Intuitively, this feels very right with my experience being on both sides of the fence. I would need to do a study on one aspect of this in particular that gut-wise is the core of this IMO: The way people treat you shapes your personality and how you treat others in the future. To me this is more to the heart of the issue. For example, when I was poor, people treated me like I was not really wanted or that I was expected to go the extra mile to please. I tended to feel less important with less confidence and didn't feel I was special in any sense, which in some sense made me more selfless to a degree. On the flip side, having money, the service industry kisses your ass and women treat you like you're the hot item on Black Friday. This inflates your ego and you expect that treatment after awhile, becoming more picky and discerning of everything, moving in the direction of being a selfish asshole. This is the same reason IMO why beautiful women tend to be perceived as rude or the "B" word as they see most men as just a commodity as they are inundated with unwanted attention.
Anglo-Saxon saying: "You know what a man is when he can do as he likes." Good people with power will remain good people. Narcissists, people who say "I told you so", and other nasty pieces of work will remain nasty pieces of work when in power -- look at the journal editors who rejected Egloff's paper for a petty example.<p>As for whether Mercedes drivers behave badly? I find it easy to believe that they do. There are those who don't know the social language of cars, and those who inherit family cars, but the sort of person who knows the language of cars and buys a Mercedes anyways is the sort who has money but no taste -- "West African cabinet ministers and Beverly Hills dentists" in Paul Fussell's phrase -- the sort of person who would voluntarily live in Malibu.
Not that this study isn't interesting, but Lord Acton was really talking about how powerful people corrupt <i>us</i>.<p>'''
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility [that is, the later judgment of historians] has to make up for the want of legal responsibility [that is, legal consequences during the rulers' lifetimes]. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which . . . the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, . . . but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science....
'''<p><a href="http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165acton.html" rel="nofollow">http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165acton.html</a><p>What is he getting at? We'd hang Mary and forgive Elizabeth for the same crimes, so we're corrupted by the powerful. I think the the leading presidential candidates of both major U.S. parties shows this to be true.
Depends on how you think of power: a privilege or great responsibility?
Power corrupts those who think they deserve it.<p>"Two of my cousins and I entered the apartment of the Prophet (ﷺ). One of them said: Messenger of Allah, appoint us rulers of some lands that the Almighty and Glorious God has entrusted to thy care. The other also said something similar. He said: We do not appoint to this position one who asks for it nor anyone who is covetous for the same."<p>"If a dog dies hungry on the banks of the River Euphrates, Umar will be responsible for dereliction of duty." Umar Ibn al Khattab
I know this isn't a popular idea, but I think people need to be more empathetic to those who have been entrusted with power.<p>I despise corruption, but I think we do ourselves a disservice when we focus all our attention on the officials who are being corrupted while allowing armies of policy experts to influence official's opinions while funding their campaigns.<p>The question shouldn't be "Does power really corrupt?", the question should be, "Does power become a magnet for special interests hell bent on corrupting it?"
Famous quote of Giulio Andreotti, an old Italian politician.<p>"Il potere logora chi non ce l'ha"<p>("Power wears out those who don't have it")<p>Note: the literal translation is "to wear out", but the phrase "il potere logora" has the equivalent meaning of "the power corrupts", in the sense that it wears out the moral compass.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti</a>
It's a vicious cycle. In a world where corruption is rewarded, you are chastised explicitly or implicitly for passing up the opportunity to get ahead by participating in systemic abuse of power. I can't find the precise research that illuminated how identifying a cheater (who is perceived either as part of the community, or an outsider), can influence the rest of the class to cheat at tests or not. But this infographic[1] identifies peer pressure as the #1 reason for cheating in college, and seems to back it up with survey and research evidence.<p>1: <a href="http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/cheating/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/cheating/</a>
"A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior" <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0133193" rel="nofollow">http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....</a> , Korndörfer et al 2015:<p>"Does being from a higher social class lead a person to engage in more or less prosocial behavior? Psychological research has recently provided support for a negative effect of social class on prosocial behavior. However, research outside the field of psychology has mainly found evidence for positive or u-shaped relations. In the present research, we therefore thoroughly examined the effect of social class on prosocial behavior. Moreover, we analyzed whether this effect was moderated by the kind of observed prosocial behavior, the observed country, and the measure of social class. Across eight studies with large and representative international samples, we predominantly found positive effects of social class on prosociality: Higher class individuals were more likely to make a charitable donation and contribute a higher percentage of their family income to charity (32,090 ≥ N ≥ 3,957; Studies 1–3), were more likely to volunteer (37,136 ≥N ≥ 3,964; Studies 4–6), were more helpful (N = 3,902; Study 7), and were more trusting and trustworthy in an economic game when interacting with a stranger (N = 1,421; Study 8) than lower social class individuals. Although the effects of social class varied somewhat across the kinds of prosocial behavior, countries, and measures of social class, under no condition did we find the negative effect that would have been expected on the basis of previous results reported in the psychological literature. Possible explanations for this divergence and implications are discussed."
