I'm from Romania.

You don't know how good you have it. The low level corruption is the thing that eats away at your soul and poisons your day to day life.

High level corruption? Awful, but we have that too.

But having to bribe the nurse so that your grandma gets painkillers (or toilet paper!) in the hospital? Having to bribe the police officer to get your driver's license? Having to bribe the lady at the counter working for the City Hall, so that you can actually get papers you need this year, not 2 years from now?

That really messes with your head!

They have it so good because they complain about stuff that is trivial relative to countries like Romania. It's a constant battle and to be satisfied is to give up.

Yeah, right. Survivor bias in action. Romania didn't choose to do a lot of the things it did. It didn't choose to be a Communist state for 45 years, for example. History matters.

And if you think Romanians are somehow content:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932019_Romanian_p...

They were in the news everywhere, from Deutsch Welle to the New York Times.

I find your comment dismissive of those down the ladder, maybe I'm misinterpreting it. It also seems unaware of history or recent news.

Well, the fact that Romania is even less democratic that Germany doesn’t change the fact that Germany couldn’t be more democratic. And to be fair I would prefer if Romanians figured out their democracy themselves rather than have another proxy war happening there now.

What do you mean by proxy war? Romania is quite peaceful.

What do you think is going to happen if a wester state brought military to help you with corruption?

Who asked for military help?

How do you think the west should get rid of your corruption then?

You are misinterpreting, it was thinking about how to be robust, not critiquing Romania

Ah, ok then :-)

To any individual lower corruption is what that matters most. However as a country it is higher level corruption that costs you the most , all the money governments are spending without oversight on Coronavirus response for example . This is lot costlier to the country than a beat cop taking a bribe .

Most ngos and corruption indices focus too much on lower level corruption instead of both.

I believe you are underestimating the negative drag low level corruption has on the economy. It means setting up businesses or conducting any commercial activity is slow and fraught with hidden costs and risks. Information isn't usually freely available and solving problems usually involes "knowing someone" and going through backchannels.

oh? sounds like trying to figure out why FAANG closed your developer account :-P

Do FAANGs burn down your office and break your legs?

Perhaps it was a tasteless joke... I was commenting on how you seem to need to post on HN to get any support from the FAANGs.

Maybe not that, but pay off the police to seize your servers? That's table stakes for a multinational in a region where they have the necessary influence.

I think something that could be called corruption is everywhere once you know what to look for. The difference is that normal people in Western Europe and the Nordics don't know what to look for.

Bringing a bottle of expensive vodka to smooth over some bureaucratic procedure is nothing compared to what goes on in the big leagues.

Something to keep in mind, corruption indexes like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index are actually about the perception of corruption. After all it's the only thing that's easy to measure.

How do you figure out which situations require a bribe and in which situation it would be "inappropriate"?

Is there a "usual fee" for your driving license?

At least in the recent literature, that retail corruption is called "market corruption"--this is what we hear about the most when we talk about corruption in India, Nigeria, etc. There is another variety, more pernicious form of corruption, it is called "network corruption": here, corruption is a product of collusion between various groups over the long term. In the developed world, that's what we see, and it is hard to prevent collusive corruption, since there is no money trail. People leave their jobs as staffers to powerful politicians, and then join the k-street.

I agree, it's quite weird. Low level corruption exists but I'd say 99 % of the time it isn't and can't be bought but is awarded through social connections instead.

I suppose corruption at higher levels has greater incentives and is harder to eliminate than low-level corruption (perhaps). I wonder if there are any books on the subject - general principles of how corruption develops and decays.