
Ask HN: How does the US manage to have no bribery at lower levels? - dev12345
I moved to US from India about 9 years ago. I appreciate all gov departments being corruption free ( as far as interaction points are concern). India is far from it, I do believe it&#x27;s part of evaluation and India will be like this one day. but just wondering how it happened here?
======
rayiner
A mixture of cultural norms and legal norms. As to cultural norms, I'll give
an example. Go to a Starbucks and note how people don't crowd around the bar
area where the drinks come out. People will stand in a wide circle around the
bar, because nobody wants people to think that they're not waiting their turn.
This attitude is indoctrinated from elementary school, where teachers chastise
kids for cutting in line or not "playing fair." That same attitude inhibits
corruption. Taking a bribe isn't "playing fair." It's shameful and socially
ostracized in a way that it isn't in India or Bangladesh (my family is
Bengali). In India, everyone will crowd around the bar because _appearing_
like you're "looking out for yourself first" is much more socially acceptable.

As for legal norms: bribery and kickbacks are prosecuted strongly in the U.S.
The federal government being separate from the state governments means that
federal prosecutors have no inhibitions about going after state and local
government officials. Moreover, low-level things like bribery are easy to
prosecute because it's easy to prove that money changed hands.

~~~
dworin
This reminds me of a great study about the relationship between cultural and
legal norms in looking at corruption. Because of the UN, nearly every country
has a diplomat in New York, and because of diplomatic immunity, none of them
are responsible for their parking tickets. So you effectively had to rely on
their own cultural norms about how to behave with your car, rather than legal
enforcement. They found that there was a strong correlation between the number
of parking tickets issued to diplomats from a country and independent measures
of corruption in that country, showing that the norms really were an important
part, and carried over even into a different environment.

You can find the whole paper here:
[http://www.nber.org/papers/w12312](http://www.nber.org/papers/w12312)

~~~
twic
So what does it say that US diplomats have the most unpaid congestion charge
in London?

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23266149](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23266149)

~~~
ArbitraryLimits
Since the article only quotes total amounts owed (US diplomats owing 7.2
million out of a total of 67 million), it probably just says the US sends more
diplomats to the UK than most other countries.

------
dworin
This is a very popular topic in development economics, and there's a rich
literature looking at India specifically and developing countries more
generally, but there isn't one definitive theory on the origins of corruption.
Here's a quick primer from the World Bank that goes over a number of potential
causes:
[http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/anticorrupt/corruptn/...](http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/anticorrupt/corruptn/cor02.htm)

Outlining a few, in no particular order, that are probably relevant to your
comparison between the US and India (although I don't know India as well): 1)
Public sector employees in the United States are relatively well compensated,
such that they don't need to supplement their income with bribes, and the fear
of losing their job is a significant deterrent.

2) There are laws that prevent politicians from firing civil servants and
giving the jobs to their supporters (this was not the case 200 years ago), so
patronage networks are less powerful.

3) There are relatively effective checks on large scale corruption through
independent layers of law enforcement agencies and a separate judicial system.

4) The state has relatively less control over the lives of ordinary citizens,
so there are relatively fewer opportunities to extract rents.

5) There is a very engaged, sophisticated civil society in the US with
interests in keeping the rules of the game consistent and fair. Significant
corruption will cause a significant backlash from these stakeholders.

6) The institutions in the United States are more established, and have spent
more time developing the necessary checks, balances, and management norms that
keep them free from corruption.

7) Cultural norms play an important role. There is a theory that knowing the
rules of the game and consistently applying them is more important than the
level of corruption. In many countries, corruption is simply "the way things
are done."

~~~
benhirashima
"There are relatively effective checks on large scale corruption through
independent layers of law enforcement agencies and a separate judicial
system."

...unless you have money. then you're untouchable. i.e. the financial
industry.

~~~
pc86
I know you think you're being smart, or cute, or whatever, but this is
completely off topic and irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

------
fennecfoxen
We had a discussion a while back on this piece:
[http://ftp.iza.org/dp5584.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp5584.pdf) titled "The
Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and
Corruption in the Bureaucracy". It discussed how European communities once
under the rule of the Habsburg empire were, many decades later, very much
lower-corruption places than very similar places that were not. The paper is
relevant to your interests.

"Do empires affect attitudes towards the state long after their demise? We
hypothesize that the Habsburg Empire with its localized and well-respected
administration increased citizens’ trust in local public services. In several
Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the long-gone
Habsburg border have been sharing common formal institutions for a century
now. Identifying from individuals living within a restricted band around the
former border, we find that historical Habsburg affiliation increases current
trust and reduces corruption in courts and police. Falsification tests of
spuriously moved borders, geographic and pre-existing differences, and
interpersonal trust corroborate a genuine Habsburg effect. "

\--

Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2618993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2618993)

~~~
bladedtoys
Yeah but the US and India, which the OP is comparing were both part of the
British Empire.

