Power corrupts

Authority that is willingly given without threat usually implies Trust and Respect.

As for Energy and Power, I use the physical definition. Energy is a measure of how much change in total one is able to enact at any given moment, supposing it doesn't refill. Power is the speed at which that energy can be released and transformed into actions, changes and transformation. This goes for everything from termodynamics to politics and tai chi.

So, by this definition having Power would corrupt more than having Energy in the same way having a powerful car drives you to act more recklessly than having a car that has a huge reservoir and can go incredibly long distances at a moderate pace. When you have power, you want to use it, yet spending too much Energy will leave you bankrupt, and therefore powerless. In politics, Energy takes the form of assets, owed favours, those are puntucual one-time pieces of energy... unlike "support" which delivers constant (if limited) output of energy. Using too much power at once may burnout your support, who will blow up at you.

Argh... if I could formalize this properly...

But this whole conversation is about social power, not physical power. Social power is a continuum; from "People pay a little more attention to what you say" to "People jump when you say "Jump!", and ask "How high, sir?" on the way up." It's not a physical property that's measurable and quantifiable.

desertopa; I've been thinking about your question, (not ignoring it) and I really don't see how that hypothetical experiment would do anything to change my mind — mostly because I can't see any way that you could satisfactorily establish that the subject had no inclination to corruption of any kind beforehand.

Recall, in my very first post, I said "it encourages the growth of corruption," which I think includes your "to act in ways that benefit oneself at the expense of others outside the opportunities offered by the position of power...".

I also don't believe that power can be neatly confined to a single area, because we don't live with separate parts of our lives all neatly divided off into independent areas. The banker who can approve or deny my mortgage technically only has financial power over me, but because my financial and housing situation have effects all through my life, he can turn that financial power into almost any other type of power he wants.

^ Ultimately, it could be quantifiable, as all humana ctivities can be measured in the energy thay consume every day. The power a person has becosme their capacity for redirecting that energy to their goals. One of the simplest ways to achieve power is money. A thousand Euros can give you power over 35 hours every week, during one month, of a person's life. That's a lot of energy there to direct. Then of course there are the machines, with which the relation between money, energy, physical power and social power is much more direct.

This is really, really complicated, but I think it's ultimately feasible. I for one don't have nearly the knowledge in Economics (and physics) necessary for it though...

desertopa; I've been thinking about your question, (not ignoring it) and I really don't see how that hypothetical experiment would do anything to change my mind — mostly because I can't see any way that you could satisfactorily establish that the subject had no inclination to corruption of any kind beforehand.

Recall, in my very first post, I said "it encourages the growth of corruption, " which I think includes your "to act in ways that benefit oneself at the expense of others outside the opportunities offered by the position of power...".

In that case, I don't think the assertion that power doesn't corrupt, but encourages the growth of corruption, is a very meaningful one.

Obviously you can't divorce the tendency of power to encourage people to behave in corrupt ways from the tendency of people to behave in corrupt ways in the first place. Power isn't tainted with metaphysical evil, and neither are people. There isn't some quantity of corruption inside people which can be observed to determine whether it's being added to or multiplied. The real question is how power influences people's behavior.

Asking whether a perfectly pure person would be corrupted by power is a wrong question; it can't be answered on its own terms because it's not in accord with how real human psychology works.

In any case, I contacted the professor of social psychology about the experiment, and he seems interested. I'm not in the psychology department, but it seems that students in any department may collaborate with any professor on topics of shared interest, so if I can think of a way to conduct it with the resources available through the college, we may get an answer to that question.

edited 16th Oct '10 12:43:10 PM by Desertopa

Power isn't tainted with metaphysical evil,

This is what I've been saying all along. People have a tendency towards corruption. Power facilitates the expression of that tendency. It doesn't create anything that wasn't already there. The corruption isn't introduced by the power. It's present in the person.

Which means, I suspect, that we've been arguing a semantic difference, more than a philosophical one.

Spending energy to achieve desired change causes entropy. The ability to spend a lot of energy very very fast is conductive to the misuse of that energy and the diminition of efficiency. Which leads to even more entropy than normal. Which contributes in precipitating the ultimate cooling of the universe.

edited 16th Oct '10 1:11:30 PM by RawPower

This is what I've been saying all along. People have a tendency towards corruption. Power facilitates the expression of that tendency. It doesn't create anything that wasn't already there. The corruption isn't introduced by the power. It's present in the person.

Which means, I suspect, that we've been arguing a semantic difference, more than a philosophical one.

We might be, but I think this is a pretty misleading way to frame the matter. Corruption is not an actual thing lurking inside people which can shrink or grow. It's just an abstraction to describe people's behavior. Saying that power only facilitates expression of corruption that's already there, rather than creating corruption, implies that there's a difference at all, and that it's distinguished by providing more of an outlet for people to express the tendency, rather than making the tendency itself stronger.

