On Power and Corruption

Brian Klass’ book, Corruptible, has many interesting and, at times, counter-intuitive points on the fact that people in power seem to be (become?) corrupt.

 

For one, he says people in power often have to make repeated decisions in scenarios where there are no good choices. But if all choices are bad, how does one make a decision, and not let the bad aspect of the decision not haunt one?

“(One way is to) disregard compassion and focus on hard-nosed costs and benefits.”

Here’s Klass point with all this. Does power attract people who have that mindset to begin with? Do kinder folks avoid power since they don’t have the stomach to pick from among a list of “unbearable moral choices”?

 

Two, he says, enforcement matters. The same set of people behave differently when the enforcement is strict v/s lax. Think of how the same Indian can behave when in Singapore v/s India.

 

Three, the system in which the person operates matters:

“A decent person inheriting a bad system has to make choices that the person wouldn’t make in a good system.”

Most Westerners experience this when they come to 3rd world countries and find bribes are standard operating procedure.

 

Four, remember that famous saying about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely? Sometimes though, it’s not that absolute power corrupts someone with “upstanding moral character”. Rather, as their power increases, their opportunities at corruption increases… and like with everything else, with such repeated “practice”, they get “better” at being corrupt.

 

Five, we need to factor in for both the increased opportunities for corruption faced by those in power compared to the layman:

“Being put in a position of authority produces more frequent – and more consequential – opportunities for wrongdoing.”

This is a key point, he says:

“Do they just appear to become worse because of that increase in opportunities and the magnification of consequences?”

 

Six, and there’s definitely some truth in this point:

“(People in power) are simply more scrutinized than the rest of us.”

 

To be clear, Klass isn’t saying that power and corruption aren’t related. Rather, he’s making a more subtle point:

“We sometimes confuse the effects of power with intrinsic aspects of holding it.”

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