Indeed former British holdings span all extremes of corruption from the Sudan
to New Zealand and every flavor in between.

~~~
darklighter3
It's helpful to remember that the British took very different methods of
governance among different colonies at different times. They very much used
different means depending upon the local situation and what they were trying
to get out of a colony. Also colonies that were populated by British people
(US, Canada, etc.) have a very different cultural and social heritage than the
colonies where Britain showed up in a pre-existing society with established
norms.

------
betterunix
1\. Bribery absolutely exists at the lower levels of US agencies, it is just
less prevalent than it is elsewhere. The people at the DMV or IRS are not
going to blatantly ask for a bribe, but from time to time you can hear news of
some low-level worker being arrested for accepting payments for illegal
transactions.

2\. Auditing is strong. It is hard to spend "off the books" money in the US,
except in very tiny amounts. This is such a serious problem for criminals that
the mafia has been known to _play the lottery_ as a form of money laundering.

3\. Government salaries are sufficient for the things bribes might buy
elsewhere: your own apartment, a functioning car, the cost of children, an
occasional vacation, etc. The incentives to take bribes are lower here.

[EDIT: Also worth mentioning is that the incentives to _give_ bribes are
lower. You do not need to bribe anyone to get a passport, a plane ticket,
permission to buy or sell a car, etc. It is only when you start looking at
things that most people never deal with that you will start seeing bribery:
permits to build large buildings, exemptions from environmental rules, etc.]

[EDIT: Example for point 1:

[https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eleven-arrested-
driver-...](https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eleven-arrested-driver-
license-scam-article-1.1467800)]

~~~
roel_v
"This is such a serious problem for criminals that the mafia has been known to
play the lottery as a form of money laundering."

I wanted to comment on this that if you are referring to what I think you're
referring to, it's not quite how you make it seem. The expected yield on a
lottery ticket is somewhere in the magnitude of 50-70%, meaning: if you buy a
lot of tickets, you will probably get a net yield of something between those
numbers. However, the large amounts of tickets you have to buy / check /
redeem do not make this a viable laundering strategy. You'll leave traces if
you do this at scale, for example if you bought the owner of a local bodega to
get you tickets 'wholesale', like boxes at a time; then the lotteries will
easily spot patterns of sellers doing unusual transactions.

What I think you are referring to, is the (alleged) practice of criminals
paying above-market prices (in cash) for casino chips or lottery tickets.
Let's say you win $100. For a criminal, if he pays you $110 for that ticket,
he has a laundering cost of only 9%, because he can redeem that ticket as 100$
in clean money. 9% is quite cheap; it's not uncommon to account for 30, 40% in
costs when laundering money. And since lotteries and casinos are about big
amounts, you only need one such transaction to launder sizable amounts. As the
original winner, you end up with more than you won, but you can spend it only
on holidays, restaurants and other cash-friendly activities.

(all examples are ignoring taxes etc, for which you'd have to correct to make
the numbers work in reality)

------
codegeek
Many reasons in my opinion (having lived in both countries)

1\. Income disparity: Gov. officials are mostly lower middle class even from
Indian standards. So they are probably making a few thousands Rupees which is
not quite there with the cost of living there specially in cities. Some people
however are so rich that they can easily pay the bribe which gets the job done
in no time. Again, there are efforts to bridge this gap but not easy for a
country of the size of India. In the US, income disparity b/w rich and poor is
not that bad (even though it seems like the gap is increasing b/w the so
called super rich and rest)

2\. Enforcement of law: In India, there is pretty much a law for everything
like any other developed country but the enforcement is almost none. So people
taking bribes are less scared and more confident that no one is going to do
anything. Yes people are trying to fix that but it's a long haul.

3\. Resource availability: Most basic resources like cooking gas etc. are a
big pain to get. Lot of smaller cities/towns and villages still rely on
getting cooking gas cylinders from the vendors etc as one example. There is no
integrated pipeline. Thee is a fight for pretty much everything even when you
have the money. It is changing as well but not there yet.

