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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arun gera who wrote (44734)	9/17/2002 9:17:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 281500

res- In third world countries, bribing is a free-market response to scarcity and slowness of procedure. Interesting, perhaps it's due to the government running so many industries, or because they strangle competition with over-regulation?

To: arun gera who wrote (44734)	9/17/2002 9:24:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

In US bribing is more sophisticated. The bribes of various groups are pooled together and then targetted at various politicians. The only thing that a campaign contribution can legally do is help a politician get elected. Interest groups pool together to fund the politician they think is most likely to promote their interests after being elected. As an example, consider a famous pool, "Emily's list." The members pool their contributions to support female Democrat candidates who promise to keep abortion legal. emilyslist.org Regardless of how you feel about abortion, I don't see how anyone can consider this to be a bribe. The candidates don't change what they believe in simply to get the funding.

To: arun gera who wrote (44734)	9/17/2002 10:33:12 AM
From: LLLefty	Respond to of 281500

>>>>In third world countries, bribing is a free-market response to scarcity and slowness of procedure.<<< Well-said. Allow me to relate two anecdotes from my years in India. 1. Not long after I arrived, I had lunch with a moderately wealthy Indian businessman. He asked me the usual opener. "Did I like India?" I replied I did. He then launched into a tirade, saying I had no idea how difficult it was to get anything done without paying bribes for licenses, telephones, even paying baksheesh for obtaining license forms. 2. Some time later, I had lunch with a World Bank economist. He argued that bribery and baksheesh, as distasteful as it seems, oiled India's economy. Without it, nothing would move from the in to the out box. While he did not defend outright corruption, he did make a hell of a case for baksheesh. -0- If we take a closer look here at home, we'd find that baksheesh is practiced far more than we think. We just call it somethng else; Christmas collections for the garbage collectors, etc. Just the other morning, I was getting my car repaired. The employees were enjoying a spread of donuts provided regularly by an Enterprising car rental outfit. Who do you think they recommend?