[yywwbbn]

That maybe true, but I deeply believe that currently western governments are generally least corrupt that they have ever been historically. In the 1920s the US army was basically a mercenary force for hire by large banks and corporations. In Latin America whenever the Citi bank wanted to extract unpaid debts or the United Fruit wanted to suppress labor rights movements they just had to call the state department. The largely forgotten occupation of Haiti more resembles the Belgian Congo than the 2003 war in Iraq. Let’s not even get in into wtf was happening in Europe or European colonies.

While the road itself might be quite bumpy, the general situation now is much better than it was in the 1980’s, 50’s, 30’s etc. And I don’t see any reasons to believe this trend will change significantly in the future.

[ncmncm]

America is not less corrupt than before. It has concentrated its corruption upward, making it more wholesale and less retail, and more inward-facing, and more resistant to correction. The US is today rivalled only by China in its degree and depth of corruption. "Wholesale" means tied into institutions, and not mainly exercised by individuals.

Other countries, like Russia, India, Brazil, or Nigeria, might like to be more corrupt than those, but just can't swing it. There is not enough money in play in their spheres.

[lifeisstillgood]

Some evidence for either side of this debate will be interesting :-)

The best I have is here https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 but that does not seem to go far enough back

[yywwbbn]

I think you might underestimating how bad things were in the past. For instance if Amazon warehouse workers in Colombia decided to form an union and strike for better working conditions, could Jeff Bezos call the secretary of state and ask him to threaten Colombia that US will invade if the Colombians don’t sort out their liberal/socialist problem? Hard to imagine right? But the exact same situation happened in 1928 with another famous company. Possible thousands of workers, women and children were murdered. I’ll quote one of the telegrams sent by the US ambassador:

“ I have the honor to report that the Bogotá representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1000.”

‘ The US is today rivalled only by China in its degree and depth of corruption.’

Really? I mean you really believe that US is more corrupt than Russia where Yeltsin and Putin parceled off most of the resource extraction industry to their oligarch buddies (Putin also added his ex KGB colleagues) in exchange for political support?

[ncmncm]

See, what you describe is retail corruption. Small potatoes.

As I said, Russia would like to be as corrupt as the US, but is not powerful enough to be. They had to invade two neighboring countries, and more than once, to get paid any attention.