--- Joseph Wanzala <jwanzala at hotmail.com> wrote: clearly there is endemic corporate and government corruption in the US, Western Europe and the former East Bloc countries, especially Russia. ---
Russia is probably the least corrupt country in the CIS after Belarus -- but OK I think you're using "Russia" as shorthand for "former Soviet Union," as is common.
I think there is a problem with comparing "corruption" in countries like the US and Russia (using the two examples I'm familiar with). American corruption is mostly in the middle to upper strata of the society and is not commonly directly encountered by the man in the street. In Russia, however, it exists at every level and is pervasive. For instance, someone becomes a policeman in order so he can get an apartment in Moscow. To get the job, he has to pay a bribe, and he has to pay bribes to keep the job. That means he has to take bribes (or have an additional source of income) in order to pay the bribes to keep his job.
A friend of mine from Nigeria says that in Abuja, if a traffic cap waves you down, you don't even stop the car -- just slow it down enough to hand him some money through the window.
-- (African wags had a field day with Enron as you can imagine, reversing roles for a change ;-)
--
As did Russian ones. You're African yourself, aren't you?
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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