Here in Hamburg, mackerel costs 10 euros a kilo. In Galicia it's 2-3 euros a kilo. I can't help feeling there's a business opportunity in there somewhere. Arbitrage?

The favoured form of saying 'Farewell' or 'Goodbye' here in Hamburg is 'Choos'. Or Tschüß, as they write it locally. This seems to be northern German in both origin and usage. My favourite theory (of several) is that it's a corruption of the Spanish 'Adiós' and arrived from the Netherlands – as 'Atjũs' - when these were under Spanish control.

No new corruption scandals in Spain today, which is a welcome break. The on-line petition encouraging Sr Rajoy to stand down – endorsed, needless to say, by the leader of the Opposition – has now got almost 800,000 signatures. And surveys suggest 60% of Rajoy's own voters don't believe his protestations of complete innocence.

Before the latest scandal of company-funded slush funds broke, I'd been drafting a post on the subject of corruption, to which this was the opening paragraph:- So, is Spain a corrupt country? Well, to the extent that there's a degree of corruption in every country – even Norway and New Zealand – the answer to this has to be a (pretty useless) Yes. More relevantly, how much corruption is there and what part does it play in everyday life? Do palms have to be routinely greased and, if you're in business, do you have to pay 'commissions' to government ministers to get your tender accepted or your product licensed? Can you bribe policemen or court officials? Judges even? I mention this now because El Mundo today carried an article asking – and answering - the same question. And here's a translation of it:-

Are We a Corrupt Country?

Pablo Pardo

The question is why this corruption occurs in Spain. IMHO: it's because we are a corrupt country. Americans like guns. And use them. Asians are extremely hierarchical. The Spanish tend to interpret rules 'flexibly'. Each country has its own thing.

Let's face it. Spain is a country where people don't want to be on a fixed contract because they are collecting unemployment benefit. It is a country where no one took to the streets in the face of the tremendous injustice of two labour markets, one protected (so far) and one fully liberalised. It is a country where companies have temporary workers doing the jobs of bosses.

It is the country of sinecures, of cushy jobs (among whose beneficiaries prominently figures Esperanza Aguirre, an official on leave for more than two decades). It is a country where we all know there isn't really 26% unemployment, because many people work in the informal economy. And in turn many people work in the informal economy because there are so many obstacles to participating in the legal economy that the latter is more profitable.

In Spain many people have said that the right wing don't not steal when they are in power because they were rich before, implying that we only conceive enrichment as theft either in the government or in the private sector.

Rajoy was appointed by his predecessor. Rubalcaba was appointed by his predecessor, who gained power in a surprise attack on a political conclave (also called 'Congress'). If a Spanish president had to go through the uncertainties, the savage struggle and effort of a primary U.S. Policy, no one would enter politics here.

Spain is a country of collective responsibility, which, at the end of the day, is a perfect system for ensuring no one takes responsibility. It is a country that distrusts effort. A pretty cacique-minded country in which "He who snuggles up to a good tree, has good shade to shelter in", in which "It's more valuable to fall into grace than to be gracious yourself", where "He who needs to work has little and earns little and “He who works honourably becomes a hunchback","He who who got rich by working, lived poor and died rich", and finally “Work kills the donkey but not the master."

Every law has a loophole

According to the classification of the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede, Spain is a country hostile to capitalism. We are hierarchical, which means that ideas don't flow and that the bosses don't know what their subordinates are doing, and vice versa (in Spain many still think that to explain or accept questions is a humiliation). We don't value individual success. We don't tolerate uncertainty (hence we want to be civil servants). And we try to avoid individual responsibility. "Hey, you don't know who you're talking to" is the favourite phrase of the late-payers in communities of neighbours.

This attitude, in my opinion, holds the explanation. Spain has been until recently a rural country, ruled by caciques and very poor. Not getting along with the Señor was dangerous. And for getting along with the Señor the important thing was not to be effective. Moreover, being outside the scope of the Señor's patronage, was to guarantee ruin.

Max Weber identified three forms of legitimacy: traditional, charismatic and bureaucratic. The traditional tends to be heredity and revolves more around the person than the office held. The charismatic is not hereditary, but here personality was the key. The bureaucratic, finally, centres on the position and the rules governing it. In Spain, although we are evolving, I think we still have a system largely based on the legitimacy of traditional authority.

When traditional authority systems experience sudden economic growth and democratisation, they can become more corrupt. Last year, James C. Schopf published an article in the 'Asian Journal of Social Science' entitled 'From One Graft To Costly Corruption Webs: Shifting Corruption and Democratisation Webs in Korea'. His idea is simple: in a corrupt society, democracy increases corruption, because it multiplies the power centres involved in the sale of favours. In this sense, Spain has experienced an explosion of centres of political and business power, and most of our major companies have been raised on the teats of the state.

The result, simply, is corruption. After all, "I'm not going to be the only fool who doesn't steal."