Does Power Corrupt?

Mandell Creighton leading his group, ‘The Quadrilateral’, at Oxford University in 1865. (As seen in Louise Creighton’s book, The Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton.)

Posted by Keith Tidman

In 1887, the English historian, Lord John Dalberg-Acton, penned this cautionary maxim in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton: ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. He concluded his missive by sounding this provocative note: ‘Great men are almost always bad men’. Which might lead one to reflect that indeed human history does seem to have been fuller of Neros and Attilas than Buddhas and Gandhis.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the correlation between power and corruption was amply pointed out before Lord Acton, as evidenced by this 1770 observation by William Pitt the Elder, a former prime minister of Great Britain, in the House of Lords: ‘Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it’. To which, the eighteenth-century Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke also seemed to agree:

‘The greater the power, the greater the abuse’.

History is of course replete with scoundrels and tyrants, and worse, rulers who have egregiously and enthusiastically abused power — often with malign, even cruel, brutal, and deadly, consequences. Situations where the Orwellian axiom that ‘the object of power is power’ prevails, with bad outcomes for the world. Indulgent perpetrators have ranged from heads of state like pharaohs to emperors, kings and queens, chancellors, prime ministers, presidents, chiefs, and popes. As well as people scattered throughout the rest of society, from corrupt leaders of industry to criminals to everyday citizens.

In some instances, it seems indeed that wielding great power has led susceptible people to change, in the process becoming corrupt or unkind in erstwhile uncharacteristic ways. As to the psychology of that observation, a much-cited Stanford University experiment, conducted in 1971, suggested such an effect, though its findings come with caveats. The two-week experiment was intended to show the psychological effects of prison life on behaviour, using university students as pretend prison guards and prisoners in a mock prison on campus.

However, the quickly mounting, distressing maltreatment of ‘prisoners’ in the experiment by those in the authoritative role of guards — behaviour that included confiscating the prisoners’ clothes and requiring them to sleep on concrete flooring — led to the experiment being canceled after only six days. Was that the prospect of ‘abuse’ of which Burke warned us above? Was it the prospect of the ‘perpetual and restless desire of power after power’ of which the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes warned us?

In many other cases, it has also been observed that there seem to be predispositions toward corruption and abuse, in which power serves to amplify rather than simply instill. This view seems favoured today. Power (the acquisition of authority) may prompt people to disregard social checks on their natural instincts and shed self-managing inhibitions. Power uncovers the real persona — those whose instinctual character is malignly predisposed.

President Abraham Lincoln seemed to subscribe to this position regarding preexisting behavioural qualities, saying,

‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character [true persona], give him power’.

Among people in leadership positions, in any number of social spheres, power can have two edges — good and bad. Decisions, intent, and outcomes matter. So, for example, ‘socialised power’ translates to the beneficial use of power and influence to inspire others toward the articulation and realisation of visions and missions, as well as the accomplishment of tangible goals. The idea being to benefit others: societal, political, corporate, economic, communal, spiritual. All this in a manner that, by definition, presupposes freedom as opposed to coerced implementation.

‘Personalised power’, on the other hand, reflects a focus on meeting one’s own expectations. If personalised power overshadows or excludes common goods, as sometimes seen among autocratic, self-absorbed, and unsympathetic national leaders, the exclusion is concerning as it may injure through bad policy. Yet, notably these two indices of power can be compatible — they aren’t necessarily adversarial, nor does one necessarily force the other to beat a retreat. Jointly, in fact, they’re more likely force-multiplying.

One corollary (a cautionary note, perhaps) has to do with the ‘power paradox’. As a person acquires power through thoughtfulness, respect, and empathetic behaviours, and his or her influence accordingly flourishes, the risk emerges that the person begins to behave less in those constructive ways. Power may paradoxically spark growing self-centeredness, and less self-constraint. It’s potentially seductive; it can border on Machiavellian doctrine as to control over others, whereby decisions and behaviours become decreasingly framed around laudable principles of morality and, instead, take a turn to exertion of coercive power and fear in place of inspiration.

In a turnabout, this diminution of compassionate behaviours — combined with an increase in impulsivity and self-absorption, increase in ethical shortcuts, and decrease in social intelligence — might steadily lessen the person’s power and influence. It returns to a set point. And unless they’re vigilant, leaders — in politics, business, and other venues — may focus less and less on the shareable common good.

As a matter of disputable attribution, Plato summed up the lessons that have come down through history on the matters discussed here, his purportedly saying in few words but without equivocation:

‘The measure of a man is what he does with power’.

Although he doesn’t seem to have actually ever said this as such, it certainly captures the lesson and message of his famous moral tale, about the magic ring of Gyges that confers the power of invisibility on its owner.