POLITICAL PAYOFFS NOT UNIQUE TO MEXICO - We are all shocked, shocked to find that there's bribery going on in Mexico. We are scandalized that American companies, in this case WALMART, is accused of bribing Mexican officials, bureaucrats and politicians in order to facilitate building permits and hurdle bureaucratic, well, hurdles. Who could have imagined?
Who? Just about anyone who has ever done business in Mexico, anywhere in the Third World, or indeed here in the States (but more about us in a moment).
I spend some time in Mexico pretty regularly and everyone I interview who does business there is aware that part of the cost of doing business is playing not by our rules but by the rules of the local culture. You just will not get your supplies through customs without the enthusiastic consent of officials--petty to grand. You will not get timely health permits, building permits, zoning, insurance, or water, power and phone hook up without help; and you won't get help without paying for it.
Our Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is utter nonsense. Even if well-meaning and idealistic, it makes criminals out of all persons and corporations that want to compete in foreign markets. It is hypocrisy at best and also a form of "Cultural Imperialism," saying to other nations that we are better, cleaner and purer, when the fact is we're not.
I remember talking with a Mexican industrialist (much richer and more powerful than just a businessman) when Vincente Fox was elected president and the PRI (which had held power forever) was defeated. I asked him how he felt about being in a country that now had two viable political parties. I thought he'd be proud and happy, seeing that they had become more like us. He was distraught. He complained that now he'd have to pay twice as many bribes to twice as many people.
He couldn't abandon the PRI because they'd come back into power some day and he knew he had to establish cordial relationships with members of PAN, the newly empowered party.
Are we really expected not to play by their rules? Do we actually think that our way of doing business is in fact cleaner and purer? Well, it's not. I learned what should have been obvious while talking with an American businessman (not an industrialist) who does business all over the world.
He admitted that he had to play according to local rules, but that our rules and ways were just as corrupt. We may reject the cash going directly to the bureaucrat or politician but take little notice of the cost of lobbyists and trade associations. While most of us look at lobbyists as having a corrupting influence on our politicians (and they do) they are the necessary middlemen who pass the cash and benefits to our politicians and (dys)functionaries.
Do we truly believe that our various businesses join in associations and pay lobbying groups very big money just for fun? They don't. It's the cost of access and therefore influence. If they want the permit, the contract, the tariff, the tax or the tax relief, or the subsidizing and support of our various legislative bodies, they buy it--just like Mexico, except for the extra cost of the middlemen.
Well, that's not strictly true. Neither here nor in Mexico do we actually buy politicians, we only rent.
(Jonathan Dobrer is an op-ed contributor to the Daily News and Friendly Fire and is a syndicated columnist. This column was posted first at Friendly Fire. More on Jonathan and his books at www.Dobrer.com)
-cw
Tags: Corruption, bribery, Mexico, Walmart, lobbyists
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 35
Pub: May 1, 2012