4 ms·

Same in India. In fact, public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. It's just absolutely no

by q1w2 5y ago

Same in India. In fact, public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. It's just absolutely normal to get literally anything done with a government office in almost any non-western country.

user3939382 5y ago
> public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. I'd like to offer my own perspective on this issue, having spent a lot of time in the third-world, that may not be obvious to many of us in the western world or from more developed economies. Many countries that are struggling with i.e. building robust transportation and energy infrastructure, are also struggling with the infrastructure that enables the reliable collection and enforcement of taxes. These issues happen to be related. Tax collection in the US isn't perfect, but it generally works. What do you do when huge parts of your economy runs on cash or when huge swaths of your population don't even have bank accounts? There's a joke that bribes in the third-world are "directly paid taxes". There's a kernel of truth there. If Microsoft pays $100 in tax that's paid to a govt salary, versus that tax not existing and them paying it to the same official, what's the difference? Loss of accountability and oversight, yes. BUT -- the reason bribery is so egregious in the West is that the officials taking the bribes are already fairly compensated. Also, the Western system of government is filled with unethical bribe-analogues, in for example the lobbying system we have, worse in some sense is that this unethical behavior is codified into law in a way the general public may not agree with but has no real way of changing (refer to Princeton voter preference study). Consider all that when these "corruption index" lists are published where the US are the good guys with a green-colored country and countries in the third-world are red-colored bad guys. /rant
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bluGill 5y ago
  Even in that light bribes are still bad. With a tax I can look at the law and know exactly how much I need to pay, and also how much my competition paid. That later is a big deal, if my competitor different from me, then they have an advantage over me (sometimes this is a larger bribe ensuring better service, sometimes it is a cheaper bribe would have done the same). Also, bribes are not always money. Many are paid in sex. Not only does this exploit women (as if that isn't bad enough), but it also means it may not be every possible for me to compete so long as the woman my competitor got is willing.
mc32 5y ago
One could argue it’s more efficient. If you need to get something done, at least there is a way to receive service whereas in the US because there is little bribery, you’re at the mercy of the bureaucrat who doesn’t depend on your bribe to survive and so has lost the incentive to serve you.
- ganzuul 5y ago
  In the west we simply don't recognize that system as democracy. For your officials to not take bribes means their relatives get offended that the office doesn't get them special treatment. That is feudalism. It means you built nothing together and have nothing to be proud of.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
If it's anything like eastern Europe it's really not that bad, just different. It just means the state has less direct control over its employees. In some cases this is good for the populace. In some cases this is bad for the populace. If the people in the building permitting offices in CA got paid the way they do in India there probably wouldn't be a housing crisis there.
filoleg 5y ago
Yup, it is mindbogglingly unimaginable to people who spent their whole lives living in the west, but as someone who moved out of Russia over a decade ago, it is the exact same thing there. Extremely normalized in every single aspect. Applying for a passport? Well, you can do it normally, wait 9-12 months, hope papers don't get lost in the process (again), and maybe eventually you will be able to get it after a 2nd or 3rd try. Maybe not, who knows, you might just give up. Or, instead, you could give "little something" to the passport clerk and their boss, and your passport will get reliably done in 3-4 months. And this "little something" is pretty much expected, and most people who can afford will pay it. A lot of governmental services are just built with an expectation of a bribe. If a bribe isn't present, then the process will almost definitely go wrong in every single way possible. Same with cops, except worse, because much more is at stake. Routine "ID check stops" are expected, and you better have a bribe ready, unless you want to get in trouble for "insubordination" or something much worse. Pretty much any interaction with government or anything even tangentially related, where you need to get something done, you are going to be almost ostracized and make your life miserable if you don't bribe. Bribing gets truly awful and scary when it is an everyday expectation on even the most routine levels. EDIT: People in comments have pointed out that India isn't like that at all. My comment wasn't meant to have anything to do with India. I have never been there, so I cannot make a statement on it either way. I was only trying to describe the realities of "bribes are the expected norm in everyday life" experience using the place I was personally familiar with, which was Russia.
- blackoil 5y ago
  12 months, in India now getting a passport take 1-4 weeks with no bribe involved.
  - vaidhy 5y ago
    Absolutely this.. Things in India have changed a lot in the last decade. Passports are one example. It used to take months when I was a kid. My first passport took 3 months from application to getting it in hand and needed an "agent". My last one was through "taktal" - expedited application by paying extra fees and I got an SMS that the passport was sent to the printers by the time I walked out of the passport office. Another sms that it was dispatched next day and the day after I had it in my hand. No bribes, no agents, super smooth. For the common person, the most corrupt organizations they would encounter is around land and house registration, cops and maybe the DMV. If you work for the government, then it gets even worse as you are expected to pay for the job, pay for transfer to a nicer place etc. However, it is getting better every year.

