Without a doubt this is a big problem, in a real free market economy businesses compete against each other evenly and the ones that are the best at managing their resources should be the winners, but we know this is not the case, governments can change the rules of the game in any way they want and they can benefit one company to the detriment of another one, this eventually creates an environment in which it does not matter how you run your company but who you can bribe and that is never good for the free market economy.
The culture of bribery should not be contained in a pure free market, and a culture of bribery is not included in the free market support values. Bribery is giving anything to another party to get a decision in a bad way and will bear fruit in the economic and moral deterioration of individuals and nations. The economic problems of a country are often caused by human error, one of which is caused by acts of corruption and poor administration, where bribery is included. The act of bribery will cause a high-cost economy in the business world so that it is forced to raise the selling price at normal profit levels. Prices will experience distortion due to cost components that should not appear, so the selling price to consumers does not reflect the true value of the resources of the production process.
The existence of bribery costs results in an inefficient allocation of resources, and damages productivity levels. Until finally damage the economy in general and very detrimental to the wider community. The accumulation of a high-cost economy in the business world, the deteriorating economy, and the spread of crime in the business world and in various social strata of society will be felt by all citizens, both those involved in bribery or not. The nation's credibility has also fallen into the eyes of the international community, it can be seen from the ranking of the implementation of Good Corporate Governance (GCG) and the level of corruption that is widely made by various international institutions.
If there are those who neglect moral and ethical values in economic activities, they will automatically spread domino effects such as injustice, income inequality, damage to resources and the environment and damage to the economy in general, thus potentially resulting in various crimes both in the business world and society that will lead to the decline of human civilization.