It's often said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think there are plenty of examples of that going on in the world, but I often wonder what leads power to corrupt individuals. Either people are very good at pretending to be someone they aren't before gaining power through whatever means, be it political, financial, or personal, or the corruption stems from the actual power itself. It's also often said that those that seek power are the ones that deserve it least and those that avoid power are the ones that should be given more of it. I can't really agree or disagree on that statement, but I'll share my thoughts and perspective about the issues that come with power or at least the perception of it.
Power over another person, in any situation, leads to a sense of superiority. Even the most humble of us can find these situations trying to our own moral code. Power doesn't come alone as it often comes with responsibility. Not only do we find ourselves with the power to influence others, but we find ourselves responsible for how we do so. It tends to create an inflated sense of self and a more disparaging view of others. In a leadership or managerial position, we become the decider and those below us become tools to manipulate to accomplish a goal or purpose.
I think part of the problem is that power leads us to dehumanize others. Those below us in the chain are simply things to manipulate and those above us become an authority that we must put on a show for or risk losing our power. It dehumanizes those above and below us, and as much as people may deny these facts, it's near impossible to keep a separate perception of people when we in some way feel power over them or responsibility for them. I believe it's possible to be mindful enough to separate business or politics from personal relationships, but there seems to always be some overlap. Things that we do or say in a business or political setting can affect someone on a personal level, so it's to be expected from my perspective.
For example, if I am friends with my employees and I like them all on a personal level, but they are poor employees, then I am put in the situation of either firing my friends, which will lead to some resentment and hard feelings in most cases, or risk losing my own job trying to cover for them to whatever authority is above me in the chain, which leads to negative feelings or resentment on my end. The problem doesn't really change if I am the sole owner of a business as the cost of running a business becomes the authority over me. I'd imagine the President finds themselves in a similar situation as far as political power goes. We are always in some way held accountable for our actions even if we are the ones holding ourselves accountable.
What about power in personal relationships? I often have people say that relationships are always a power struggle or require give and take. I can see how it's possible that outside authorities or actors can lead to situations becoming unbalanced, but I also think that through mindfulness and mutual self awareness that these problems can be overcome on an interpersonal basis. It would require similar outlooks, mindsets, and beliefs, but there are generally less external power influences on a personal basis. It seems to me that power struggles in these situations would mostly stem from interactions external to the personal relationship. Through mindfulness and self awareness, external impact could then be more manageable as it is either desired or undesirable and we could balance ourselves accordingly.
So I suppose the question then becomes: Does power lead to corruption? The answer I come to is yes, but only if we are not mindful in how we use it or why we have it in the first place. Balance is important in all things and when we remain unbalanced for too long, it's easy to become corrupted. I suppose it's part of the human condition that people pursue power and want the ability to change things they find undesirable, but that is something that we all have to learn for ourselves. If we can't accept people as they are and be respectful of them, then perhaps the corruption is really just a symptom to make others aware of the imbalance and help us to keep ourselves in check. In the end we are all still responsible for finding balance in ourselves or we risk having others tip the scales and forcing us to work for balance from the other end of the equation. Namaste.
We, human beings, basically greed driven in response to our survival instincts. Since ancient times, people exploit and kill other people with their own powerful weapons and armies, invading territories to those vulnerable people, because agriculture is lack of sophistication therefore scarcity is everywhere. In middle ages, using hypocrisy and subjective bible to acquire power from people who's naive and it really works until today. As we grow in modern ages we still inherits some of the personality from our ancestors, that's why chaos, war , crimes , hunger still exist today. But as we evolved as conscious being we tend to asked ourselves is abundance, peace, equality possible? The answer would be yes and we still working on it. With the advancement of science, philosophy and governance it will be.
I always liked Bertrand Russell's definition of power, that it is the "production of intended effects". Thus whoever can act in a way to bring about more of what they want, has the most power. The trouble is, according to Russell, is that the experience of power increases the love of power - the more you have the more you want.
