>>The problems in our society are systemic, not because "people are bad". People are (in general) good and law abiding.
No. Actually people are bad. Parents line up their kids for civil services exam cram schools, because civil services have ...err... bribe income potential
You know people are genuinely evil when they want their kids to grow up and become corrupt, cheat and steal.
Basically people don't want their kids to be pick pockets in a bus. They want them to dress up well, sit on a table and pick pockets in a sub registrar office or while approving a road tarring contract.
But they aspire their kids to become thieves nevertheless.
Further, I was brought up in a public sector township. All the families were having one Govt job. Still only a few (1 or 2) wanted to join a govt service.
I don't want to generalize anything. Because the sample set is too small. But just want to bring a perspective. If you have seen something like 15 out of 40 wanting to become an IAS officer just to get bribed then please put the figures. This is specifically for @Kamaal.
It is very common all around the world, and especially worst part of it for robber dynasties of civil officials to exists. Even rather bad places, people don't realize how shockingly common it is.
It is exceptionally hard to root out once you got few generations of those corrupt babus in power.
Very common too in Russia, where a KGB official comes to a high school to recruit kids into their "academy," and openly state the income potentials from bribes, and that with full knowledge of parents, with some even facilitating that... That's even more common with all kinds of "elite education" facilities there, whose only point is to be a gatekeepers to recruitment into government jobs. Call it a modern caste system.
Busting it means busting a double digit percentage of population who participated in such system.
I agree with most of your comment, but I refuse to believe this is true. Almost everyone I have personally met in the city (from the auto drivers to shopkeepers to policemen to businessmen) was well-meaning and well-behaved, with an intelligent, nuanced outlook and understanding of common problems we all face.
The problems in our society are systemic, not because "people are bad". People are (in general) good and law abiding.
For example, a common conundrum I've heard about is that in any restaurant that serves alcohol, the customs/excise dept requires there to be only one exit/entry. However, fire safety code calls for multiple exits. So what is the restaurant owner to do?? He has to bribe the safety inspector, or the customs inspector, or more commonly both. The owner is not a bad, corrupt person. The inspectors are not bad, corrupt persons. The people who drafted the various codes did not draft them with an aim to encourage corruption. But combined together, all this causes the problems we see.