[fetbaffe]

Pattern is high trust societies vs low trust societies.

[disgruntledphd2]

Yeah, personally I think this has a lot to do with post-colonialism.

I'm Irish, and there's a lot of this in our society. It was much more accepted in my parents generation, and appears to be reducing a little bit as we become a richer society.

[rbanffy]

I heard from an Irish colleague (I'm a Brazilian expat in Dublin) that this attitude, in particular towards taxes, changed after the independence from the UK.

[handelaar]

It has rather less to do with post-colonialism than it does with having a very unethical dominant church for hundreds of years, honestly.

We're the only horrifically-bent country in northern Europe

[cpursley]

Yep, Why Nations Fails talks about this a lot.