One thing I’ve noticed about any country Spain colonized is rampant corruption. It seems the only two things they left behind were the language and the corruption.
But greed is universal. The poor Soviet Captain could see the forbidden items his superior had and want them for himself. The thing, I imagine, is to find out what motivates a person then put yourself in a position to supply what is wanted. Not a lot at first, but enough to whet the appetite. Better production brings better payoffs.
Unfortunately for us cash is king and China has been spending freely. I wonder just how many bureaucrats in DC are owned by the CCP?
I expect the CCP got good value since most democrats are True Believers.
In the colonial era, the Spanish conception of the state was based on royal absolutism, with the state being the instrument of the king and an expression of his will. There was little to distinguish between the resources of the king and those of the state, except in a functional sense of there being a royal household account and accounts for various state activities.
If the king needed or wanted more for himself, he could simply move funds from state accounts into his household account or he could impose new taxes and fees on the public. And the king could request something special as a favor, like getting a royal bastard son married off into a wealthy family in return for a favor like a hereditary title and some form of tax exemption.
Moreover, as long as the king's interests, claims, and directives were not transgressed, subordinate officials and nobles governed in a similar manner.
Quite routinely, kings took bribes and gifts, and so did family and subordinates and hangers on in order to gain access to the king or get services and favors. In a sense, the entire system of royal rule relied on bribes and favors and kickbacks passed up and down. Do the sovereign a great service like win a battle or kill off or otherwise stick it to a rival and one justly expected money, tangible gifts, land, titles, or various concessions and favors in return.
For the public, the royal system meant that one had to pay bribes and deliver gifts to get anything done. Strip away the titles, palaces, fine clothes, and courtly manners and the entire system puts one in mind of rule by the Mafia. Sir Thomas Moore's refusal to take bribes and gifts as Chancellor was a striking departure. The popularity and respect he accrued in return was one of the reasons he became a trouble to King Henry and was eventually executed for heresy.
Recall Queen Elizabeth I's letter to William Cecil on making him Secretary of State on her accession made a striking instruction: "This judgement I have of you, that you will not be corrupted by any manner of gifts, and that you will be faithful to the State; and that without respect of any private will, you will give me the counsel you think best." It was contrary to how the royal system worked. No wonder that the canny Elizabeth was so successful. She knew the defects of the royal system and demanded that her prime minister be an exception.
When Spain's hold over its colonies lapsed due to Napoleon's invasion, the new post-colonial governments were established on the prevailing royalist legal and philosophical foundations. Whether elected in some manner or self-appointed, the new rulers of Spain's suddenly liberated colonies set themselves up with the powers and expectations of the royal system.
To be sure, most of the new post-colonial governments included or eventually embraced elections and an American style constitutional structure. But the culture and practices of Latin America's governments tolerated corruption as normal. And the pattern persists in contemporary Hispanic culture in the US, at least in the first generation.
By way of personal account, in 1987 in Tallahassee, at the inauguration of the first Hispanic Republican governor in Florida, I met and chatted with a prominent Cuban immigrant who was an official in the Miami-Dade GOP. We had friends in common and, with a bit too much to drink, he mistook me as someone who might matter and confided that even with all that he had done to elect the new governor, he had in mind only a modest and simple favor from him: award of the franchise in his county for the state lottery.
In effect, this Cuban immigrant who had been a member of Battista's secret police, still wore his ring of that office, and had CIA ties and a rep as a drug money launderer expected as a political favor to be cut in on Florida's lottery as if it was being run on the same lines as the Cuban lottery under Battista. Of course, he never got it, but likely got something else.
In later years I got to entertain an investigative reporter and then an assistant US attorney with my account -- and they confirmed that the former thug for Battista turned local GOP official had been repeatedly protected from prosecution due to intervention by the CIA.