Notably, when in India I personally never really experienced corruption directly. It never came up, oddly. I’ve seen it first hand in the US a lot.

I described US corruption as more systematized in this exact way.

Most commercial development requires permits. Permits require plan approvals. Plan approvals always require some kind of sop to the politicians/cities vested interests - pay for a park, or donate money to specific causes, or carve out some specific amount of ‘affordable housing’ their buddy administers, etc.

Don’t do that, city generally won’t approve it.

Is that a bribe? Corruption? Or just good governance?

Most residential stuff bypasses this kind of thing for 99% of use cases, so individuals rarely see it.

In India, you’ll just find impossible to navigate paperwork mazes and near impossible permitting standards, but enforcement which magically disappears if you’re friends with the right person, in the right ethnic group, or a cash payment to the right person happens.

Which actually really isn’t that different, is it?

Just more out in the open and with more lawyers involved in the US, I guess.