this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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Incredibly bad take incoming:
I don’t have a problem with widespread corruption inherently, but it has to be well understood and broadly applicable (which it generally isn’t).
For the average citizen, it doesn’t make much of a difference if you have to pay a €10 processing fee at town hall to get a copy of an official document or if you give the teller €10 under the table to make sure your document gets processed. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that the bribe fosters the local economy more than the processing fee. The problem occurs when a person who does not expect corruption doesn’t pay the €10 that no one tells them is necessary and doesn’t get their document.
Of course the processing fee, being publicly disclosed, is subject to pushback from the populace as a whole, whereas the bribe can be set based on how badly the individual needs something from the government/how positively the official feels about the individual and can therefore be incredibly unfairly applied, which is obviously worse.
I mean I can't argue with you there
I’d love it if you argued with the other bits though, because I know there is a problem with evenly applied corruption, I just don’t see it.
You think it's evenly applied, doesn't mean it is. You take the power from the people and give it to a random official. Better hope they aren't racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
There's no checks, and knowing people it will not be an evenly applied corruption.
Plus that $10 fee goes to the city. If your city functions well that benefits everyone rather than a single government official. I'd rather have maintained roads and some libraries than a few wealthy government officials.
Also if the government doesn't get their cut or has a shortfall in revenue they just raise taxes/fees. Then you have to pay off the official even more money because it's a higher fee.
What power?
2 edgy 4 me
You really don't realize that a citizen can't do anything bureaucracy-related without bureaucrats? Try registering a company entirely by yourself without any involvement of the government, then tell me how it's working out for you.
Yeah that's how governments function dude
The question remains the same then, what power do you think you have over a rando in the executive branch. Or perhaps so it's clearer to you, what power do you think you have over a rando in German bureaucracy who can drag out your affair for months.
99.99% of the bureaucrats you will meet with are on the local level. Most federal programs are administered by states. Suddenly your representation becomes a lot better. Easier to get a city councilman to help you out than a senator I'll give you that.
But you really think it's a better system to have to deal with a bureaucrat and to have to bribe them on top of it?
Honestly you're sounding a lot like Trump when he began dismantling the federal government.
I'm not intimately familiar with the US local government (thankfully), so I may be missing something, and am genuinely curious as to how you would solve Joe Schmoe at the local DMV or whatnot being not particularly sympathetic toward your plight. To my knowledge, almost the entirety of the bureaucratic apparatus from the neighborhood to the federal level is appointed, with less than a handful levels being elected, and thus they don't really give a damn about your choice in the next election, having survived more than a couple presidents and mayors.
From what I can see, the city council in the US is indeed elected. But, can it really help you with the Joe Schmoe problem? Are most government services really subject to the council's authority? E.g. the DMV seems to be operated on the state level, and then who are you gonna petition for help? The governor? Will the governor interfere in every Karen vs Joe Schmoe standoff?
Not sure where senators come in, as I doubt it that your senator is gonna legislate for removal of Joe Schmoe from their position.
As to your last point, which one is cheaper for you: slipping Joe a hundo or petitioning the council, the mayor, the governor and the senator for weeks to months?
Easy you follow the rules. If they are breaking the rules you generally can get a supervisor to resolve it immediately. If that fails you can call your state representative. If that fails you can get a lawyer, but truthfully if the first two steps fail you're almost certainly in the wrong.
Employed is a better word. They can be fired if they are not doing their jobs easily enough (people who say otherwise are just unfamiliar with the system). They recieve regular reviews and have to compete for promotions. It's a job. Who is their final boss at the top of the chain depends on if it's local or state or federal. Local answers to the town council, state either answers to the governor or state legislature, and same for federal.
The only people that are appointed and hard to remove are usually the heads of agencies. They can set agendas, but that's not really going to impact you going to the dmv or registering a buisness. And the majority of them are appointed every election
So depends on state, but in my state the local DMV branches are ran entirely by the county. If you have an issue you either go up the chain within the DMV, contact your county representative, or contact your local state representative. Typically elected officials are good at handling these types of issues. I've known people that have had issues with their mail for example and the local federal congressman had a line dedicated entirely to dealing with these types of issues. They responded rather quickly.
Honestly I struggle to even think of an example where that would even be necessary. If someone is acting that badly usually their local supervisor will fire them before that point. But yes Senators do regularly intervene for their constituents.
