“You see why America is so strong—the Americans have no corruption!”
Corruption - it's all in the eye of the beholder. 
And so it goes...
Richard 
Understanding Corruption
Lawrence Rosen, The American Interest, Mar-Apr 2010
Gathered in the guest room of a Berber friend’s house in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco after the Friday prayers, Hussein turned from the assembled village men and asked me: “Is there corruption in America?”
“Yes”, I answered.
“Give us an example”, he gently inquired.
So, as the room quieted, I gave an example of a kickback arrangement. “Ah, no”, said Hussein, as the others’ heads shook in unison, “that is just buying and selling.” So I mentioned the Watergate scandal. “No, no”, Hussein replied to common assent, “that is just politics.” So I gave an example of nepotism. “No, no, no”, all voices cried out, “that is just family solidarity.” So, as I struggled to think of an example that would maintain the honor of my country for being every bit as corrupt as anyone else’s, Hussein turned to the others and said, with genuine admiration: “You see why America is so strong—the Americans have no corruption!”
A few years later I attended a meeting with workers from “buildings and grounds” to explain the anti-nepotism rules our university committee had proposed. One after another, the workers expressed concern. “What do you mean I can’t hire a fishing buddy’s kid or my nephew?” said one. “Often guys don’t show up on time or at all, but if the kid is my nephew and he doesn’t get here or pull his weight, I’ll go to my brother who will see to it the kid shapes up. If I don’t have that kind of hook in a guy, how am I ever going to be sure he will do his work?” To the bafflement of my colleagues on the university committee, none of whom had any experience with how many large city governments in the United States actually work—let alone any familiarity with Moroccans—all of the workers present heartily agreed.
English-language dictionaries define corruption as “morally degraded”, “debased in character”, or “the perversion of an original state of purity.” But you do not have to be an unrepentant relativist, or even to have experienced an undergraduate course in anthropology, to suspect that this definition begs many questions. When, for example, I asked the men in Hussein’s village, as I have so many in the Arab world, what passes for corruption in their view, I always receive the same answer: Corruption is the failure to share any largess you have received with those with whom you have formed ties of dependence. Theirs is a world in which the defining feature of a man is that he has formed a web of indebtedness, a network of obligations that prove his capacity to maneuver in a world of relentless uncertainty. It is a world in which the separation of impersonal institutions from personal attachments is very scarce. Failure to service such attachments is thus regarded as not only stupid but corrupt.
(cont'd)
http://www.the-american-interest.com....cfm?piece=792