4\. Mentality: Indians are brought up seeing bribery as part of a life. Most
of them don't even realize how bad it is until they get exposed to more
developed countries like the US etc. So there is this saying "chalta hai"
which literally translates to "it's ok to do this".

------
not_that_noob
Hong Kong, today one of the least corrupt places, was a few decades ago one of
the MOST corrupt. What changed? They set up an independent commission to
investigate and prosecute corruption and made it independent of most of
government. Things were dicey for a while, but eventually corruption all but
disappeared in daily life. The United States has as one of its founding
principles that powers must be separated, so here if you do take a bribe,
there are multiple independent agencies that can come after you, and most
importantly, send you to jail and take away your ill-gotten wealth. This
simply doesn't exist with equivalent force in India.

Oh, btw, please spare me the bs about Anglo-Saxon moral superiority. The
history of India and indeed the world is replete with so many broken Anglo-
Saxon promises that this is simply a joke. There's a reason it's called
"perfidious Albion".

------
jessaustin
IANA Sociologist! However, I think culture, history, and habit are more
important than economics in generating the phenomenon you describe. It will be
difficult for any polity to transfer from one corruption regime to another.

My theory is that in USA big corruption drives out little corruption. We have
the systems in place for massive transfers from the public to the bureaucracy,
to government vendors and their lobbyists, to the "elect". (Which transfers
are "leaky": lots of money is extracted at each step, but there's still plenty
left over.) Those systems are jealous, and they punish nonconformity.
Individuals may only be "entrepreneurial" in approved ways; e.g. cops may not
take bribes on the side of the road, but they're encouraged to feather their
nests through forfeiture and hardball union tactics. Lawmakers can't just
stuff fat stacks of bribery cash into their refrigerators, but they're totally
free to sign up for sweetheart "investment" deals. Then again, there is
basically nothing that officials at the Treasury Department aren't allowed to
do. Maybe that's the exception that "proves" the rule?

The system is "superior" to China's, for example, because there the extensive
low-level corruption focuses attention on corruption on every level. If the
"communist" Grand Poobahs don't get a handle on the low-level stuff the whole
edifice might come crashing down around them.

------
byoung2
I think one of the biggest deterrents is the distribution of wealth. The gap
between rich and poor in the US is much smaller in the US. In India, you might
have a low-level government official making $300/mo and a millionaire
businessman applying for a permit. A $100 bribe to speed along the process is
nothing for the millionaire, but significant for the official. In the US, that
same official would make $5000/month, so you'd have to make that bribe more
attractive to risk losing his job and going to jail.

The same with police officers. In the Philippines, my brother-in-law was
pulled over for speeding. He offered the cop PHP100 ($2.50) and we were on our
way. Cops make $50-100k per year where I live, so you'd have to bribe them at
least a few hundred or thousand (and take the risk that they arrest you for
offering a bribe). You'd be better off paying the speeding ticket which is
only $100-200.

~~~
gwern
> In the US, that same official would make $5000/month, so you'd have to make
> that bribe more attractive to risk losing his job and going to jail.

Which a millionaire can _still_ easily afford to bribe him with a third of his
monthly salary ($1700). If you go grab the Freedom House rankings or another
such measure of corruption, you're not going to find that per capita income or
Gini explain all of the variation from country to country.

~~~
itsameta4
Correct, but the point is that $5000/month is more than enough to get by on,
so even getting doubling your income with a bribe has less marginal utility,
especially when you're risking your job.

In contrast, an extra $100 for someone who is just scraping by could be make
or break for that month.

~~~
gwern
> Correct, but the point is that $5000/month is more than enough to get by on

This is completely ad hoc and the interest of most people in acquiring ever
more money suggests there is no saturation point.

------
pratik661
There are different categories of corruption:

1\. Bribes for government service

2\. Government officials siphoning off resources

3\. Government officials offering lucrative contracts/appointments to their
friends or to people who bribed them.

I am no sociologist, but I can offer hypotheses for the first 2.

1\. I think relative inequality might have a lot to do with this one. Although
inequality is higher in the US than it is in India, people in the lower income
bracket are able to afford a relatively decent standard of living. Also most
government officials make middle class income. The marginal benefit of a bribe
is very low and the marginal risk is very high. In India, some of the lower
level civil servants/policemen make below-middle class wages (or maybe middle
class by Indian standards.. I don't know). The marginal benefit of even a
small bribe is very high. The marginal risk (due to factors I can't
quantify... ie chance of getting caught, consequences, etc) is very low.

2\. In the United States, a much higher portion of the population pays
federal, state, and local taxes. In India only 2% of the population pays
taxes. This is not quantified but I have a hypothesis: Countries where most
people pay taxes have citizens who expect greater accountability from their
elected/appointed officials because it is THEIR money. In India the average
voter has no remote reason to demand his/her elected official to be
accountable because its not HIS/HER money being wasted.

3\. This might be the same reason as above. I don't really have a hypothesis
for this one.

Once again, these are just hypotheses that I have. I am not an economist,
sociologist, or an academic of any kind and I do not have any data to back it
up. Just anecdotal evidence.

