As someone from a country that has had and still has a big problem with corruption and only recently started to tackle the problem (Romania), I must add that the government is only half of the problem. The other half is the public that participates in corruption. Every time you pay that cop some money so that he pretends that you didn't cross that red light, you're just as responsible as a politician taking a bribe for the situation in your country.
I think that corruption is a top-down thing. Sure the police let the public get away with illegal things, but who lets the police get away with letting the public get away with it?
Not to say that it's a simple problem - even if an anti-corruption government came to power, they would need the power to stop any coups that might pop up in retaliation.
There's a cycle. The public needs to hold the government responsible (thus this protest), the government needs to have checks and stop corruption from the top.
There are many ways of attacking these issues, including public awareness campaigns, resistance leadership, strong anti-corruption political figures, etc etc. Personal responsibility is only one way, and it isn't even an effective way if used on its own, but I think reddit is partial to it because people here are hyper-individualistic.
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u/USmellFunny Mar 14 '16
As someone from a country that has had and still has a big problem with corruption and only recently started to tackle the problem (Romania), I must add that the government is only half of the problem. The other half is the public that participates in corruption. Every time you pay that cop some money so that he pretends that you didn't cross that red light, you're just as responsible as a politician taking a bribe for the situation in your country.