power/money doesn't corrupt

[dimreepr]

I dont believe power corrupts. I believe power attracts the corruptable.

[swansont]

I dont believe power corrupts. I believe power attracts the corruptable.

 

Then you should investigate situations where power was given rather than sought — i.e. where there was no "attraction"

[md65536]

I dont believe power corrupts. I believe power attracts the corruptable.

The second statement doesn't support the first, unless you're presuming the existence of those who are not corruptible.

Do you have an example of someone who is not corruptible even when wielding great power?

 

I think in general power corrupts.

 

 

 

 

[JustinW]

The second statement doesn't support the first, unless you're presuming the existence of those who are not corruptible.

Do you have an example of someone who is not corruptible even when wielding great power?

 

I think in general power corrupts.

Are you saying that everyone is ultimately corruptable? Something to the effect of absolute power corrupts absolutely? Although it's kind of glass half emptyish, you may be correct. Everyone will always have their own personal agenda no matter how honest they are.

[md65536]

Are you saying that everyone is ultimately corruptable? Something to the effect of absolute power corrupts absolutely? Although it's kind of glass half emptyish, you may be correct. Everyone will always have their own personal agenda no matter how honest they are.

Yes, I think in general people are corruptible; there are always exceptions.

 

I guess I read a bit more into your post than what you actually said. I assumed you were saying "There is a correlation between power and corruption, but not a causal relation. That power attracts the (easily) corruptible explains the correlation." To which I'd say, that doesn't prove that there's not also a causal relation.

 

If you gave an example of something like what swansont suggests investigating -- a situation where power was achieved but not due to its attraction -- we might try to show that power would or wouldn't corrupt in that example, which might be an argument against or for your claim. An example of someone with power but not attracted to power, who doesn't get corrupted, would be evidence that power doesn't necessarily corrupt the easily corruptible.

 

I have a feeling that with enough power, the inconsistencies in what we each believe is right and wrong could cause anyone to make corrupt decisions, but I don't know if that's the case for all examples.

[Moontanman]

I think I might have to agree, power does not corrupt and I think power does attract the corrupt. I honestly do not think that power or money would corrupt me.... at least not any more than i already am and there lies the rub. How corrupt are you or me? What behaviors would you draw that line at if you knew you couldn't be held accountable, do you know, can any of us really know what parts of our behaviors are restricted by our own inner moral compass and what behaviors are restrained due to lack of money/power to act out those behaviors. If I woke up in the morning with the power of god I can think of a short list of people who might just vanish... maybe... I do have an inner moral compass and if i stopped to think of the consequences of my actions and their effect on others I would probably not go to that list. But to be honest do to a lack of any real temptation I can't say if power would corrupt me any further than i am already corrupted.

[md65536]

I think I might have to agree, power does not corrupt and I think power does attract the corrupt. I honestly do not think that power or money would corrupt me.... at least not any more than i already am and there lies the rub. How corrupt are you or me? What behaviors would you draw that line at if you knew you couldn't be held accountable, do you know, can any of us really know what parts of our behaviors are restricted by our own inner moral compass and what behaviors are restrained due to lack of money/power to act out those behaviors. If I woke up in the morning with the power of god I can think of a short list of people who might just vanish... maybe... I do have an inner moral compass and if i stopped to think of the consequences of my actions and their effect on others I would probably not go to that list. But to be honest do to a lack of any real temptation I can't say if power would corrupt me any further than i am already corrupted.

 

Perhaps it's possible to answer the question by listing what conditions would make one corrupt, or that would keep one not corrupt. For example, it you weren't attracted by power, but you got power, would you abuse that power to keep it? Perhaps "willingness to give up power" is also a characteristic of someone who wouldn't be corrupted.

 

Suppose you were granted ultimate power so that people could be made to vanish at your will. You'd be forced to decide if you use that power or not. If you did, you'd be forced to choose who to make vanish, and there would be a lot of lines you'd need to draw to decide where to limit yourself.

