I am convinced that having low corruption is more important to a country than say democracy. I have travelled to many countries and noticed the same pattern repeated over and over again.
Every country has at least some district in the capital city with fancy restaurants and rooftop bars and luxury shopping. If you go to such a place in a rich country and ask people what they do you'll get many answers, you'll find people who do technical work in specialized industries, managers, business owners, etc. In poor countries it is always the same answer, everyone you will meet in these places works for the government.
you are not wrong simply because corruption interferes with democracy. iaw: you can't have democracy if you have corruption, so removing corruption is a prerequisite to enabling democracy.
I mean I've visited democratic countries with a _lot_ of corruption and autocratic countries which appeared to have less. I guess you can get semantic with it, but my main point is that you always here about "democracy" and a number of other positive things from people advocating for human rights, but corruption doesn't get the same level of attention. I think it should. Corruption is a huge problem.
One thing that I think escapes many is that in corrupt countries, it isn't like the clerk who issues permits decides one day to be corrupt and gets rich. People already know these jobs offer opportunities to make a lot of money and compete fiercely for them. This is a high status job. The people who get them are usually capable and motivated and would serve their economy much better in some other role. It acts like a sort of internal brain drain.
Every country has at least some district in the capital city with fancy restaurants and rooftop bars and luxury shopping. If you go to such a place in a rich country and ask people what they do you'll get many answers, you'll find people who do technical work in specialized industries, managers, business owners, etc. In poor countries it is always the same answer, everyone you will meet in these places works for the government.