I have known for a while that corruption is a very significant force in less developed countries (and still a force in developed ones as well)— when I was in Kenya in 6th grade, I noticed that in general, people who had authority (including in the government) tended to abuse that authority. There was a lot of tribe-based favoritism, and people would often try to make things more difficult for people from tribes that were historically enemies with their own. Also, I heard many stories about the Kenyan police, who were generally acknowledged as being corrupt. This corruption made many things much more difficult and inefficient.
Nevertheless, one of the passages from chapter 13 that shocked me the most was about the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, who tried to set up a one-person clothing stall without bribing anyone. He was doing this to determine how much it would take (and whether or not it was possible) to actually comply with the unreasonable and excessive laws that were in place and still succeed. After working 6 hours per day for 42 weeks with his team, they were able to open a small, one-person shop for a total of $1,231 (which is 31 times Peru's monthly minimum wage). Along the way, people asked for bribes 10 times and they had to pay the bribes twice. This both horrified and fascinated me because it made me realize how impossible it would be for an average citizen in less developed countries to do a seemingly straightforward task, like opening a small business, without paying bribes.
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