I think you're exactly right. We have a strong, visceral reaction to corruption, and we detect it in everything.
Living in New Mexico can be a bit of an absurd illustration that this isn't a universal view because we tend to have scandals involving these ancient political family dynasties. Whenever one of them is caught handing over a bunch of state contracts to their nephew (nepotism in its truest sense) we get a few great sound bites like "What's the big deal? He's just my nephew!"
In other countries this kind of corruption is seen as simply taking care of one's own or the cost of doing business. I'm glad we overreact to it.
I think it's a good thing too. One of the things I love about Americans is that we're culturally very intolerant of corruption and scandel. I just find it amusing sometimes how people don't know how good they have it.
Living in New Mexico can be a bit of an absurd illustration that this isn't a universal view because we tend to have scandals involving these ancient political family dynasties. Whenever one of them is caught handing over a bunch of state contracts to their nephew (nepotism in its truest sense) we get a few great sound bites like "What's the big deal? He's just my nephew!"
In other countries this kind of corruption is seen as simply taking care of one's own or the cost of doing business. I'm glad we overreact to it.