ONE of the most enjoyable pieces Johnson ever wrote was one on the etiquette of bribery. Even in the most corrupt places on earth, where bribery is constant, it is dressed up. Rarely is money passed from hand to hand and in plain sight. Rather, dropped envelopes and left suitcases are preferred, even if nobody else is around to see. And the language around bribery is similarly indirect. No one says, “you’re going to have to pay me a big bribe for that.” Anything from quasi-officialese (“expediting fee”) to the small-time functionary’s request for a “coffee” or a “drink” or “something for the weekend” casts a haze over the proceedings. It’s almost charming, in its way. Both sides in the encounter are doing something crooked, but people do not like to think of themselves this way.

This was on your columnist’s mind when a typically boring press release arrived in his inbox this week. Company A had just become a logistics partner for company B. Normally, the PR person would proceed to tout this as the most important industrial development since the spinning jenny and I would…Continue reading

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