If you don't mean to distinguish the propositions at all, then I think that's a counterproductive way to frame it.

edited 16th Oct '10 6:05:19 PM by Desertopa

Power facilitates the expression of that tendency. It doesn't create anything that wasn't already there.

Very true. And it also shields people from the consequences of their corrupt action.

Could we stop speaking about corruption as if it was a tangible thing, like Science And Outer Space that make you tricked?

edited 17th Oct '10 3:45:01 PM by RawPower

Nobody is talking about corruption as if it were tangible. We are using it as a concept with a distinct meaning (that being the opposite of moral integrity). If we were to stop utilizing abstract concepts we would also have to stop talking about love, hate, joy, sadness, peace, struggle, right, wrong, similarity, disparity, existence, nonexistence, truth, falsehood, distance, proximity, and thousands of other concepts in order to be consistent. But since consistency and inconsistency are also abstractions, we would be engaging in a performative contradiction even to try! In fact, action itself is an abstraction - we cannot even attempt to abandon abstractions without making a praxeological reference to an abstraction.

But in terms of what corruption actually is, it doesn't make sense to draw the distinction between power corrupting or promoting the growth of corruption. If it increases your propensity, not just your opportunity, to take advantage of others, then it's making you more corrupt, and it doesn't mean anything to say that it's promoting the growth of corruption, rather than being corrupting itself. It's misleading to to argue that it does one and not the other, as if it carried actual implications about what power does to a person.

So, rephrasing the question, does power make us more corrupt

• callous
• selfish
• manipulative
• greedy
• alienated from the needs of our powerbase
• perhaps even schyzophrenic?
• ruthless
• egolatrous or self-aggrandizing
• self-righteous
• self-indulging
• self-serving
• lustful
• wrathful
• lazy/conservative/reactionary
• paranoid
• envious of richer or more powerful people (there is always someone to envy... always).
• unforgiving
• unsympathetic
• incompassionate
• sadistic
  or anything else?

I'm sorry if there is much overlap between words, but we could eliminate those that look too much like each other later.

At least one of the studies seems to point towards one in power becoming less sympathetic/sensitive/compassionate. What other traits of corruption do we have? Can the effect of power on them be measurable? Can we actually get powerful people to participate in those experiments?

edited 18th Oct '10 6:40:26 AM by RawPower

Skipped some because I'm going for lunch soon...

Social psychology is constantly finding these depressing sort of results, about people being stupid, immoral, etc. But what you need to remember is that knowing about this stuff makes it less likely. I strongly suspect if you know that power corrupts, and precisely how it does, and are willing to admit that you could be corrupted by power, you can actually prevent it.

Kind of like one of Stanley Milgram's subjects, who became a conscientious objector because he knew the danger of a situation where an authority figure tells you to do something you'd never do on your own.

edited 21st Oct '10 10:29:37 AM by Ettina

That is exactly it, and this is what places like Overcoming Bias/Less Wrong are all about making less mistakes and overcoming humanity's natural thought flaws by seeing them coming ahead of time. However, remember that knowing about biases without proper training in the art of thinking properly can hurt people too.

Returned, having taken the time to read everyone else's comments...

"Authority that is willingly given without threat usually implies Trust and Respect."

That may or may not be true, but it doesn't imply that the authority figure is doing the right thing.

In the Milgram studies, the 'teacher' was free to withdraw from the study at any time. They'd miss out on the monetary reward, but that's about it. Few of them took that option. Even though they found giving the 'learner' electric shocks to be extremely unpleasant, and they were really afraid for the learner's welfare, 70% kept on going until the experimentor told them to stop.

"People have a tendency towards corruption. Power facilitates the expression of that tendency. It doesn't create anything that wasn't already there. The corruption isn't introduced by the power. It's present in the person."

How would we test that? I know some people suggested a similar explanation for the Milgram studies - that the experimentor just allowed the person to let out their aggressive impulses - and that was pretty clearly disproven (by the distress every subject showed, and the fact that when given permission to choose any shock level, very few went above the lowest levels). But this is a pretty different situation, you'd need to test it differently. Any ideas?

Then do we have a "Being Under Authority Corrupts"? As in, the Nuremberg Defense? Could it be that, when people are under an authority, they tend to lose sight of their morality? Ciuld it be that powerful people get away with more stuff because those under them don't have the guts to stop them when there is no reason they shouldn't?

That is a good point

I believe the very act of knowing how being in an influential position can corrupt anyone may be enough to allow potential rulers, leaders, and top thinkers from abusing their power, but if they acknowledge that they like everyone is capable of being influenced by their power (such is a person who feels he is impervious to harm until its too late).

Sorry, I meant to say "but only if they know that they can be influenced by their power like everyone else". Reading the cracked article, I got the feeling that the only honest people you can rely on are those at the bottom of the power ladder, where being constantly looked down upon by those higher up makes them humble to themselves and others (though usually at the cost of their self esteem and self efficacy, a double edged sword).