Great book on similar topic: "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics"<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics-ebook/dp/B005GPSLHI?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...</a><p>Provides compelling case that all politicians tend toward dictatorship with the difference in how fully these tendencies are realized just being in the size of the coalition they have to appease, reward, or bully. With stereotypical absolute dictators this easy to see. On the other end of the spectrum, it is more shrouded. American democracy is theoretically based on a maximum sized coalition equaling roughly the entire population. In practice, the leaders are beholden to and have to influence a much smaller coalition to wield power. Something like the current Sanders/Clinton popular vote vs inner circle super delegate issue demonstrates this pretty well. Fascinating read.
"SORRY, YOU NEED TO ENABLE JAVASCRIPT TO VISIT THIS WEBSITE." it tells me. I do. I see flat, plain text with some images. WTF. Don't be those web devs, guys!
Having power is a requirement of being corrupt, by the definition. If you didn't have power, you wouldn't have the leverage to corrupt the system in the first place.<p>>Corruption: dishonest or fraudulent conduct <i>by those in power</i>, typically involving bribery
Exploring the Psychology of Wealth, ‘Pernicious’ Effects of Economic Inequality:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc</a>
Power corrupts those who are in power to wield influence, eventually in attempts to please all those they serve they find themselves without any ideals or direction of their own. And I agree with some1else that people are rewarded for this behavior but the chances of that changing are pretty slim so I guess the real solution is not be weak/unempathetic people.
‘We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it ‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production’<p>-- Foucault
Wow, finally an article that breaks Betteridge's law!<p>For a great speech on why power corrupts, by a powerful person, see this:<p><a href="https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/havel.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/havel.html</a>
The basic research seems sketchy. You send however many students out, what is the framing you're giving them for doing the rating? What are their own current biases or likely statistical ones considering their current training / profession / school?
It's not so much that power corrupts. Power is just a multiplier.<p>The problem is more that the kind of people who are most likely to end up in positions of power are those who are going to abuse that power and don't care about their responsibility (or have never learned it).
Probably, but we don't spend enough time thinking about what kind of person it is who seeks that power in the first place. Maybe there was nothing to corrupt in the first place.
It's called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle</a>
Recommended reading: "Assholes, A Theory".[1] A serious study of the rewards and effects of being an asshole.<p>(I gave a copy of this to a friend who's an attorney for a major Silicon Valley law firm, and she found it explained some of the people she had to deal with.)<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/0804171351" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/0804171...</a>
Interesting article. What I have to say will sound old fashioned but I think it is relevant.<p>My opinion is that power does not corrupt as much under one circumstance. It corresponds to old ideas about aligning interests of the group with the individual. About also not having to answer to competitors for your status in society.<p>If you are a trained member of the aristocratic class.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocrat" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocrat</a><p>Aristocrats != Wealthy. Although they usually are as a side affect.<p>Aristocrats can be born or more rarely raised into the class. They are normally trained in an area of expertise or otherwise have a great deal of experience. Example would be the House of Lords as opposed to the House of Parliament members whom are democratically elected.<p>Today the word has a negative meaning but originally the aristocracy performed any number of astonishing feats I do not believe modern governments are capable of accomplishing.<p>In modern times it is possible that patriotism can serve a similar function for well paid civil servants and that also being independently wealthy can be an advantage against corruption. However these techniques are just derivatives of the original idea of an aristocracy class.<p>Example of an official present day aristocrat would be Baroness Susan Greenfield. A good example of a defacto (natural) aristocrat would be somebody like Freeman Dyson.<p>These are people we can trust to have power and wield it responsibly. I realize this is a highly imperfect system but it really is superior to modern day ideas about democracy and responsibility.<p>Incidentally I have no money or power, I gain no advantage from believing this. I arrive at this idea largely by reading history books. I just think if you can't separate rich from the aristocrats you will get confusing and conflated results as per the article.<p>Obviously the problem with aristocracy is the overly hereditary nature of it. Freeman Dyson's children are excellent people but in different (magical to me) ways. I could not say whether his grandchildren would share the same level though, that's kind of the problem that lead to the word aristocracy having negative sentiments.
This is one of many arguments against total economic liberalism. Allowing unlimited economic inequality produces a superclass that is likely to treat the rest of society poorly.
has anyone ever thought about ai being in power? Maybe being unemotional and lacking emotional intelligence might be a possible solution where humans fail once again...
The widespread lack of power suppresses the latent corruption in most people from having any large impact.<p>The availability of power exposes the latent corruption.