Taking comfort in petty corruption

Bulgarians are still wallowing in communist-era levels of corruption because we like it that way, said Alexander Andreev. Sure, plenty of us complain that our leaders have “ruined the country” and demand to know if Bulgaria will “ever recover.” But these same people readily admit that they like being able to just slip the cop a few twenties anytime they get pulled over for drinking and driving. In the communist decades, we saw such rule breaking as a survival strategy and dubbed it “petty justice”—the authorities were against us, so we had to get away with whatever we could. Yet in truth this mentality is “neither socialist nor purely Bulgarian.” It is the mark of a go-it-alone society with no shared values and little concern for the common good; it’s as if “every man for himself” has become our national motto. Selfishness, not socialism, explains why we keep our own apartments spotless but let our buildings’ common spaces get filthy and stained. It explains “the everyday rudeness” on Bulgarian streets and the venality of local bureaucrats. Any gesture toward an anti-corruption reform movement “unleashes a wave of anxious feelings” in people sure that if they are suckers enough to follow the rules, it will only let others get ahead. Reform might be possible, someday, but for now most Bulgarians would rather live with their sour status quo.