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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

In my 50 years I've never encountered bribery in the USA, and I've lived all over the country. Yet, as you point out, the USA has greater wealth inequality than Egypt. So, apparently it is not wealth inequality that leads to corruption like bribery. I honestly don't know why Egypt has bribery but the USA doesn't. Maybe it is just cultural? A lot of the USA culture is derived from Europe and especially the UK. How prevalent is bribery in Western Europe?

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To me US 'tipping culture' is very much the same in experience as bribes like these in non-western countries.

I think that basing the definition in bribe on what feels uncomfortable to us personally not a good way to define it. I'm from the Netherlands, and I have heard it said that Dutch corruption exists as much as anywhere, the bribes are just always 0 euro, to ease our consciences. I wish I had a reference or two, but maybe these things are understudied.

I've always viewed tips as a way to let customers decide the merit pay for employees. Does NL have the uber star rating tied to tips? It was a way to make the star rating meaningful. It used to be everyone gave five unless it was terrible service, so uber made you put money where your rating was.

Edit: I remember the public transit being quite good so maybe NL doesn't have uber? I also remember waiters not being very easy to find to ask for anything.

There's Uber, but indeed, I am satisfied with public transport and have never used the likes of Uber.

It's not that I never tip at a restaurant (however, seldomly in NL), it's just that in the US you'll get bills with a percentage already 'included', and it 'is understood' that you must tip _something_, in a way (to me) very similar to bribes elsewhere.

Percentage included only happens for large parties (8 or more). Normally you don’t have to tip. It is entirely voluntary (though strongly encouraged since it is helping the poorest members of society). Think of it like a voluntary socialist tax to help the poor.

>To me US 'tipping culture' is very much the same in experience as bribes like these in non-western countries.

Uh, no. Not in any sense at all are the two similar. I can't even begin to imagine how you come up with that analogy.

When was the last time you tipped a government official? When was the last time you knew that unless you tipped a government official you wouldn't get your task done, even though your documents were in order?

Tipping in the US is overwhelmingly to directly customer-facing staff in private companies, and it is done after the transaction has been completed.

Bribery/facilitation payment is always done before the fact, and is almost uniformly done with governmental (or quasi-governmental) officials.

Like I said, personal experience isn't going to get us very far in establishing what bribing is. To me it is certainly very similar.

That's fine but my post isn't about personal experience; it's a list of ways in which the two things are different in a concrete, practical sense based on their common meanings.

Could you expand why you think they are similar rather than just suggesting that the matter is subjective?

In the course of going about ones business, ill-specified amounts need to be paid extra if expedient service is to be expected. This is the local custom.

I also find tipping culture similar to bribing. In the sense that it adds to the take home income of the worker receiving the tip/bribe.

But you don’t have to tip. Other than maybe dirty looks absolutely nothing will happen if you don’t tip. The ones being tipped are totally powerless. They are society’s poor. It is closer to a voluntary socialist tax to help the poor than any kind of bribery to officials in a place of power.

You must not be familiar with tipping. Tipping always happens to people with no power. Bribery happens to people with power. Nothing bad will happen to me if I never tip (other than perhaps bad karma and some dirty looks). Very bad things can happen to me if I done give bribes. Tipping happens after the service and payment are completed. Bribing happens beforehand. The two are so entirely different on almost every level (especially the power dynamics).

I've bribed people twice in the US. Once, when a family member desperately needed to use the bathroom and a gas station attendant was insisting theirs was for employees only. I gave him twenty bucks and he let us use it. Another time to get a table setup for our group at a bar where they said they couldn't seat us was very similar - "Could you seat us if I gave you 60 bucks?" Turns out they could in that case.

Granted, I hope these wouldn't qualify as any kind of criminal wrongdoing, and are pretty minor, but there is at least some bribery happening here!

One time I was an airport, and I didnt know that curbside baggage handler staff expected tips.

There was no sign indicating that. And they wear airport staff uniforms.

After checking in. I was asked for a tip but I wasn't able to give one because I had no change in cash. I was given a very angry look but I really had no idea about the tip.

When I arrived to my destination my suitcase's wheels were damaged.

Your mistake was using the curbside baggage handlers.

A country where everyone is equally poor is going to have more corruption than a country with high inequality between the middle class people and the billionaire oligarchs.

I'm not saying everyone in Egypt is living in poverty, while no one in the US is. But the poverty rate in Egypt is something like 30%, vs 10% in the USA.

Having said that, the US has tipping, so there's that.

It’s worth noting that bribery comes in many forms, and not all cultures consider it a moral failing even where it is nominally illegal. “Facilitation payments” exist in the grey area between bribes-that-are-illegal and bribes-that-are-business-as-usual.

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