Power and Corruption

 

Lord Acton on 5 Apr1887 wrote to the Bishop Mandell Creighton about how historians should judge the abuse of power by past rulers, especially popes. In this letter he wrote that “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

He argued that people in position of power, especially popes and monarchs should be held to a higher standard of judgment - because of - not in spite of- the tremendous power they have.

Acton’s observation is interpreted to imply that 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 superimpose the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

Myanmar’s Nobel laureate Aung San Su Kyi puts it in a different perspective by saying that “It is not power that corrupts but fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the losing of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

There are enough examples to show that people in power tend to abuse their power either to safeguard themselves or justify it in the name of welfare to public or masses. Basically this category of persons belongs to the ruling class or politicians. But there are also examples of people in power or hold over masses which they used it for the welfare of masses. These are the social reformers whose basic aim is to remove the aberrations in the society by mass movement.

It stands to logic that if power corrupts a person then lack of power should imply no corruption. But this is not what is observed. Research by Huisi Li indicates that it is most often those who lack power – rather than those who have it- that engages in corrupt practices maybe at a smaller level at compared to big corruption.

When a person exercises power over others then there is a tendency for the power holder to feel that others cannot control their behavior or are seen as less worthy and are less deserving of respect. Therefore, they are good prospects to be exploited.

It, therefore, stands to reason that if there are people who belong to either class of corrupt power holder or benevolent power holder then it can be argued that power does not corrupt people but it is something else. Power is just a tool to enhance your inner skill and what it does is to awaken one’s inner feeling, thoughts and believes. What it does is to bring to the public view your hidden face whether good or bad.

A person in power eventually tends to realize that power and wisdom are the same thing and as he possesses power he must also possess wisdom. If wisdom does not come along with power then it leads one to be corrupts and if power leads one to possess wisdom then it leads one to be benevolent. If he starts to believe that powers also implies that he has gained wisdom  then in actuality he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient and tends to lean towards corruption for the fear of losing importance and esteem which can propel him to promote self promotional lies.