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Comment by sabellito | Hacker News Reader

When you say it like that it sounds like you're implying that Europeans are honest and Mexicans are corrupt.

As an Eastern European, I can agree that we're simply much more corrupt than Western Europeans, and it indeed is a cultural phenomenon.

I think you're really underestimating Western European corruption. This might have been true in the early days after the end of the cold war and might still be true in non-EU Eastern Europe since Soviet bureaucracy was even more unaccountable than the West's, but within the EU we're quickly converging.

No country is corruption free but the difference between Europe and Mexico is shocking. At least the European countries I know first hand.

In Mexico it's blatant and it's everywhere. In Europe most people would never think of bribing a police man to escape a fine while in Mexico a mordida is business as usual. There are police men whose only job is to get money from all the people they stop.

Here's an anecdote from my early years in Mexico. You have to check your car once or twice ever year to get like a govt sticker otherwise the car cannot be used in some places. Well sometimes the queues to do this process are extremely long. I've seen first hand someone from the verification center going to every car in the queue and asking "with jump or without jump?". Meaning, if you want to jump in front of the queue you have to "pay extra".

All of this shouldn't be a surprise.

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023

is with jump or without jump corruption? Depends if the money goes to the person asking or to the center. If the person is paid to let keep people in line, and keeps the money, it is corruption. If it goes to the center, it's probably called a vip pass or so somewhere. Skip the line doesn't strike me as corruption as much as actually "purchasing" your driving licence, or being let through a checkpoint with fruit you're not supposed to bring from one island onto another to avoid spreading tree disease...

Of course it's corruption. Most of the money goes to the boss of the center.

This happens on plenty of public offices (probably most). You need some permit to build something? You either pay or wait for years to get it, if ever.

Just read this comment on Reddit written by a Mexican:

> I built a manufacturing shop in Mexico, the area isn't zoned yet. This should tell you all you need to know, if any government official can find a way to get a "mordida" they will. I spent almost 10 grand in just bribes to get all the proper permits. If you get pulled over by the police, you're paying a bribe. A neighbor of mine had a pistol in his car. He paid almost 2 grand in a bribe to get released.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/comments/1gpznln/ho...

Hell, 2 grand to get released from a felony is a steal!

Amusingly, I bet it also scales based on apparent wealth/income, so is a type of [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine].

Even if the boss keeps the money, it may be tacitly part of his salary. Perhaps that motivates him to provide better service to the jump customers so they don't go to some other station and pay some other boss. This system might even work more effectively than one where the jump fee goes to the government. Even if it does go to the government, aren't you then bribing the whole government to get preferential service at the expense of non-jumpers? So I think it's morally a gray area.

The alternative isn't a jump fee that goes to the government. It's no jumping at all.

Maybe that is ideal, but they are plenty of official jump fees that we don't think of as corrupt. In super-non-corrupt New Zealand, we can pay extra for faster processing of resource consent applications, passport applications, and visas. We can also pay a fee for a chance in a random draw for enrollment in desirable schools. Criminals can pay money to their victims in exchange for a chance at a lighter sentence.

Corruption is incredibly poisonous to countries. It’s closely correlated with a lack of development and tends to be self-reinforcing.

It erodes trust in institutions, encourages the breaking of other rules and generally keeps poor countries poor, especially when it comes to foreign investment.

You should visit Eastern Europe lol

> No country is corruption free but the difference between Europe and Mexico is shocking.

> In Europe most people would never think of bribing a police man

I would say that lack of petty corruption doesn't exclude big scale corruption which is very much alive in Europe.

Backdealing, lobbying, money laundering. I don't rememeber Mexican banks laundering hundreds of bilions etc. Mexican car manufactures cheating for years on car emissions.

These things are reserved for European countries from top of most transparent countries list (Hello Denmark, Hello Germany).. We just keep forgetting. And we are conditioned by propaganda to look down on other cultures.

Stoping petty officers from accepting bribes is just European establishment's way of "Don't steal - your goverment hates competition".

> Backdealing, lobbying, money laundering. I don't rememeber Mexican banks laundering hundreds of bilions etc. Mexican car manufactures cheating for years on car emissions.

EU politicians caught backdealing are being prosecuted. Bank money laundering wasn't done by the government's banks. Car emissions cheating also wasn't the government.

Bribing police is government corruption.

Yes this is correct.

Maybe in 50 years Mexicans will be honest and Europeans will be corrupt. I don't think anyone honestly thinks that corruption is inherent to anyone's genetics.

But today? It's simply the case.

I wonder if it somehow evens out perfectly across all cultures/countries on the planet, and stays even as variables on the ground change.

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