Scandinavian countries have quite a lot of transparency and it works fairly well. I agree that humans are pretty corrupt but it can be mitigated in a lot of ways. I live in Scandinavia and yes, our politicians are corrupt as well but the systems and how people vote incentivise them to do the right thing most of the time.
Keep going down the rabbit hole and the problem is corrupt humans. Transparency to enable everyone to keep everyone else in check is the only solution I can see.