[coribuci]

> To equate "politics" with lying, stealing, and corruption is the sort of cynicism that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Politics _is_ lying, stealing and corruption.

> This article is fundamentally based on the fact that there is a lot of variance in the amount of illegal activity in business and politics (and life generally) between countries: the Scandinavian countries are universally considered to be pretty close to corruption-free.

See Assange's case.

>Eastern and Southern Europe are a bit worse, parts of Africa and South America are really bad, and Asia in the middle. The US, contrary to popular opinion, has also long been ahead of most other countries, and even been the driving international force against corruption through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

You contradict yourself. See bellow.

> That law made it illegal for US companies to engage in corruption abroad. It was passed in 1977. As a contrast, consider that German companies were still taking tax deductions for foreign bribes until 2002[0].

Well, Microsoft and HP had no problem to use corruption in Eastern Europe.

> There are, in other words, very obvious regional differences. Additionally, there have been rather drastic changes along the temporal dimension, as well: Eastern Europe and Asia, for example, have come a long way over the last thirty years. Italy, original inventor of the Mafia, is solidly average these days, probably more similar to Germany or the UK than to its own past.

Of course there are differences. Corruption is country specific.

> So, logically, if levels of corruption are different, that shows that equating all politics with corruption is wrong, and it demands at least some nuance or your criticism becomes entirely decoupled from reality and therefore no longer a useful tool to improve anything.

> If, as a politician or bureaucrat, all you ever hear are superficial "everything-is-terrible" accusations completely devoid of any connection to anything you are actually doing, you will pretty soon just start engaging in that sort of activity: your public image cannot get any worse, anyway.

> And people growing up in a society with these believes will start their careers in politics or business with such assumptions, and act accordingly.[1]

> [0]: yes, it's true that some corrupt practices have simply been legalized in the US. But that's a failure of the voting public, and it's still better because it's known. And yes, the illegal stuff is making a comeback, considering the current President is both on record as supporting a repeal of FCPA, as well as having good reasons to do so

> [1]: Of note, AOC observed not too long ago that before being elected to congress, she expected the corruption to be transactional, i. e. money for something in explicit quid-pro-quo. As she noticed, lobbying in the US is really more of a social process, where politicians aren't directly bought, but spent a lot of time with lobbyists. And familiarity, as always, breeds sympathy.