Does “A Bit of Dishonesty” Matter?

A village committee voted to serve rice pudding to every senior citizen in the area. The head of the committee called a meeting with the villagers and shared his idea.

He said, “The elderly are our responsibility, and we must respect them for their contributions. So, we will celebrate national elderly day tomorrow. We request your support and participation.”
…
“On that occasion, we will offer rice pudding to everyone over 60.”

He added — “We have a request to make for the event. For the rice pudding, it would be a favor if you contributed one liter of milk from every house. Please pour the milk into the black jar, which will be placed in front of the committee office tomorrow.”

The villagers agreed to provide a liter of milk for the day.

The next morning, all the villagers had contributed their part of the milk to the jar before dawn. The participation was inspiring.

But when the committee members collected the jar, they were shocked.

It contained only water instead of milk. It was later that they understood the mischief.

Everyone in the village assumed that adding some water to the milk poured by others won’t make a difference. So, while it was still dark, each one poured a liter of water into the jar.

This is how a minor act of dishonesty affects our society. It is how a penny of bribe corrupts the entire system.