I’ve lived in the EU, USA, and Asia. The primary distinction is that developing countries have corruption starting at lower levels.
However, what this simplistic conclusion fails because the developed countries have huge amounts of corruption at all other levels. Everything is still impacted by lobbying and back channels, in huge multi-billion dollar amounts…
I watched the rules for rulers CGP Grey video [YouTube] again recently.
One takeaway is that corruption is a tool of power. If there are a lot of "keys", chances are that you are a key and if a bribe demand is so bad that it is likely to be your top priority, you will switch your allegiance to a different leader.
The thing that others me is how we can have very unpopular things but I don't care enough to get rid of those things.
Take the second amendment (2A), for example. I don't want people to own guns and carry them on their person flaunting it at gas stations. However, I don't care about it enough to make it my single issue. So my understanding is there can be 5% of the voters really care about something stupid to ignore everything else and vote based on 2A for example.
I agree with your sentiment and it’s a great video, but your 2A estimate is way off. Over 30% of all Americans personally own a firearm [1], so the overall level of 2A support is at least that.
it may be higher than 5%, but definitely not all 30% of those make 2A their only issue. plus there's a good fraction who have the mindset "I'd rather nobody have a gun, but if he gets a gun then I want one too".
I think there are cultural-political affinities that make people who want an absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment vote together with people who might prefer something like an assault weapons ban or less “carry,” but still want to prevent the government from controlling their gun ownership.
They share a basket of political goals and within that basket, the more extreme version of each tends to win out, at least for those goals that are not broad, cross-party American priorities.
I agree that as a normal citizen, it feels ickier and annoying. I definitely do not appreciate it myself.
However, I feel like the focus on small-time corruption distracts us from the bigger institutionalised corruption that is ever prevalent. By deciding that the lower levels of gov are going to be both underpaid and devoid of other “benefits”, we still end up with gov employees that hate their job and have no motivation. It changes nothing other than convenience for the citizens and results in near-poverty for the gov employees. Meanwhile, the higher-ups are living in mansions in both situations. It’s effectively a classist gate keeping - wherein the powerful always get what they want, and have the opportunity to hide it enough that IME the average citizen in the West still truly believes that their gov is fair and not corrupt.
Does it make a difference who is actually expected to pay the bribe?
For example, corrupt traffic officers' bribes are often regressive (as nobody's threatening the rich and powerful), leave people with less money in their pocket, and requires the creation of direct injustices like wrongful imprisonment or even violence.
Whereas a defence contractor who has a bunch of retired generals and senators as "advisers" merely steals from tax revenue, which is collected progressively; the average citizen has no less money in their pocket; and no direct threats are needed at all. It's still corruption, certainly, but it doesn't put innocent people in jail.
I agree that low-end corruption is more regressive for the common person, both in that they are more forced to pay up, but also that it comes from a smaller wealth pool.
High-end corruption is lobbying and think-tanks. While low-level bribing is for pettier things like paperwork, the rich and powerful aim to influence public policy to their benefit.
While the common person might not have to visibly participate, these changes affect their lives. Taxes are only progressive by design, but in reality are disproportionately paid by those who can’t afford to evade/game the system. Moreover, the non-rich people are the ones who actually really need the outcomes of tax money.
As more and more of it that is siphoned away by high-level corruption, you end up with decaying infrastructure. This outcome is quite visible in a lot of developed countries now. Another great example are defence budgets that dominate the entire national budget, but primarily funnel money to the rich military-industrial oligarchs, while being used to murder people in “faraway lands”.
However, what this simplistic conclusion fails because the developed countries have huge amounts of corruption at all other levels. Everything is still impacted by lobbying and back channels, in huge multi-billion dollar amounts…