COULD Italy be teaching us something? The question is prompted by the recent celebrations — there really is no other word for them — of the 10th anniversary of the death of Bettino Craxi.

The socialist leader, who was Italy's prime minister for four years in the 1980s, died in exile as a fugitive from justice. He had been convicted of corruption and illegal party funding and been given sentences totalling 11 years in jail.

You might think Craxi would be one politician today's Italian leaders would rather quietly forget. The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was an outstanding beneficiary of the late socialist boss's protection. It was because of Craxi's intervention that Berlusconi was able to hang on to a nationwide television network he had stitched together in disregard of the law.

Yet, far from brushing Craxi's memory under the carpet, Italy's ruling class has been honouring it. No less a figure than (formerly communist) President Giorgio Napolitano wrote to Craxi's widow to say, among other things, that her husband had been treated with “unparalleled severity”.

The head of state, a figure meant to embody the values of the nation, then attended a function in parliament to mark the anniversary of Craxi's death.

In the weeks leading up to the event, Rome was dotted with posters commemorating the dead leader. Politicians of right and left alike declared that Craxi was merely a sacrificial victim (i.e. everyone else was doing it, which was Craxi's own defence in a speech to parliament before he fled to Tunis). And earlier this month, in perhaps the clearest sign of his rehabilitation, the mayor of his home town, Milan, let it be known she was arranging for a main street or park to be named after him.

There is perhaps no episode in Italy's recent history that illustrates quite as starkly its tolerance of graft and illegality. But my purpose is not to voice dismay or condemnation, but to highlight the fact that this is happening in a rich country and that that presents a challenge to a widely held assumption.

For as long as I can recall, sociologists and economists have made a connection between levels of corruption and prosperity. For a long time this seemed to be borne out by the rankings. Squeaky societies such as Sweden, say, had high per-capita GDPs.

Italy presents an exception. Currently, after the latest big realignment of exchange rates, it is richer than Britain. Yet on the corruption perceptions index drawn up by Transparency International it now ranks 63rd out of 180 countries — below Turkey, Cuba and several African nations including South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde and Botswana.

As Berlusconi's Italy has drifted away from standards of public morality regarded as normal in the rest of Europe, it has sunk in the rankings. It was 55th in Transparency International's table in 2008 and 41st the year before.

— The Guardian, London