Same with "expats" vs "immigrants".
Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.
> “…it was publicly disclosed that Boehner in the last week of June 1995 walked around the House floor delivering six or more of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. PAC checks.
> “in the same week Boehner was giving out the checks on the House floor, the House Appropriations Committee met in its room in the Rayburn House Office Building and voted down (17 to 30) an amendment that would have ended the government's price support program for tobacco. Seven Appropriations Committee members each had received a $500 check from Brown & Williamson's PAC, including one for the committee chairman, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.).”
This kind of activity seems to refute the “objective difference” you’re imagining.
2. 500, even in 1995, is a token amount of money to the representatives. I highly doubt they changed their vote for that little money.
That's just a make-up, parfumerie on top of the same exact concept: use money in some way to corrupt decision making.
Just because in some countries it's done with a veneer of legitimacy, in a way that doesn't look as dirty and disgusting as "those other over there with their dirty hands full of bags of money", it's just corruption with a façade of high-class. It's still the same thing, just has more layers of indirection and make-up on top.
> The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption
So the difference consists primarily in perception, the slickness of it all as you put it? How well we can hide corruption with a facade of legality and civility. Somehow the crude briefcase full of cash feels more honest and direct.
