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I'd say it's not particularly fair to give no evidence yourself, ignore the evidence I gave, and then claim "assertion without evidence". But fine, a book is indeed pretty long.
If you look at the corruptions perceptions index, apart from a few exceptions (that Why Nations Fail goes into), the least corrupt countries are overwhelmingly democratic, and the most corrupt countries are overwhelmingly authoritarian, or at the very least anocratic. This includes nonwhite countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Most Latin American countries have very flawed democracies that tend to slide in and out of despotism, but the more consolidated and well-functioning ones like Uruguay also have less corruption.
I don't know what you're saying with the Polish example. Communism was bad due to inefficient markets, but also because it engendered a secretive and authoritarian society, which is where corruption flourishes. The move to democracy slowly started fixing that.
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