I don't agree that bribes can't have unintended social consequences. They do have specific goals, yes. But some unintended consequences of bribery would be things like discouraging honest participants, or encouraging the most corrupt people (rather than the best, on merit) to place themselves in positions of authority, so as to get bribes. All of these are unintended in the sense that neither the person giving the bribe nor the person taking the bribe are trying to bring them about per se, they're only thinking about the immediate consequences (I get what I want).
Arguments "can be made" for anything. That is the worst possible justification for any position.
Corruption cannot be stopped without effort. The rules and institutions that regulate and control the market are that "effort".
When bribery happens in a country with a command economy, do you still say "there's that invisible hand of capitalism again"?
Bribery is not connected to a free market per se, but bribery in a free market is still a problem to be solved in the context of that free market.
Yes of course. I don't know why you keep suggesting I am against that. My issue is with the nonsensical attempts to tie bribery to capitalism, as if one is the result of the other.