Systemic corruption

How do you help people when education/health/work government handouts are stolen?

How do you stop stealing when the police are corrupt?

How do you make the police accountable when the government is corrupt?

How do you make the government accountable when the people accept that right and wrong are negotiable?

Through conversation with locals and foreigners living in Paraguay and Argentina, it has become apparent that these same sequence of events happen throughout Latin America.

I was in an English class in Yuty, Paraguay and one lady told me NZ was recently ranked as the most honest country in the world. Paraguay was the second to last in South America. She wanted to know why this was...

I wasn't sure how to answer. Perhaps its due to the, admittedly imperfect, Christian values that British colonies were founded on...? Her response was that they were also founded on Christian principles...

I thought about it afterwards. Perhaps Protestant colonisers from Britain would have had different values to Catholic colonisers from the Mediterranean? My history needs some work here. Add this to my homework list.  Although, I don't have to go far for information.

Either way, our country has a foundation of honesty, trust and a certain work ethic that doesn't exist in Latin America, especially Paraguay (which has only recently thrown off the shackles of a dictator). In fact our society takes these values for granted and is passionate about protecting them.

So my question is, if you are a secularist/relativist/agnostic wotchamacallit, how would you introduce these values in a society that suffers from corruption? If you sing “God Defend NZ” but don't actually believe it, how do you translate the protestant work ethic to another culture? What do you use as a reference point?

And, if you are a Bible believer, how do you communicate the concept of Grace when right and wrong are negotiable...?