 

Now, if you put that thought aside for a minute, and imagine that you also had the power to keep your power or to let it go. Then imagine that someone else wanted to take the power from you. Now further imagine that you could decide to stop them, or to allow them to have ultimate powers while you do not. How far would you go to keep your power, OR how far would you go from preventing someone else from having it?

 

This basically would be a test of your values such as "are you willing to let other people do what they want or would you rather restrict people to doing what you accept", to an extreme degree. But there's another example that's a bit more realistic. Suppose you believe that people should be free to elect whomever they want to, and that you end up being elected and gaining some power, and then a re-election comes and it looks like people want someone else in power, but you strongly disagree with whom they want and you can use the powers that you still have to influence people, to try to stay in power. Where do you draw the line between sticking to your values by letting whomever people want to be elected get elected, vs using powers to do what you think is best for people? When does it become an abuse of that power?

 

It seems to me that you would have to always choose to stick to your principles, over using your power to achieve what you want, in order to not be corrupted by power. If your principles include that it is always right to use power to do what you think is best, then like you say: gaining power might not corrupt you over whatever level of corruption you had before gaining power. But then, people who feel that way may be attracted to power in the first place, so it doesn't test the idea that power doesn't tend to corrupt those who aren't attracted to power.

 

I think power would most test people whose principles go against the abuse of power, but also go in favor of trying to do what is best for people.

I think that only if every moral decision were easy, it would be easy (for many at least) to not be corrupted by power.

Edited December 17, 2011 by md65536

[dimreepr]

Perhaps it's possible to answer the question by listing what conditions would make one corrupt, or that would keep one not corrupt. For example, it you weren't attracted by power, but you got power, would you abuse that power to keep it? Perhaps "willingness to give up power" is also a characteristic of someone who wouldn't be corrupted.

 

Suppose you were granted ultimate power so that people could be made to vanish at your will. You'd be forced to decide if you use that power or not. If you did, you'd be forced to choose who to make vanish, and there would be a lot of lines you'd need to draw to decide where to limit yourself.

 

Now, if you put that thought aside for a minute, and imagine that you also had the power to keep your power or to let it go. Then imagine that someone else wanted to take the power from you. Now further imagine that you could decide to stop them, or to allow them to have ultimate powers while you do not. How far would you go to keep your power, OR how far would you go from preventing someone else from having it?

 

This basically would be a test of your values such as "are you willing to let other people do what they want or would you rather restrict people to doing what you accept", to an extreme degree. But there's another example that's a bit more realistic. Suppose you believe that people should be free to elect whomever they want to, and that you end up being elected and gaining some power, and then a re-election comes and it looks like people want someone else in power, but you strongly disagree with whom they want and you can use the powers that you still have to influence people, to try to stay in power. Where do you draw the line between sticking to your values by letting whomever people want to be elected get elected, vs using powers to do what you think is best for people? When does it become an abuse of that power?

 

It seems to me that you would have to always choose to stick to your principles, over using your power to achieve what you want, in order to not be corrupted by power. If your principles include that it is always right to use power to do what you think is best, then like you say: gaining power might not corrupt you over whatever level of corruption you had before gaining power. But then, people who feel that way may be attracted to power in the first place, so it doesn't test the idea that power doesn't tend to corrupt those who aren't attracted to power.

 

I think power would most test people whose principles go against the abuse of power, but also go in favor of trying to do what is best for people.

I think that only if every moral decision were easy, it would be easy (for many at least) to not be corrupted by power.

 

Jesus, Buddha and mohamed. Three people who are famously refuted to be uncorruptable, though they weren't tested by absolute power. If they're reputations are accurate then few could doubt they would pass. I think the old saying "it takes one to know one" is particularly relevent here. Anybody who is corrupt would be unable to understand the concept as they're only reference is corrupt thinking.

