Bribing the maitre d'
I'm reading Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought. In the chapter on politeness (linguistic), he spends a great deal of time on the indirect, or implicatured, bribe. Among the examples is a reporter who was given the assignment of seeing if he could bribe his way to a table in fancy New York restaurants. (He could.) He was terrified of having to try (having a maitre d' become furiously insulted and humilate him), and he resorted to slipping the man a twenty and saying, "I hope our wait isn't too long."
Why, wonders Pinker, are we so nervous about this situation? After all, he says, we pay extra for expedited shipping or first class seats, and we tip people for better service. Why is a maitre d's relationship with us felt to be different? He goes on for some pages about Authority and Solidarity and Community, analyzing various power structures and strategies. All of which are valid, I agree. But he misses one important difference between bribing a maitre d' and paying for overnight shipping or telling the cabbie "I'm late; there's an extra twenty in it for you if you get me there on time," or even having a fifty with your license when you give it to a cop.
When you bribe a maitre d' to get you a table when you don't have a reservation, you are stealing that table from the guy who does have the reservation. (Yes, maybe the restaurant does keep an empty table just for you - the briber - or the mayor or some other celebrity. But how can you know that?) I think that's the element that really changes the equation. That's what makes you nervous.
Labels: miscellaneous
2 Comments:
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At 10:31 PM, June 26, 2008
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 5:49 AM, June 27, 2008
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Funny you should mention this just now, since I've recently had a similar discussion with a friend who paid for expedited processing of a passport. My comment at the time was, "If you did that in Nigeria, we'd say it was a bribe to a corrupt government. Why isn't it so here?"
And in that case, it falls into your "theft" category: if they really are overloaded, your expedited processing delays handling of someone else's application. So....?
It's a standard fee, that's why it's not a "bribe" - everyone has the chance to do it. Or that's what we tell ourselves. We're not slipping the extra cash to the clerk, we're paying it upfront to the State Department. And as long as everyone gets their passport in the timeframe they paid for, it's fine. (Currently of course that is FAR from happening.)
It's not really a bribe - but it's unequal access to services based on how much money you have. Which is pretty much how we run the whole country.
Full disclaimer: I have sent students off to expedite a visa many times, thanks to the slowness with which things get approved here.
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