~~~
tehwalrus
I think the best hypothesis for 3 is political corruption - companies in the
US can give money to Political Candidates during elections, and elected
officials typically don't hurt, and indeed actively and vocally endorse, the
interests of their donors - and this is not frowned upon.

------
zaidf
In the US, the risks from bribery outweigh the rewards.

In India, if you don't bribe, you may not get your water turned back on. And
if you don't accept the bribe, you may not be able to put food on the table
because your low salary _implicitly_ expects you to take the bribe. In that
sense, a bribe is more of a tip.

I have heard plenty of stories of people in India being pulled over by cops
only to slow down the car, roll down the window and slip a bill equivalent to
$1-$4 without ever stopping the car.

~~~
Frozenlock
Funny; I've always considered a tip to be a form of bribery.

As with tipping, everything is in the 'social norm'.

------
ChuckMcM
Historically it was a cultural thing. Many of the institutions in US
government are designed around neighbors being part of the system on an
elected basis. If you have a sense of community, you look out for your
neighbors. So if someone is breaking into your neighbor's house you might call
the police, similarly if you've been elected to a local council and someone is
taking bribes which is making your neighbors lives less "good" then you
prosecute that.

Unfortunately, as the sense of community has worn thin, corruption has become
more common. Politically fostering a 'us' (people) and 'them' (government)
attitude seems to correlate with increased incidence of government
malfeasance. And the number of incidents has risen according to statistics
published by the FBI.

I believe the only counter agent we have is for wider participation by the
population which is intolerant of corruption.

------
jrmenon
Many good answers here. I also moved from many years ago, and noticed the same
trends. Just to add additional points:

1) I think the lack of low-level corruption not just in US, but even developed
Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan also
indicates that reducing the wealth gap, govt. salaries (esp. Singapore), rule-
of-law etc.. has a factor.

Some of these countries have similar cultural histories and affinities to
India, and yet they have been able to overcome these weaknesses.

It will be good to hear what folks from these countries think about their own
experiences here.

2) In US, lot of things that are considered 'corruption' in other countries
are somewhat legalized - e.g. lobbying and so forth. Granted it is more at a
higher level with much larger amounts in play, but even here, there is some
degree of transparency.

------
tokenadult
International comparisons of corruption, such as those by Transparency
International[1] may suggest some reasons why countries vary in their level of
corruption. Rule of law and an independent judiciary appear to help, and I'm
still mulling over what cultural factors (for example, most commonly followed
religion in one country or another) may have to do with differing levels of
corruption.

[1]
[http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publications](http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publications)

------
transfire
I think this is a very good question, worthy of discussion.

I believe the main reason is that the establishment of the U.S. Government
held strongly to a principle of Checks and Balances, which trickled down to
local governments. We have police and we have police of police (so to speak).

Of course nothing is perfect, and lately it seems like things may not be
working quite as well as they had. e.g. Cops have gotten very trigger happy
and no one has called them on it; plea deals have become the norm in court;
and unwarranted wiretapping has grown to scary levels.

------
akg_67
Just a week ago I returned to US after three week visit to India and Japan.

Based on my recent experiences, I will say bribery problem in India is due to:

1\. Lack of sense of community in 'givers'. For example, when a group of
people are waiting for something, they don't feel sense of community of
'waiting together'. Everybody is looking a way to be not part of that
community enabling 'takers' to solicit bribery so that someone doesn't need to
wait with others.

2\. Too many laws and bureaucracy that enable more points of solicitation by
'takers'. For example, while traveling on a tourist bus, the bus was stopped
by a cop. The cop solicited bribe from driver because the first-aid kit had a
partially used tube of ointment and some passengers were hanging newspapers
and shawls on windows to block out sunlight. There is no reason to create laws
for every little thing giving more opportunities for 'takers'.

But there were some positive signs. It appears younger generation is becoming
less tolerant for bribery and corruption. It was nice to see that some young
