Favor con favor se paga. “A favor is paid with a favor.” In 2011, Evangelina Tapia Tovar and Genaro Zalpa studied corruption in Mexican sayings in the journal Relaciones, of El Colegio de Michoacán. One section of their article is titled “Más vale tener palancas que dinero” (Better to have levers than money).
A palanca, they write, “va creando un compromiso con la persona que lo hizo” (creates a commitment to the person who did it). One person they quote says that whoever has pulled a lever once “ya está comprometido a volverlo a hacer” (is already committed to doing it again). The authors write that levers contribute to “tortuguismo burocrático” (bureaucratic slowness), which pushes people to look for faster paths, even illegitimate ones.