Bureaucratic weight comes in different flavors: overregulation vs. corruption. Countries like France or Italy exhibit overregulation, but their bureaucracy fun

Bureaucratic weight comes in different flavors: overregulation vs. corruption. Countries like France or Italy exhibit overregulation, but their bureaucracy fundamentally works according to the law. Countries like Iraq or Nigeria may have fewer bureaucrats and regulations than France or Italy, but these bureaucrats have many more possibilities to demand a completely wanton bribe or else. Critics of libertarianism often tout African countries, with their relatively sparse public sphere, as counterexamples, but it seems to me that they miss the point entirely. It is not about formal structures, but about "how many people can veto your business intents if they feel like it". Even NIMBYs actually fall into the same category.