[mavelikara]

I was born in India, lived there until I was 27, and then lived in US for 10 years. These are my observations, written in a hurry without much careful thought.

The petty corruption in the small scale is pervasive in India. I find that not the case in US. Most people one interacts with in US are honest (except car salesmen :). But at the higher echelons of society, the corruption is at a much larger scale in US.

I compare this with driving in both countries. In India the number of accidents are much higher, but the fatality per accident is much lower. In US, accidents are rare, but when it happens, the likelihood of someone getting killed is high. I think this is because drivers in India each try to squeeze out small advantages, and as a whole the traffic never gets to gain much speed, so when the inevitable accident happens, it is often not fatal. But in US, far more people follow the rules, everyone moves faster on an average, but the one careless driver in the group can cause much more damage.

I think of corrupt behavior the same way - the average Joe is not corrupt in US, so the society as a whole makes much better progress. But that leaves the system vulnerable to the action of one sociopath, so at the high end you see much bigger scandals.