by q1w2 5y ago

user3939382 5y ago

> public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. I'd like to offer my own perspective on this issue, having spent a lot of time in the third-world, that may not be obvious to many of us in the western world or from more developed economies. Many countries that are struggling with i.e. building robust transportation and energy infrastructure, are also struggling with the infrastructure that enables the reliable collection and enforcement of taxes. These issues happen to be related. Tax collection in the US isn't perfect, but it generally works. What do you do when huge parts of your economy runs on cash or when huge swaths of your population don't even have bank accounts? There's a joke that bribes in the third-world are "directly paid taxes". There's a kernel of truth there. If Microsoft pays $100 in tax that's paid to a govt salary, versus that tax not existing and them paying it to the same official, what's the difference? Loss of accountability and oversight, yes. BUT -- the reason bribery is so egregious in the West is that the officials taking the bribes are already fairly compensated. Also, the Western system of government is filled with unethical bribe-analogues, in for example the lobbying system we have, worse in some sense is that this unethical behavior is codified into law in a way the general public may not agree with but has no real way of changing (refer to Princeton voter preference study). Consider all that when these "corruption index" lists are published where the US are the good guys with a green-colored country and countries in the third-world are red-colored bad guys. /rant

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bluGill 5y ago
Even in that light bribes are still bad. With a tax I can look at the law and know exactly how much I need to pay, and also how much my competition paid. That later is a big deal, if my competitor different from me, then they have an advantage over me (sometimes this is a larger bribe ensuring better service, sometimes it is a cheaper bribe would have done the same). Also, bribes are not always money. Many are paid in sex. Not only does this exploit women (as if that isn't bad enough), but it also means it may not be every possible for me to compete so long as the woman my competitor got is willing.

mc32 5y ago

One could argue it’s more efficient. If you need to get something done, at least there is a way to receive service whereas in the US because there is little bribery, you’re at the mercy of the bureaucrat who doesn’t depend on your bribe to survive and so has lost the incentive to serve you.

ganzuul 5y ago
In the west we simply don't recognize that system as democracy. For your officials to not take bribes means their relatives get offended that the office doesn't get them special treatment. That is feudalism. It means you built nothing together and have nothing to be proud of.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

If it's anything like eastern Europe it's really not that bad, just different. It just means the state has less direct control over its employees. In some cases this is good for the populace. In some cases this is bad for the populace. If the people in the building permitting offices in CA got paid the way they do in India there probably wouldn't be a housing crisis there.

filoleg 5y ago

Yup, it is mindbogglingly unimaginable to people who spent their whole lives living in the west, but as someone who moved out of Russia over a decade ago, it is the exact same thing there. Extremely normalized in every single aspect. Applying for a passport? Well, you can do it normally, wait 9-12 months, hope papers don't get lost in the process (again), and maybe eventually you will be able to get it after a 2nd or 3rd try. Maybe not, who knows, you might just give up. Or, instead, you could give "little something" to the passport clerk and their boss, and your passport will get reliably done in 3-4 months. And this "little something" is pretty much expected, and most people who can afford will pay it. A lot of governmental services are just built with an expectation of a bribe. If a bribe isn't present, then the process will almost definitely go wrong in every single way possible. Same with cops, except worse, because much more is at stake. Routine "ID check stops" are expected, and you better have a bribe ready, unless you want to get in trouble for "insubordination" or something much worse. Pretty much any interaction with government or anything even tangentially related, where you need to get something done, you are going to be almost ostracized and make your life miserable if you don't bribe. Bribing gets truly awful and scary when it is an everyday expectation on even the most routine levels. EDIT: People in comments have pointed out that India isn't like that at all. My comment wasn't meant to have anything to do with India. I have never been there, so I cannot make a statement on it either way. I was only trying to describe the realities of "bribes are the expected norm in everyday life" experience using the place I was personally familiar with, which was Russia.

blackoil 5y ago
12 months, in India now getting a passport take 1-4 weeks with no bribe involved.
- vaidhy 5y ago
  Absolutely this.. Things in India have changed a lot in the last decade. Passports are one example. It used to take months when I was a kid. My first passport took 3 months from application to getting it in hand and needed an "agent". My last one was through "taktal" - expedited application by paying extra fees and I got an SMS that the passport was sent to the printers by the time I walked out of the passport office. Another sms that it was dispatched next day and the day after I had it in my hand. No bribes, no agents, super smooth. For the common person, the most corrupt organizations they would encounter is around land and house registration, cops and maybe the DMV. If you work for the government, then it gets even worse as you are expected to pay for the job, pay for transfer to a nicer place etc. However, it is getting better every year.