for wage+tips, regardless of many people stiff the tip.
(Normally I wouldn't mention this since minimum wage is often lower than market rate anyway, but apparently min wage was significant enough for you to mention it.)
Not in California they don’t. Not for years. The tipped minimum wage is $16, same as the minimum wage for the people at Burger King (whose jobs are actually harder and worse, incidentally). Tipping is toxic and should die. And while I’ll tip at a sit-down restaurant I’m done. Counter service? Kiosk service? Mobile app ordering? No. I have a tip for management though: pay your damn employees yourself and leave me out of it.
Stuff like:
If you have to pay, then paying a portion in Zero Notes so the total money is reduced.
Hiding fake money in the real money, so it will be obvious it was bribe money.
Allow you to tip off police, while mostly looking innocent if you're caught "I thought it was a real ruppee!"
Filling suitcases full of fake money, because they can't check before you leave (if you meet in public).
Making them with electronics, so the bribers can be followed (has other creepy issues though).
Making them with ink, that ruins other bribe money.
I dunno, like every con movie trick that Hollywood's used in money capers.
bash public officials over the head.
It will be fun paying with it and getting change back.
(The background to these is a complex of art projects and a court case, but it came to mind)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/climate/enriched-uranium-...
U.S. currency production is funded by the federal budget, supported by taxpayer dollars, and offset by seigniorage revenue.
The cost of producing the U.S. penny, exceeds its face value.
The GOVT. explain that this loss is recovered through the concept of seigniorage.
Seigniorage is the difference between the face value of money and the cost to produce it.
For the U.S. Mint, which produces the penny, the overall profit comes from the entire spectrum of coin production, not just the penny. Since our penny results in a loss, other denominations like dimes, and quarters, are produced at a cost lower than their face value, generating profit. So this profit helps offset the losses from penny production. So the overall seigniorage generated from the other denominations theoretically covers the cost of producing a negative value coin.
As someone who is slightly invested just because I hope to see governments make logical decisions, I would like that to be the case but no the US is still making pennies
https://catalog.usmint.gov/proof-set-2024-24RG.html?cgid=ann...
Slow down and you won’t get fined.
Ticket quotas have been discontinued or made illegal in many places.
Instead of giving you a ticket because you were exhibiting dangerous behavior per-se, instead it would be seen as an extra source of revenue for the county.
Towards the end of the month the police would issue more citations for ever more trivial transgressions, in order to meet the quota.
Obviously this had nothing to do with law or order.
In many places this is now discontinued or outright illegal.
You can even go in with evidence but the court costs alone to defend make it a wash, to say nothing of time off work