Easy the council 100%. If I had to slip a hundo to every government employee to get anything done I'd be out thousands at this point. If it ever came to it the other option would cost me a phone call and an email. I'm sure I'd have to wait a couple of weeks, but likely not months. I'm sorry our system does tend to work for the most part without the need for me to shell out thousands of dollars to the DMV employees
Do the rules specify that Joe must resolve any and all affairs in three business days?
Ah, unlike every company where Claire is working for forty years despite pissing off every newbie with her slow and tedious ways. Whose side will the employer take, Karen Nobody's who's complaining or Joe's who's been at his position for years and knows all the ins and outs and who's a second cousin once removed to the department chief? Reeeeealllly unfamiliar with the system there, the ones who say otherwise.
Still unclear as to how legislature is gonna legislate Joe out of his position.
What incentive does the head of the agency have to fire employees who have tons of experience in their positions? Is it like Trump firing everyone who disagrees with his views? Oh wait, this is precisely the argument that you tried to use in a rebuttal to me.
I specifically scaled the amount to the US standards, and still you somehow think your time is worth less than that. I don't know why and what you're doing with the government every day that the balance is in your way, but this it's certainly unhealthy. Where I am, I haven't had to deal with the government in years. Also somehow I'm sure that "a phone call and an email" is more privilege than most people in the US have.
Umm, no. You have yearly deadlines for things that you have to renew. Typically there's a decent grace period and only a small fine if you fall out of compliance. It's pretty easy for most stuff.
You can write fiction all day if you want to. Doesn't change reality.
They're his boss at the end of the line. Anyway it's not usually about firing Joe, it's about getting the job done. Joe's supervisor should fire him if he's not doing his job. If it gets really bad the legislature could force the head of the agency to start firing people. Usually not necessary, but it's doable.
This isn't even a coherent argument, nor what my point was at all. You asked who was appointed and I told you.
I'll try to follow what you're saying anyway. So in your mind these are extremely expirenced and invaluable employees, but also don't do their jobs? Yeah that doesn't make any sense
I recieve mail through a government agency. Every year I pay my taxes, register my car, etc. For tax payments I deal with federal, state, and local. Everything else is just the normal stuff that comes up in life. Getting a marriage certificate, renewing a license, moving states causes re-registration, getting a passport.
All of these things were just simple and done correctly. Why would I want to pay a bribe instead of working with a functional system?
It's really not. Takes like 2 minutes to lookup your local government's info. Frankly the percentage of people without internet access or phone access is very very low (thanks in part to government programs). Plus you can always go to city hall or the council meetings.
Then what the hell are you talking about, solving your problems? Joe doesn't give a shit.
Oooh yeah. "You're wrong and I'm right" defense, amazing. Someone who's never encountered anyone working in a big company, reporting for duty at online bickering. Doesn't know a single thing about how it works in a large corporation or in bureaucracy, but is full of opinions. Gewd jerb there.
Oh sure, the supervisor is gonna surely take your side, whom they talk to for a couple minutes, instead of Joe's whom they knew for ten years. Delusion is really strong with this one.
Again, are you imagining the legislature adopting laws like 'Fire Joe Schmuck from his job at the DMV'? Are you actually familiar with any single law ever passed by the legislature in the history of the legislature, or are you entirely fanfictioning it from your delusions?
This displays how you never ever worked or dealt with an established employee at any long-standing job whatsoever. You're completely ignorant as to how long-standing employees can both have invaluable working experience, and display profound disdain for their customers. Absolute zero of your life experience is at all valuable at any jobs that require any skills gained at work.
Oh look at Mr. Government Participation here. They pay their federal, state, and local, amazing. They register their car every year. This will surely get them an audience with their council member, indubitably. Unlike everyone else in their twenty-thousand Karens town. They will complain about Joe Schmoe and will indubitably listened to by Jack Jackson.
Again, if you can dial your council boy and say "Hey this Joe Schmoe is being a trouble, could you ditch him" and hear anything other than the busy tone at the other end, then you're the whitest cracker to ever exist, and apparently your council man is really really poor if they do this for less than a hundred dollars.
We can make up scenarios all day where someone doesn't do there job, but thus far the system works. So stop being out of touch with reality?
You gotta stop thinking of this as a one off. No I don't expect Joe to be fired on the spot, never said I did. If he's consistently failing to do his job he will be fired.
I've explained about 4 times how the system works. Maybe don't be so fucking dense? If you want me to explain again drop the insults (I'll do the same) and we can try again.
This is not a coherent argument. I used your own words. This is what you stated not me. You clearly have no understanding how government employment functions.