This would not be such a problem if we were better at cooperating as a species - but rivalry combined with power leads to us sometimes taking a loss, just so we can see our supposed enemies do the same.
It would also be less of a problem if more people were educated so they were not so easily manipulated by loud individuals who project confidence, but have no competence.
That said, there is much coercion and duress in the world. Minimising that in society - now there's a complex task!
Agreed, it would require society to move away from a domination or competitive stance towards a more collaborative one. That's what I would love to see in the future, but I suppose time will tell.
Great post. I'm a believer that corruption is not something that people seek, but something people can only see in their rearview mirror. There often is no particular instant when the line was crossed but it happened little by little. This happens because the responsibility that comes with power often demands compromises between short-term evils and long-term goods or playing off your principles against each other. Do you accept that gift to respect a culture or do you reject it to take a hardline against the smell of bribery? This really depends.
I'm not against power; I see Lord Acton's warning as something to keep a watch against rather than a prohibition against power. Part of that watch is limiting power - particularly the more it might be abused the more narrowly defined the power should be imo.
Agreed. It's just rather funny to me when we have to spell out completely what is expected and what the limitations of power are before giving it to someone. It makes me think society as a whole has literally come to expect abuse of power and corruption. Owners have to specify in contracts what managers are expected to do or can do to try to protect themselves from law suits, but I suppose it is what it is. No easy solution in those situations.
I like your answer. Why you do something is more important than what you do. We are caught up with thinking that the physical actions are more real than thoughts, when its only the end-game manifestation in line with your motive.
Abuse of power is when the reason why only benefits the weilder, at the expense of others.
Very true.
Good thought provoking article, and good points made in comments.
I’d seldom argue against Bertrand Russel and find myself agreeing with @samueldouglas and the @clayboyn response. Competition has an awful lot to answer for, but unless we, society, can learn to live and work together cooperatively, then competition will probably never be held accountable.
Thanks for the positive outlook at the end of your piece.
I remember someone once said that when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable. I'll like to add a sense of responsibility to that.
Like you mentioned earlier, power comes with responsibility. When people occupy positions with power, they are expected to achieve certain goals. I believe the problem arises when there's no proper delineation between one's life and the lives of others.
Many people see power as a privilege while others see it as an opportunity. Those who feel privileged are always hesitant in using them. They are also conscious of the times when it seems they are getting undue privilege not because of who they are but because of their power. People like that easily get turned off when they see people grovel before them for favours.
On the flip side, there are the opportunistic guys. Once they achieve power, they try to glean as much as they can while at the same time try to perpetuate themselves in power. This even happens in relationships where one partner enjoys being the alpha at the expense of the other's development.
However, I doubt if most people fit neatly into any of these two categories. I believe humans are blend of vices and virtues. We are mostly somewhere in the middle depending on the society we find ourselves in and our personal ethics.
A religious man might not find it wrong to help his fellow believers using the power vested in him for the entire society. An atheist with power (like myself) is more likely to use public power to ensure religion doesn't affect public life in any way.
I guess we're back to where we started: Power only leads to corruption 'only if we are not mindful in how we use it or why we have it in the first place. '
It's certainly one of those questions that regardless of the answer seems to have no easy solution. It seems that power and corruption go hand in hand to some extent. Very few have the grace to recognize their own power and not use it in controlling or manipulative ways and those that do are often constantly ego checking themselves to err on the side of caution when using the power.
I tend to be kind of person that runs away and hides from being put in power of just about anything. Yet over time despite my kicking and screaming I am often just handed it and people do it willingly with pride. It just scares the daylights out of me.
The biggest issue I see with people who have power is how everyone around them turns into “yes” men. You know the kind. They will say yes to anything because they want to either gain more power themselves or keep what they have. They won’t risk losing their livelihood by saying “no,” or look “weak” by not being the one willing to be 100% dedicated to whatever it is. That to me corrupts and twists even purest out there. They have no way of knowing what they are doing is wrong because no one close to them that they trust will tell them they don’t like direction of things going.
