The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe:
“In previous columns, we’ve taken up sex and money, so now let’s turn to power. As with sex and money — and most of the important matters in life — many silly things are said about power. Perhaps the granddaddy of those silly things is the oft-quoted phrase, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
“There is an important truth that Lord Acton’s phrase tries to capture. But taken literally it is false, and it misdiagnoses abuses of power. So the issue is worth a closer look.
“Power is the ability to do work. It comes in many forms, such as the cognitive power of thinking, the moral power of self-responsibility, the physical power of moving one’s body, the social power of influencing others, the political power of controlling others’ actions, and so on.
“Abuses of social and political power are the most worrisome and, as Acton’s line suggests, the worst corruptions occur in nations that centralize political power the most. Social science data bears this out, as Transparency International Corruption Perceptions graphic, for example, nicely captures …” [Read more here.]
Last week’s column: Blamestorming: “Deregulation Caused the Financial Crisis”.
A wonderfully lucid untangling of the problem with Acton’s famous aphorism. Power can mean many things, good and bad: from life-enabling skills (a child learning to walk) to legal enfranchisement (women’s suffrage) to oppressive political authority (Stalin’s Terror). I think the most fundamental and far reaching social motivator is simply the power to live as humans qua humans: The ability to answer those primal needs, desires and aspirations shared by every member of every society i.e. to support one’s life, values, dignity, self-actualization and fulfillment with everything they require and imply.
Regarding your article on Acton’s famous sentiment. Most do not realize that Acton was involved in the Catholic Church’s debates on whether or not to decree that Popes are infallible. It’s in this context that Acton was urging against giving absolute power, i.e., against giving absolute power to the Pope. Acton, according to my reading, was a behind-the-scenes campaigner who gave arguments to others who were against the agenda to make the Pope (all Popes) infallible inside the Catholic Church.