In February 2026, Transparency International released its 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. The global average score: 42 out of 100. The lowest in more than a decade.
122 countries out of 180 scored below 50. Anti-corruption efforts in democracies — the countries that are supposed to be the model — are declining fastest.
“A man’s character is his fate.” — Heraclitus
We once sold the world on democracy as a self-correcting system. The people would vote, institutions would check power, and corruption would eventually be punished. That was the promise.
The data says the promise is rotting.
When the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that the U.S. has made a “startling reversal” in its own global anti-corruption policy, it signals something more than a policy shift. It signals a values collapse at the national level.
A nation that once held itself up as the moral alternative to authoritarian corruption is now competing with those regimes for the title of most self-interested actor on the world stage.
When the lighthouse goes dark, ships crash. And the world has been navigating by ours for eighty years.
We’re watching the numbers so you don’t have to look away. themoraldecayindex.com.