Does the US have too -little- corruption?
After talking to Elaine about China and some folks from India at work, I had an interesting thought experiment: Does the US have too little corruption?

The US (relative to China and India) has only corruption at the very high levels where people scam millions or billions of dollars from the system. I don't think anyone believes we can stop it completely which would be the best option. This is part of the cause of the "rich getting richer" for those super elite folks and thus the poor getting poorer (shrinking middle class). So if you can't stop the corruption, what type of system is stable in the long term?

Well, in India and China (and I imagine many other places but I speak from people's input with first hand insight only), corruption goes from the very elite all the way down to the poorest of people. You pay a bribe to get government documents, you pay bribes (on top of the normal fees) to get electricity hooked up... you name it, there are often bribes attached and it is considered normal business practice quite often.

This sounds horrible right? Well, it is annoying surely but self regulating and helps distribute the money more evenly. The most important thing is that it is self regulating without any laws or law enforcement intervention. This mechanism relies on a base human characteristic: greed. Call me pessimistic this morning but I never foresee a shortage of greed to keep the system in check. See, if a person starts taking too many bribes, someone under them will get jealous and find a way to remove them from their position to take the bribes themselves. Also, someone else may come along who requires smaller bribes and take over the business.

I'm not saying I would want to live in this type of society but it is interesting to peer into the method some other countries handle corruption by embracing it widely. There are many unpleasant side effects of the system. One is the violence the system can create when someone tries to take too much. But in a society like India, what other option is available to the "little guy" to balance things out?

I can only wonder what would happen if an Enron had tried to happen in a completely free market corruption system. By the time enough people down the chain were bribed, could have things stayed quiet long enough for the plan to succeed? Would the reward for the people at the top have even made the venture worth while once all the bribes were paid? Hmmm...