 

Then you should investigate situations where power was given rather than sought — i.e. where there was no "attraction"

 

 

If only our society could atchieve that very thing. Platocracy in my view is the only chance our society has for a reasonable relatively corrupt free future. To atchieve this, is offcorse almost impossible. First you need a benign philosipher, though how you test his/her uncorruptabilty (food for ferther thought), then offcorse, you need the consensus of the people to allow this person absolute domain.

 

 

tricky...

Edited December 17, 2011 by dimreepr

[dimreepr]

The second statement doesn't support the first, unless you're presuming the existence of those who are not corruptible.

Do you have an example of someone who is not corruptible even when wielding great power?

 

I think in general power corrupts.

 

 

 

 

 

I think in general power corrupts. This statement automatically moots your argument, since it allows the possibility of the uncorruptable.

[iNow]

There are a few flaws here. Corruption is in the eye of the beholder. It's subjective, and hardly some objective binary state between "corrupt" and "not corrupt."

 

Also, how are you defining power? It, too, is yet another term burdened with ambiguity and imprecision. Is power what a parent holds over their child? Is power when you're in charge of a group of people digging holes? Is power power what instructors have over students, or what coaches have over players? Is power the ability to change minds with well writ and penetratingly precise logical points? Is power what you have when you get into your car and make the choice to avoid pedestrians? Is power something the clerk at the grocery store has when they hold the key to the food you require to survive, or something the wife holds when she holds the key to sex, or something the gas company has when winter weather hits?

 

I'm sorry to say, but the question is meaningless. It's an interesting idiom used to convey a broader point with a rhetorical shorthand, and the answer depends entirely on how the audience personally defines "power" and how the audience personally defines "corruption."

 

Finally, stepping beyond the semantic points, and just assuming for a moment that we're referring to the same thing when we use those terms... As others have noted, it's highly unlikely that power creates corruption. Instead, the more reasonable position is that power simply enhances it or makes that corruption more visible to others... The power is what makes others care about the corruption, but the corruption was likely always there (and just lacked direct or meaningful impact on others).

[dimreepr]

There are a few flaws here. Corruption is in the eye of the beholder. It's subjective, and hardly some objective binary state between "corrupt" and "not corrupt."

 

Also, how are you defining power? It, too, is yet another term burdened with ambiguity and imprecision. Is power what a parent holds over their child? Is power when you're in charge of a group of people digging holes? Is power power what instructors have over students, or what coaches have over players? Is power the ability to change minds with well writ and penetratingly precise logical points? Is power what you have when you get into your car and make the choice to avoid pedestrians? Is power something the clerk at the grocery store has when they hold the key to the food you require to survive, or something the wife holds when she holds the key to sex, or something the gas company has when winter weather hits?

 

I'm sorry to say, but the question is meaningless. It's an interesting idiom used to convey a broader point with a rhetorical shorthand, and the answer depends entirely on how the audience personally defines "power" and how the audience personally defines "corruption."

 

Finally, stepping beyond the semantic points, and just assuming for a moment that we're referring to the same thing when we use those terms... As others have noted, it's highly unlikely that power creates corruption. Instead, the more reasonable position is that power simply enhances it or makes that corruption more visible to others... The power is what makes others care about the corruption, but the corruption was likely always there (and just lacked direct or meaningful impact on others).

I agree their are logical flaws in the statement, it is very difficult to avoid this in such a short statement, however the basic premis still stands.

[iNow]

Any conclusions grounded in flawed premises are only correct by accident.

[Tres Juicy]

Power definitely corrupts - I'd be a right evil bastard if I could get away with it

[iNow]

Power definitely corrupts - I'd be a right evil bastard if I could get away with it

Ergo, you are already corrupt, it's just that nobody yet cares since it does not impact them.

[Tres Juicy]

Ergo, you are already corrupt, it's just that nobody yet cares since it does not impact them.

 

 

Just a matter of time....

