It depends, of course, on where corruption happens. I am in favor of corruption in political systems towards which I have a hostile opinion, and this includes US-style democracy in which, especially when exported to traditional societies, politicians get elected the easiest, when they campaign in tune with the people's emotions of hatred and envy.
The primary function of governments is to provide safety, and to do so on two fronts: one, to keep the peace among the members of a society, or, in other words, to police a society, so that there will be no violence, and two, to protect a society from external violence.
I believe it is wrong for governments that are the result of US-style democracy to try to regulate other affairs because there is a stark tendency to interfere with the personal freedom of the country's citizens, especially when the government starts to regulate sexual conduct. This is the case because sexual jealousy is a very basic human emotion. Thus, any politician who wants to get elected only needs to propagate the restriction of certain sexual rights, and all those who cannot avail of the opportunities those sexual rights afford, will wholeheartedly support that these rights are also not granted to a successful minority. It's basically a variation of "If I can't have this girl, then at least you should also not have her."
I would not mind the interference of the government in community affairs, including sexual matters, if the government were formed by an elitist party with a strong ideological commitment towards personal freedom, including sexual freedom.
In the first setting, I'm in favor of corruption because at least, it can soften the interference of the state in people's personal lives. It also undermines a political system which I think is essentially wrong.
In the second setting, the rule by an elitist party for the benefit of the citizen's of a state, corruption by government officials would be highly detrimental. This is the case because it undermines the legitimacy of the rule of the elitist party. This is why in countries that are indeed ruled by an elitist party, such as China, hardly any crime is as vigorously prosecuted as is corruption by government officials.
One of the problems of US-style democracies is "legislation activism". Because in such a system, everybody campaigns on a platform that something that hasn't been regulated needs to be regulated, what we get is a flood of new laws and ordinances on any level of government. There is no doubt that no other country in the world has as many laws and regulations as does the US.
Yes, laws and the police are needed to prevent that the members of a society physically harm each other. But apart from that, we want personal freedom, and as Thomas Hobbes famously noted: "Liberty dependeth on the silence of the law."
And because the federal US government passes an ever increasing number of laws that deal with matters that happen on the soil of others countries, communities even on the other side of the globe increasingly find themselves in a situation where they are regulated by US law.
Like most people in the world, I feel that my freedom is impeded by Big Brother... a national, and an even more distant government (over there, in Washington D.C.).
In many cases, government laws and regulations are simply an usurpation of authority. But at least, as long as there is corruption, the absoluteness of this usurpation is undermined.
Like most people in the world, I am firmly against the government messing in my personal affairs. But isn't it funny that we don't have a political home?
I am obviously not in favor of any rightist or conservative party, even though they want to reduce government involvement in many affairs. But they want to maintain an outdated moral, and to continue to mess precisely in that aspect of people's private lives where I most definitely do not want it: sexual conduct.
Traditional leftist parties unfortunately are also not an inviting alternative because they over-emphasize regulating people's everyday lives, which is unproductive and a nuisance (though one has to admit that the Chinese Communist Party has newly defined the Leninist agenda by giving people broad personal freedom while maintaining a tight control over reactionary ideologies).
I have, for a short while, considered the Libertarian Party of the US as a potential home. But while their absolute respect for personal freedom sounds promising, their opposition to strong or even just central government is illusionist.
Actually, for a society in which personal freedom and safety are optimally guarded, a strong and central government is needed. It just burns down to the question of how such a benevolent government will be formed. US-style democracy is totally unsuited for this as it is geared by its structure to ever regulate more (campaigning usually means promising regulations).
However, if a government were to be formed by a single state party with a strong ideological commitment towards protecting the personal freedom of a country's citizens, then both aspirations, personal freedom and personal safety, can be realized. In such a government, corruption would, of course, be counterproductive.
The question of legitimacy is of secondary importance. If we want a better social system, then we need men and women (or revolutionaries) to implement it, and to show the world that it is indeed the better option. Anyway, the Chinese model already proves that a country, which is led by an elitist political party that does not rule in accordance to the principles of Western democracy, can be highly successful and enjoy widespread support by the people, in spite of the international propaganda intended to sow dissatisfaction.