This isn't what you fucking asked. You wanted to know why I deal with the government so much I answered. If you cared about a consistent argument you'd realize that having to slide a hundo each time to get these things processed would be expensive.
And yes I would easily get the help of a city councilman that's how these things work. They're not that busy because the system works.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding. I don't give a fuck if Joe has his job, and I'm not calling my city to get Joe fired. I'm calling to get whatever paperwork I have processed. Like I don't know why you've become obsessed with Joe being fired, but I could care less.
If Joe is not doing his job eventually he will be fired or shuffled to a department where he can't keep fucking up.
You seem to have entirely forgotten the argument and are now obsessed with getting Joe fired which was never the point. The point was would it be better to have to bribe officials. Which is just ridiculous to suggest when we have a functional system.
Cool we're doing racism now, well this was a complete waste of my time.
Enjoy paying Joe to renew your license I guess
Actually political researchers tend to note that corruption is pretty much unavoidable even in vaguely ‘democratic’ places like India, and that it indeed helps grease the apparatus where citizens want something done. I don't have sources on me, but this is something I've read time and again.
Of course, India now has it really bad such that local officials straight up refuse to do their work. But OTOH, perhaps German bureaucracy could benefit from a little greasing.
Westerners tend to look at things like this from their entrenched perspective and stop at ‘bad thing is bad’, as if their own mechanisms guarantee that everything works simply by the wish of the common man.
The clerk could take the bribe and still not do your paper. What recourse is there when you operate outside the framework? Not much.
You could try bribing his boss, but likely he's taking a cut as well from the clerk and wouldn't even listen to your complaints.
Well, yes. I’m assuming honor where it shouldn’t be assumed.
You're right, that is an incredibly bad take
I disagree but it is interesting to note that your conception of corruption essentially doesn't make the distinction between extractive and quid-pro-quo.
Extractive corruption is where one party uses authority to essentially shake down someone else. A cop pulls you over for a spurious reason and demands $200 in cash to make it all go away on the spot, or you can fight it and maybe win in court after significant inconvenience, cost, or just be met with immediate violence. In any case, in this case there is a perpetrator and a victim and the victim gets nothing out of it other than getting screwed.
In quid-pro-quo type corruption, both parties benefit to some degree. So for example if you're applying for a permit at a local government office and you need it done fast, you slip them $50 to bump it to the top of the queue. They get paid, you get your permit faster .
China's anti-corruption efforts famously dealt very harshly with extractive corruption while allowing a certain degree if quid-pro-quo corruption on the basis that 1) you cannot fully eliminate corruption so you have to prioritize and 2) quid-pro-quo corruption actually meets a market demand that isn't being met within the official system, as you noted. So long as the clerk continues to eventually process permits for people who don't pay the $50 bribe , there is a certain like of logic that says that you might as well let that clerk keep doing this since not everyone needs permits fast.
This form of "allowed" corruption itself requires monitoring and regulation, though as it can easily turn extractive and such practices essentially require that the clerk have some reasonable fear of going too far.
It feels like with your system you're mostly just heading to a world where demographics with lesser abilities/skills in various ways end up being penalized.
How does a mentally challenged person navigate government corruption? What about someone who just generally isn't very bright? I know someone here is thinking along the lines of 'maybe they should be penalized' and I get that feeling but I don't feel like I want to live in that world.
That’s a very good point. I was picturing a society where this is common and accompanied by a reduced government role, which would require more community support for people who have greater need of it, but that’s not very realistic.
I like where your heads at, minimizing bureaucracy and keeping government local. It's an admirable goal, but it's easy to forget that one of the intended purposes of bureaucracy at a basic level was to enforce fairness. We've strayed a lot from that, but the basic concept should be sound if we could figure out how to do it properly.
I actually appreciate you giving this take a ton because I think it's important to think about corruption. I think a lot of people just view "corruption=bad" without diving into what it is or its impacts or why, specifically, corruption isn't a good thing. And that sort of thinking is tied pretty hard into negative stereotypes of non-first world countries. (I majored in geography and took courses in geographies of development so this is very much my jam hah)
I might write a blog post about this at some point and make reference to this comment if I do. I can let you know when I do if you're interested.
Edit: clarifying the actual nature of my education. Im not looking to Jared Diamond myself lmao
I’d definitely be interested in that, thanks!
To me it sounds like you're advocating for "tipping" public servants.
Welcome to Lithuania. Want to see a doctor? Gotta bribe the secratary. Wanna get those blood results? You better bring a fine whisky with you to give to the doctor himself
Did you just re-tell the joke, but seriously?