… but instead we became more like the Afghans: “The Fraud of War” (Slate article on in-country Americans who adopted a local attitude toward corruption)
[Of course one might argue that the U.S. has at least an equal share of domestic corruption and cronyism, just in a more bureaucratized fashion.]
Alternately, it may be good to be a little bad: the U.S. arguably has become too obsessed with cleaning up corruption, which replaces one kind of problem with another.
On this I agree with Phil and disagree with the other commentator. I realize the extent of corruption in the US is greatly underestimating it, has not been systematically studied (and the key perpetrators would like it to remain undiscussed), so its difficult to do anything other than give examples from the news and personal anecdotes. But you must have read the previous posts here about the child support system, which is as good an example of corruption as you can get?
I’ve been wondering when if ever it gets less bureaucratized and more into the open. Normally, when people are made to jump through one bureaucratic hoop through another, there comes a point where they are taken aside and told that that they can settle this matter by just paying a fine or a fee, in cash, to the lower level bureaucrat on the spot. But our lower level bureaucrats are still remarkably honest. Are the higher ups succeeding in keeping them under control so they can get a bigger share for themselves?
The US has a very sly type of corruption, one that doesn’t get it registered on any “global corruption index”. A lot of it is high-level and perceived to be just normal operating procedures. Like what goes on in Russia, but unlike in Russia, the petty lower level bureaucrats are not allowed to participate to take their cut.
Elect Hillary now! She’ll sort out that problem right away.