 

 

For the record; I am joking here and not really horribly corrupt/evil

[iNow]

In which case, the power didn't cause the corruption. It merely allowed it to become apparent to others.

[Sergeant Bilko]

Everyone is corruptable or not depending on your point of view. Corruption is merely a different moral standpoint from your own.

[imatfaal]

Everyone is corruptable or not depending on your point of view. Corruption is merely a different moral standpoint from your own.

 

I think in this discussion corruption is not "merely a different moral standpoint from your own" - corruption is process of change of an entity from one who proceeds and acts from a firm and defined moral/ethical base to one who is self-serving and aggrandizing. One can recognize both the corrupt and the pure even in ideologies that have no intersection with one's own.

[Sergeant Bilko]

I think in this discussion corruption is not "merely a different moral standpoint from your own" - corruption is process of change of an entity from one who proceeds and acts from a firm and defined moral/ethical base to one who is self-serving and aggrandizing. One can recognize both the corrupt and the pure even in ideologies that have no intersection with one's own.

 

 

I think the original poster mentioned in one of his replies that "Platocracy" was some kind of ideal. Plato himself viewed the physical world as inevitably corrupt, and indeed Genesis stated that the world was immoral and corrupt before the flood. Your post is extremely articulate but I feel that given the circumstances of the original post being about power, then indeed a moral argument as to the definition of corruption is valid.

 

The Nazis accused 1930's Jewry of corruption and feared their power, which in turn led to the Holocaust. The actual corruption just depended on which side of the fence you were sitting, although the nature of the final solution makes the absoute power=absolute corruption argument seem very accurate.

[imatfaal]

I think the original poster mentioned in one of his replies that "Platocracy" was some kind of ideal. Plato himself viewed the physical world as inevitably corrupt, and indeed Genesis stated that the world was immoral and corrupt before the flood. Your post is extremely articulate but I feel that given the circumstances of the original post being about power, then indeed a moral argument as to the definition of corruption is valid.

 

The Nazis accused 1930's Jewry of corruption and feared their power, which in turn led to the Holocaust. The actual corruption just depended on which side of the fence you were sitting, although the nature of the final solution makes the absoute power=absolute corruption argument seem very accurate.

 

Mine was a moral argument / definition - the movement from moral to amoral is exactly that. being corrupt/corruption is, for me, a process that entails a "movement" from one state to another, and any definition that seems to require no "movement" from the person being judged as corrupt is lacking. I think it is too easy to define corrupt merely as that with which I disagree - using that definition is a devaluation of our ability as humans to make ethical moral judgments. I can, I believe, make a choice between system A and system B; I favour one over the other through reasoning I view as ethical or moral. I can also differentiate between two entities X and Y existing within either of those two systems, X firmly believes in the principles of her system, whilst Y merely pays lip service to them. Your mentioning of Plato is apposite, as I am really looking at ideal definitions and circumstances.

 

I agree that power does corrupt - and absolute power even more so. power doesn't necessarily make a persons decisions morally wrong it makes the decisions less moral; it can cause the person to value personal motives and career over societal progress and community values.

[dimreepr]

Mine was a moral argument / definition - the movement from moral to amoral is exactly that. being corrupt/corruption is, for me, a process that entails a "movement" from one state to another, and any definition that seems to require no "movement" from the person being judged as corrupt is lacking. I think it is too easy to define corrupt merely as that with which I disagree - using that definition is a devaluation of our ability as humans to make ethical moral judgments. I can, I believe, make a choice between system A and system B; I favour one over the other through reasoning I view as ethical or moral. I can also differentiate between two entities X and Y existing within either of those two systems, X firmly believes in the principles of her system, whilst Y merely pays lip service to them. Your mentioning of Plato is apposite, as I am really looking at ideal definitions and circumstances.

 

I agree that power does corrupt - and absolute power even more so. power doesn't necessarily make a persons decisions morally wrong it makes the decisions less moral; it can cause the person to value personal motives and career over societal progress and community values.

