It says so much

My cab ride from La UPSA takes me along a rutted dirt road and over a bridge spanning a narrow channel. For the past couple of weeks there have been four or five men standing at the bridge with shovels shaking down drivers for spare change.
For a few bolivianos, they fill the deepest holes so drivers can avoid snapping an axel. Everyone pays before they pass. I suspect if they didn't, the shovels would be used to crack windshields (or skulls). After each driver passes, the "road crew" then re-digs the hole so to not make their very career obsolete.
Drivers are essentially paying a tax that allows them alone to pass. But the money only goes toward making the road passable for them. And it rewards an unproductive venture. Without this money, though, these men and their families would likely go hungry.
The problem is the basic institutions needed to feed these men, educate them so they can fit in as productive members of society, to make the roads passable, and even to collect taxes needed to fund road projects are all broken or nonexistent.
I am hoping one of my political philosopher friends (everyone's got one -- paging Dr. Brettschneider! ) can throw a little Hobbes or Rousseau this way to help explain what the hell is going on.