this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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In highschool I once ran for the position of student council treasurer more as a lark than anything else. I ran a campaign of complete honesty and assured my fellow students that I would lie and steal and basically wallow in corruption, however, there would always be money when they needed it and I would keep my skimming within reasonable limits.
I lost that election.
You didn't lie about lying, that's where you failed. You should've lied harder and actually held it for yourself, then you'd have been believable, smh.
The guy that won highschool president for my grade ran on "This position is a joke and you should vote for me as a protest candidate."
His campaign consisted of bribing people to vote for him with donuts and making outlandish, joking claims like "eliminating homework and finals week." He also told everyone he "100% wasn't going to do anything expected or required of the position."
When your electorate is rebellious highschoolers, thats just running an effective campaign
I think that plus racism is a proven winner for current potus.
I mean, the rich can still outbid you
But we have a chance to participate is what makes it more equal
Well, the Balkans are also a more direct democracy: these situations can happen anywhere, anytime, with no rich people in sight.
This is something I have always said about Louisiana in the 1990's. DA asked for $100. I went to the ATM, paid the man, and the charges disappeared. Then moved to Texas and everything was by the book until my rich CEO offered to "call his buddy" the DA. After that, I didn't have to worry about speeding tickets again.
PS: Yes, I had a lead foot. Still do, but not as severe.
Bribing US politicians is much cheaper than you think. They will sell out their country for just a few thousand
But because the separation of power and diffusion of power makes it harder for a pleb like me to do the bribery, while a rich person can just buy all 3 branches of government.
Someone I know was recently arrested in an African country where he lives. Someone had uncovered a major kickback scheme being run by a relative of a cabinet-level politician, and this person was caught in the crossfire. He wasn't involved in any real way, but he does some graphic design work and had made pamphlets or posters or something for a client that ended up being used as part of this crime. So, he and a lot of other people who were only peripherally involved like this were arrested. The politician didn't want this scandal in the news, so he made sure that the crime went away. But, that still left the guy I knew locked up in jail. Even though there was now no crime, the cops weren't going to release him from jail until they received a bribe. A family member of his wired money to Africa and then another family member hand carried that bribe to the police station so they would let him go.
Developing countries have situations where regular people get to, or have to bribe cops, officials, etc. just to get by day to day. But, it doesn't mean that that's where the corruption stops. They have all the same bribery of the president, prime minister, chief justice, etc. that you get in say the USA. But, there's also corruption all the way down. It's exhausting, and the rich people / corporations still always win.
Another way that low-level corruption hurts is that it's so inefficient. When you have to know the right person and give the right bribe just to import/export your goods on time, the economy of your entire country slows down.
Yep. Super inefficient and unpredictable. You might temporarily know the right person to bribe, but that might change, or the price might go up. And your suppliers have to negotiate the bribes too. And your customers have their own issues.
It's why the US is going to take a pounding from all the tariff BS. Not only are the tariffs high, nobody can guess from one month to the next what's going to happen, so many have to cancel orders and wait it out.
This also varies widely from country to country. You're not going to see the same level and type of corruption in a place like Liberia compared to for example Thailand, Colombia or Morocco.
Some countries have corruption so deep, it's almost impossible to live without engaging somehow, and the State acts almost like a paramilitary group that beyond taxes, charges for protection from themselves, while other countries have flawed systems that still guarantee a certain degree of protections and due process to as many people as possible. And yet other countries are only poor but still have functional systems and institutions.
The term "developing country" is, in my opinion, quite misguided because it lumps together countries like Venezuela, Haiti, Belarus, Somalia or Eritrea, which are totally royally fucked, with countries like Argentina, Botswana, Thailand or Colombia, which have big problems but are in no way close to the other group.
I was literally saying this to a friend. The difference between a country with "rampant corruption" and a "modern western democracy" is the entry price for the bribes.
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Oh can we bribe the mods?
The rich certainly can't
I can have your favorite flavor of estherized estradiol at your home in a week
Yes, but they don’t like taking bribes directly so you’ll have to use their proxy.
I am their proxy.
So direct all bribes to me.
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Can't find anything in the rules that forbids it...
If you set the bribe amount at a peppercorn (i.e. a trivial though non-zero amount), close loopholes allowing multiple bribes and strictly enforce it, you may be onto something.
Nice fucking try, Big Peppercorn
Every fuckin thread with one of these shameless Peppercorn reps
I mean, if we had to choose a trivial non-zero amount, I'm sure Big Mustard Seed would be right there with them.
You don't even need to bribe them, just trade favors is enough. They are very, very cheap.
I don't have a link, but I remember an exposé a few years ago where some politician sold out their constituents for like 10k-100k in campaign contributions.
The response was along the lines of, 'why don't we just make a Kickstarter to buy them back'
Obviously this results in a bidding war we probably can't win... And it's, in theory, what PAC is supposed to be; but it might be useful in both defining a given politicians price, and in driving up the cost of corruption.
That feels very 'free market' to me.
edit: fixed autocorrect typo.
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Damn bro, the entire West? And every country contained therein?
No no no. We can bribe too, we just suck at it, we call it tips, and we only bribe after the fact and it has little to no bearing on our service rendered.
OMG as a PRC-born American Citizen, this is so relatable. Literally you can have a second child in China during One Child Policy, and as long as you somehow (like idk ask friend to borrow money maybe, or just work overtime a lot) managed to find the money to pay "fines" (which I'd consider effectively a "bribe"), your child can get legal status. Money solves problems, literally.
That dude has a good point
You make me feel a bit better about the place I live and I hate that
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