 

For me corruption is the enrichment of oneself in the knowledge that this act will impoverish others

[imatfaal]

For me corruption is the enrichment of oneself in the knowledge that this act will impoverish others

 

Surely that's Capitalism.

 

Corruption must have a moral connotation - ie it is the decision to enrich oneself when one's office or position dictates that other ends should be more desirable. ie a businessman who drives a hard bargain and uses all his charm to persuade a supplier into giving him a price that is far too cheap is not corrupt - but a council official who accepts gifts and kickbacks to pay a price that is far too high is corrupt

[JustinW]

Surely that's Capitalism.

 

Corruption must have a moral connotation - ie it is the decision to enrich oneself when one's office or position dictates that other ends should be more desirable. ie a businessman who drives a hard bargain and uses all his charm to persuade a supplier into giving him a price that is far too cheap is not corrupt - but a council official who accepts gifts and kickbacks to pay a price that is far too high is corrupt

Your analogy seems spot on, but surely it doesn't just apply to capitalism. Communism and socialism are just as bad, so why the prejudice towards capitolism. Unless you enjoy authority dictating what you do with your own property.

[imatfaal]

Your analogy seems spot on, but surely it doesn't just apply to capitalism. Communism and socialism are just as bad, so why the prejudice towards capitolism. Unless you enjoy authority dictating what you do with your own property.

 

Of course it does. Capitalism when practised properly is the use of capital to secure the means of production and retain for the capitalist the surplus from the workers labour - if you pay the workers the marginal revenue of the work they produce you don't make a profit. Communism when practised properly allows workers the fruits of their labour. Socialism realises that the means of production are not in the hands of the state and that excess is being creamed off by the capitalists and addresses this by a redistribution of wealth through taxation.

 

In the real world people are corrupt and this means that Communism and Socialism can be easily subverted (must be subverted ?) and the best intentions go awry - Capitalism is less easily subverted as it has no founding moral principle, its founding principles are more realistic and base.

 

Your presumption that private property is the founding morality and inescapable is axiomatic and not provable. western neo-classical liberalism is by far the most successful system so far, but eastern versions with very different underpinnings are about to challenge it massively. it is very hard to find within history a long term debtor culture that has been successful, and the great western industrial powers are now all debtors to the "developing" economies of the east and middle east.

 

And yes I do prefer to pay taxes and receive the benefits that accrue within a society.

[JustinW]

Of course it does. Capitalism when practised properly is the use of capital to secure the means of production and retain for the capitalist the surplus from the workers labour - if you pay the workers the marginal revenue of the work they produce you don't make a profit.

Still doesn't explain how that corrolates with a capitalistic government. You're talking about private buisness and workers not getting a marginal pay. If the worker recieved a marginal pay the company would have a heck of a time funding it's own growth. So with any dip in the market you would see companies fail in mass. My argument on this was the relation on government corruption between the different ideologies.

 

Communism when practised properly allows workers the fruits of their labour.

I don't get your meaning here.

 

Socialism realises that the means of production are not in the hands of the state and that excess is being creamed off by the capitalists and addresses this by a redistribution of wealth through taxation.

This was the reason for my comment about private property. How much freedom are you willing to give for security? I also enjoy some of the benifits provided through taxation and believe in a taxation for certain services. But adopting a government based off of such would indeed, like you said about communism, let best intentions go awry.

 

 

Your presumption that private property is the founding morality and inescapable is axiomatic and not provable.

Maybe not provable, but it is the best model in my point of view to secure the freedom for the people that live under it. It's provides a means of making your own decisions , good or bad, that one must deal with.

 

western neo-classical liberalism is by far the most successful system so far

I would say that this is just as unprovable as what I said about capitalism. I would have to read a few examples and even then I believe it would be highly debatable.

 

 

it is very hard to find within history a long term debtor culture that has been successful

 

Successful to what end?