Historians agree that corruption was a pandemic in European life and politics in the 1800s, and that since then, corruption has generally declined along with economic growth and prosperity. What can Africans learn from this?

From the outset, when reading the very scarce literature on Western corruption it is clear that the decline of corruption largely corresponds with sociopolitical change and most importantly ECONOMIC GROWTH

Two main reasons are given for reduction in corruption: 1. SUSTAINED GROWTH which results in more entrepreneurship & productive investment

2. A PROSPERING ECONOMY that can afford to pay civil servants well, improving overall living standards, reducing motivation for corruption

There is very limited historical literature on corruption in Europe which often gives the impression that this is/was never really a major problem. Not so, for e.g for centuries England, was described as “shot through with corruption and venality”, just like the rest of Europe...

This period of rampant corruption in the West was at a time when Europe was at it's poorest economically. Even with the plunder and looting of the rest of the world, Europe would occasionally fall into hard times, and at this time, corruption would increase accordingly