people on the bus were trying to take picture of 'corrupt' cop using mobile
phones to post online. Of course, these young people and driver were scolded
by older people on the bus (lack of sense of community) for delaying the bus
as cop took driver far away from bus to avoid being photographed.

------
the_watcher
I'm paraphrasing and probably not being perfectly accurate, but when I took
comparative politics in school (only time I studied this), one of the things
that came up as factors influencing corruption was quality infrastructure so
that citizens can move around without having to involve government (which, in
general, is a goal of the American system).

------
newnewnew
Corruption is correlated to genetic relatedness (inbreeding/consanguinity)[1].

I've seen a hypothesis that the introduction of Christianity in North/Western
Europe changed mating patterns and reduced consanguinity, thereby enabling the
rule of law that European society was known for developing in the early modern
period[2]. A caveat - while I find the hypothesis intriguing, I'm not sure how
well this hypothesis explains other areas of the world that have developed
low-corruption society, and I don't know the consanguinity of India.

[1] [http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/consanguinity-
corru...](http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/consanguinity-corruption-
correlation/)

[2][http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/start-
here/](http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/start-here/)

------
mmiller567
Has anyone mentioned free media?

In the US you rise to the top of the media pile by dishing the dirt.

Naming and shaming does amazing things.

------
mangeletti
TL;DR

Top-down control and decent pay.

Long Version

Compartmentalizing access and control to important processes makes it hard for
anyone at a lower level to take a bribe. For instance, you couldn't pay off
somebody at your local DMV for a license or ID, since the clerk has to enter
your provided values (SSN, forms of identification) into a system that is out
of their control. It's not impossible, just difficult.

Paying employees enough (government employees are typically overpaid when
comparing their salary / job duties to similar private sector positions) to
keep the difficulty/risk:reward ratio moderately high reduces, using basic
economics, the risk of corruption.

On the Contrary

Keeping controls at a high level, and removing discretion puts the power in
the hands of the few. And, as we've all heard before, power corrupts. Worth
noting, however, is that power doesn't so much corrupt as does the intrinsic
problem solving skills of the human mind. The idea that power corrupts is a
false attribution fallacy applied to something that is grossly noticeable
(nobody notices when somebody speeds a little or steals a pen from work, but
when it's something large (affected by somebody in power), it becomes
noticeable). The point is that the lack of corruption at a lower level
indicates a mathematical inevitability of corruption at a higher level (e.g.,
the cozy relationships between Fannie May and Freddy Mac and various Senators,
namely our current president)).

------
Mikeb85
I don't know about the US, but I live in Canada, where we have very little to
no corruption. By contrast, my wife comes from one of the world's most corrupt
nations, which I have visited. A few factors I've seen:

\- Wage disparity. In corrupt nations government officials are poorly paid. In
a place like Canada, they make a liveable salary, with good job security for
unelected (ie. service) workers.

\- Enforcement of laws - our police force is well-paid, and politicians are
subject to the law like any citizen.

I think the biggest difference is culture though. Maybe because of our
immigrant roots, there's a culture of working for what you have. Not breaking
the rules. Canadians are hesitant to break even social norms that aren't law.
Maybe because of how we're brought up, we've learned to respect the 'social
contract'.

Even my wife, who grew up with corruption being a part of everyday life (in
her country something as simple as getting the police to respond to a crime in
progress requires bribery - many communities have gangs that keep the peace in
the absence of the police), had quickly adjusted to Canadian life (even when I
met her I didn't know she was an immigrant), and sees the benefits of
following laws, even when they're easy to break.

And another theory that may have weight - the weather. Where I live it's
winter for half the year. As I write this our city is a cold, snowy wasteland.
Survival means cooperation. It's quite possible that this spirit of
cooperation has been instilled in the culture, preventing widespread class-
conflict, and cooperation between immigrant cultures that normally wouldn't
get along in their home countries...

~~~
jt2190

        > .... I live in Canada, where we have very little to no 
        > corruption...
    

