[lotsofpulp]

It's still bribery in a developed country, there just might be some effort made for plausible deniability. It's partly why kids are told "networking" is so important in developed countries. Because when they grow up, it's a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" world.

[karatestomp]

I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of corruption—skimming money, creating unnecessary "jobs" for friends, family, or co-conspirators, kickbacks, that kind of thing—in the US, it's just that most of it doesn't reach the "retail" level, if you will, and mostly occurs within and between bureaucracies both public and private, without directly affecting ordinary people outside those organizations. So it might be quite difficult and rare to bribe a person to do something for you, or to have a bribe solicited, but fairly common to interact with organizations that have tons of internal corruption going on that's hard to see from the outside.

In short I think we have a lot of corruption, we just don't let the poor or low-status participate.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I think you just don't see it.

I'm thinking of the guy working at the garbage dump who lets you drop off commercial trash if you slip him $20; the small business owner firing his office manager to he can hire his wife instead; the guys on 3rd shift at the industrial paint shop getting their friend's cars painted for $50, etc.

Corruption like this is all around. It just doesn't rise to the level of anyone not directly affected being concerned about it.

[Gibbon1]

That sort of stuff is the borderline corruption that's the grease that keeps things working. Then there is stuff like promoting the do nothing nephew of one of the board members over someone competent.