For me at least one of worst things I can do is hire friend or family when you are owner of a company. I don’t know what it is once a paycheck becomes involved. People just get a dang eco and abuse being an employee thinking they could never do any wrong. Always been more trouble its worth even more so when you are hiring someone because of it over a more qualitied individual. Which creates even further issues among the ranks because people then are treated as the "oh your his family no wonder you got that nice job."
There's a great philosophy lesson from, I want to say Jordan Peterson possibly, where they talk about hiring and doing business with people that believe what you believe. Sharing beliefs goes so much further than blood ties or economic incentive, because beliefs form our ideologies and dictate what we value etc. I suppose that sort of lends itself to a tribalism mindset, but it was a fascinating lecture either way. Thanks for the input! :)
Nice one.
There is also a matter of different point of view.
There are cases where the one with power, is having a different opinion from the masses and s/he thinks that a certain move / policy / action is going to benefit a lot of people, the community as a whole. However, since it's being rejected by the masses, it can be considered as corruption of power. His goodwill is being interpreted as something evil.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions and such. I would say the problem stems from people thinking they need someone else to decide what's best for them in the first place. If the system did not exist, there would be no one making decisions that the masses didn't approve of, and it becomes a bit of a chicken and the egg situation. As long as people pursue power, there will be power struggles.
Agree. Chicken and egg situation.
Great post!
Power is such a tricky concept. Every time I hear the word, I implicitly interpret it in a moral framework (and usually with a negative connotation to boot). But on second thought, it seems like it doesn't logically require having any moral dimension unless you define it in at the start.
If its definition is actually neutral and maybe like the 'extent of a particular capacity to causally effect the world around it', or something along those lines, then all sorts of benign or beneficial things enter into the picture!
I guess what I'm getting at is that Steemit/Bitcoin/crypto could be seen as increasing individuals' power enormously, but tipped towards the good side of the moral equation because of its more liberal (distributed and anonymous) traits.
So now I'm thinking maybe the thing that inherently corrupts is more like unaccountability or secrecy. Technology increases transparency which decreases likelihood of corrupt abuse of the power available. So on blockchain we can become more powerful and less corrupt, because of the transparency?
Damn this post got me thinking. Thanks!!
That's natural. If you take morals to be about consequences and power is the ability to change things as the wielder desires, then there is a moral dimension to power.
I think balance is still crucial. No matter how transparent the transfer of power is, it's still reliant on how the end users with whatever power they have using it responsibly. Then there's the question about who's version of responsibility is really right in the end anyway.
It seems like a lot of citizens have inferiority complexes and feel that the government is better than them.
chess game, amazing, must be @clayboyn professional in the field, @jhoni should learn from you and keep follow you, thank you for sharing.
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this is a great philosophical post. i appreciate your post.. thanks for sharing
Nice writing. Big power means big responsibility.
This is happening because power produces greed. Greed results to corruption. Instead of utilizing power for the good,it is used to acquire more power. Sad but true.
I think the issue is that most people try to control others without first learning how to control themselves. I see you mention the term 'mindfulness' a few times and most people have suppressed their own mind to this weird state where they lie to themselves all the time and think external things (such as power or control over other people) will make them happy. Then, when they get the power, they are still not happy, and that's where the corruption kicks in, because they are frustrated... I listen to a guy called Alan Watts all the time, by the looks of your article you're very familiar with his lectures. Anyways, great post, sorry for my small upvote, I'm new and have no voting power as of yet :P
I am not sure if you were looking for this kind of a perspective or the opinion, but to obtain power a person has to be intelligent, assertive and sometimes even unscrupulous, but after gaining a level of the power he acquired, yes, sometimes all the rest ( which is bad ) resurface.
The other reason can be a concern about own existence, or the life of your family. If you live in the constant fear that you might be killed and your family might suffer your destiny with you, that only can turn a person to an obscene amount of agonizing repulsion toward other people. Because, you fail to see the people, you see the enemies.
The plain evil is usually the last cause of the rotten corruption, but nobody can claim that it doesn't exist.