Or it could be that Canadians rarely hear about corruption, and think that
everything is fine. As the saying goes: _" Absence of evidence is not evidence
of absence."_

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/revenue-canada-
corrup...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/revenue-canada-corruption-
feared-over-400k-cheque-to-nicolo-rizzuto-1.1868426)

~~~
Mikeb85
I'd wager that we're still one of the least-corrupt nations. In this case,
people have been fired from their jobs and charged with crimes.

[http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results](http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results)

And there still is no comparison with India or other 3rd world countries in
how prevalent corruption is...

------
projectramo
I am reading the question as what historical accidents made it socially
acceptable.

Here is a factor that I think might play a role: there is a lot more power in
the sub-continent at lower levels of government. Specifically, the SP/DCP
system allows the local policeman to act as a unilateral mini-judge, often
settling disputes to his (rarely are they female) liking.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintendent_(police)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintendent_\(police\))

This inordinate power gives them a lot more scope for corruption. This system
was set up specifically because the British needed to control a vast country
with a few people that had to be posted to various regions.

I also agree with the other people who point out that poverty plays a role.

------
tmbsundar
I know of an instance in India where one of my friend's friend had to leave
his executive government job (while in the initial two years of appointment
after after graduation and clearing a tough entrance exam) because he wanted
to stand by his principles whereas there was constant pressure to budge in
many instances. He chose to stand by his value system and doing some other job
less powerful but more lucrative in the corporate sector.

This is a repeating theme of officers who standby the truth not able to
withstand the system.

Another thing I wish that can change is the "jugaad" attitude. This was
popularized by some of the management thinkers [1]. In its most benevolent it
can mean "frugal innovation" or "make things work with the available
resources". In its every day use though, it means "getting things done -
regardless of the means - that is through connections or influencing through
money etc.,". The idea is to get things done quickly somehow.

Understandably, this attitude leads to lot of "quality-less" work being passed
on for what it should not be otherwise. Things are not looked at from a
permanent solution perspective.

I wish people learn the right attitude from childhood (not cutting into lines,
managers treating employees as people and not take them for granted etc.,) and
do things right and well rather than do some "jugaad" and quickly be done with
it as a temp fix only to stare at the problem again in a shorter time than it
is supposed to last.

Of course, there are towering well known counter examples like Gandhi and not-
so-well-known to western audience like Kamaraj [2] and Kakkan[3]. These were
self-less political leaders who were honest to the core and died almost
penniless. Somehow slowly the quality has been diluting over 50+ years and
reached a stage of stasis as it is now.

Edit: added qualifier on references 2 and 3.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Kamaraj](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Kamaraj)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Kakkan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Kakkan)

------
cmdkeen
There's also the issue of the historical economic legacy of the Licence Raj -
state planning often leads to built in corruption as circumventing state
bureaucracy becomes the only way to get something done. It gets overlooked
semi-officially because officials like the results it yields. Just because you
change to a more freer economic system system doesn't mean that ingrained
culture of corruption goes away. Russia was very similar in the 90s.

------
chris_va
"Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World"

[http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-
story/...](http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-
henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/)

... culture probably plays a strong role. Americans have a very different
standard of fairness than a lot of the non-western planet.

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b_emery
There is a great book that you might want to read, which gets at the thought
process at the individual level. It's about a cop who stood up to corruption
in his precinct. The movie is good too:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpico](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpico)

I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but idealistic people like this must be
one of the factors.

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od2m
America is corrupt TO THE CORE. Unlike India however, the corruption does not
take place in front of you.

A belief in anything else is irrational.

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ydt
One of the main reasons is the existence of a developed Bureaucracy. While
Bureaucratic institutions are inefficient and inflexible, the trade off is
that they are generally fair. Bill Gates waits in line at the DMV just like
the rest of us. There's no way around it.

~~~
justincormack
India has a highly developed bureaucracy, which is indeed inefficient and
inflexible. But there is a way around it, bribery.

Actually though, high degrees of automation make bribery hard. You cant bribe
a computer program.

~~~
dev12345
I agree with you 100% . A program, for example to do property transaction will
solve problems in that sector. Unfortunately its a chicken egg problem. policy
maker won't let a program replace manual processing which has high opportunity
of doing wrong and get away with it.

On a side note Yes, Train reservation system is much better now compare to
what it was back in 1990s. There is no room left of corruption. I guess India
need a strong leader which is not in for profit and he/she may do such small
deed which will help India evolve out of current state

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omonra
Wouldn't it be appropriate to generalize to Anglo-Saxon countries rather than
only the US?

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manidoraisamy
"It is easy for a rich man to be virtuous" \- Indian Prime minister Morarji
Desai said, when a journalist asked him the same question during his US visit.
So, simple answer - Reduce poverty.

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marco-fiset
They manage it by making you _believe_ that there is no bribery ;)

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rajacombinator
We make up for it at the higher levels. ;)

