There is still a comforting us-and-them attitude when Westerners look East. The moral superiority of the West is taken as read. Russia has corruption, embezzlement and capital flight, we just have remnant old boys' networks, a few rogue traders and tax avoidance.

To be sure, corruption is rife in Russia and the inter-penetration of politics, business and organised crime is problematic. But I can't help recall a recent conversation with a Muscovite who was blithely discussing shifting substantial sums out of the country 'just in case.' Playing my role of naive academic, I asked whether this was legal? I got an amused look as he stirred his cappuccino. Are there problems moving those funds into Western banks? That got an outright laugh. 'Business is business. Everywhere. The only difference is that our thieves are honest about being thieves.'

The news might seem to support his cynicism. Barclays has admitted manipulating the London interbank offered rate, Libor, but they were hardly alone. At least they were not turning a blind eye to laundering criminal money. In July HSBC was fined after admitting to a US Senate committee that it had laundered billions of dollars of drug money. This is not an isolated case. In 2010, the US bank Wachovia paid out $160 million over its role in the transfer of billions of dollars in drug profits out of Mexico.

All this has been played out against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown prompted by practices within the Western financial sector ranging from the morally questionable to the outright criminal.

In part the responsibility lies with financial institutions putting the bottom line above all else. In doing so, they fulfil that Muscovite's expectations and -- even if doing nothing illegal at home -- facilitate crime, corruption and embezzlement abroad. They also open themselves up to moral hazard. Only luck divides the high-flier from the rogue trader. The consequent risk-taking culture has led to such cases as JP Morgan Chase's recent loss of almost $6 billion through under-supervised trades.

Questionable practices are often lucrative and the risks eminently bearable, with fines essentially transmitted to customers. After all, the gamble usually pays off and everyone lives to trade another day. Likewise, many Western companies that are models of rectitude at home willingly pay bribes abroad, albeit tactfully channelled through local partners or entered in the books as 'consultancy fees'.

The real problem is not immoral businesspeople, nor sloppy laws, but a lack of accountability. That, in turn, can be laid at the feet of legislators and the electorate. It is the job of government and society to reconfigure the cost-benefit analyses that encourage these corrupt practices.

A Eurobarometer survey at the end of 2011 found 74 per cent of European respondents saying that corruption was a major problem in their country. Yet while willing to express a diffuse dislike of corruption and financial chicanery, we seemingly regard it more like bad weather, something to endure, rather than a problem to fix.

It need not be like this. Perhaps the most productive time for the fight against the Italian Mafia came after 1992. Then, the murders of two prominent investigators, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, generated such a public outcry that the often compromised government was forced to give free rein to its magistrates and police. They did not need any new powers or resources, they just needed the support of government and public to do their jobs.

Much the same is true here and now. There is certainly a role for technical fixes, such as increasing the capitalization of banks and improved regulation. But above all, there needs to be a willingness on the part of governments, nationally and collectively, to use the tools they have. In the short term this will be painful, turning away business and angering rich and powerful lobbies. It means squeezing tax havens, better international cooperation and treating crimes carried out abroad as seriously as those committed at home. It means recognizing that corruption takes more forms than just paying and demanding bribes and also treating white-collar criminals like criminals.

That, in turn, requires voters to demand such action from them.

If we truly want that warm glow of moral superiority -- and, more to the point, end a culture of corruption and complicity that hurts customers, society and the global financial and business infrastructure alike -- then we need to work at it. That means making our governments do their job.

(c) 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.