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 so when you superadd the certainty of corruption by authority. – Lord Acton
I should start off by apologizing for the title; I guess my point could have been conveyed just as easily by saying, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.” History has provided enough examples of despots, dictators, tyrants, and even team leads who have abused their position of authority simply because they have power over someone beneath them. In a country that has made the power hierarchy a part of its social structure through deeply rooted casteism, we have a unique insight into the dynamics of power and corruption. The fact remains that anyone with power over someone else will inevitably abuse that power. So, the question becomes: How much power does someone need before they can abuse it or become corrupt? Can we assume that a Panchayat head is less corrupt than a Chief Minister? Is corruption proportional to how high up the totem pole they climb? Are they all equally corrupt, with only the scope of that corruption differing?
Before we continue, it might help to define power. There can be no effect without cause, after all. Humanity has gravitated toward a social hierarchy since the dawn of civilization. In order to stay organized, it was inevitable that we would break into various strata, with some responsible for cultivation, others for accounting, and others still for protection and safety. Given that those responsible for protection and safety faced the highest risks and needed to be organized to confront external threats, it was only natural for them to be elevated to a higher position than the other strata. Of course, it also helped that they held all the weapons. Naturally, the leader of the army was quickly elevated to the position of King to ensure that rules were followed and to maintain order—Napoleon being a classic example. This elevation came simply with the position, as they were the only group of people with the means to enforce the rules. The ability to enforce rules quickly translated into the ability to make rules, and now we have our first king. You will notice that the ability to enforce and make rules also made the king the judiciary. This error was only rectified much later with the creation of the Magna Carta. Thus, we see that granting people power came with the necessity of having an organized social structure and the progress of civilization. In other words, giving someone power is not necessarily a bad thing.
If giving someone power is not a bad thing, then it must surely be the person who is at fault. Giving power to the wrong person is why they become corrupt. If this argument were true, it would have solved all our problems; however, as the title of this piece suggests, it is inevitable that once given power, a person will become corrupt. It is the effect of the power that corrupts the person, not the person’s character. The local shopkeeper in your area has no power over you, unlike the local police constable, for example. In other words, if the person were a shopkeeper, their ability to be corrupt is severely limited compared to someone with real authority.
Someone could be pure evil and still not have the ability to influence or harm others due to the lack of power available to them. On the other hand, if someone possesses a strong moral fibre, we could argue that giving them more power would benefit society as a whole, since their moral fibre would ensure that their decisions benefit the masses and not them personally. An argument can be made here for the likes of Gandhi or Lincoln, but we can explore how rare such cases are and how quickly others stepped in to take over the vacuum left by them at a later date. In an ideal scenario, this would be how any normal society should function. However, in order for someone to have that level of power, they need to first climb up the totem pole, and with each step they take, the system is designed in a way that compromises or erodes their character. It is not a trope of cinema to see young, ambitious, idealistic youth join various government positions at the entry level with a genuine wish to improve the system, only to have their ambition and fire tempered as they progress up the ladder. The system beats them into submission until they conform to the practices already in place. Every government officer, in the privacy of their home, has reflected on how their job has changed them. They find consolation in attributing their loss of idealism to naivety and the reason for giving up to circumstances being out of their control. Indira Gandhi is a great example of how prolonged exposure to politics tends to make a person want to hold on to that power under the delusion that it is for the greater good, Ceaser , Napolean and many more such examples are scattered through out history.
So, at this point, if we agree that power is a good thing and it is inevitable that people themselves will be corrupted, we are still left with the question of how power corrupts the person. In the previous paragraph, I alluded to the idea that having a job is what grants power to the person, and therefore the amount of power is linked to what kind of job you perform—be it a king, a policeman, etc. This argument holds some water but is not necessarily true in all cases. More important to understand here is that power often manifests when you are at your lowest point. For example, you approach a doctor, a policeman, a politician, or a judge only when you have exhausted all other options available to you. In many cases, you will find that not only are you limited in terms of who you can turn to, but the amount of influence they have over you is disproportionate.
The above point requires further elaboration.
In many of the cases mentioned above, the dynamics of power are one-directional, they have power over you, while you do not have any power over them. This is different from a profession like visiting a shopkeeper, where, if you don’t like what you see, you can always explore another shop. The ability to have options and not be limited by the decisions of one particular group tempers the amount of damage that the corruption of that individual can radiate. What this really means is that you are captive to the geography and the corrupt individuals within that geography, regardless of your perception of being a free person. If your home is robbed, you cannot go to another city and file a police case about the robbery. It is your local police station that has substantial influence over your situation. The same goes for politicians, judges, etc. But what about doctors? You can always try another doctor or another hospital. They do not have the same level of power. I would argue that they do, but the fact remains that doctors are a rare group who have built a reputation for protecting people. For the majority, we can argue that the extent of their corruption is limited and localized. You may be forced to pay exorbitant fees, but at the same time, the return on investment could be significantly higher for a better health outcome.
That said, the real power of a doctor doesn’t come from their profession but from how desperate the individual seeking their help is. A cancer patient facing a terminal situation, in their moment of desperation, bestows unlimited power on the doctor, which may or may not be abused at the doctor’s discretion. In other words, sometimes power is taken, and in other times, power is given willingly—much like a shopkeeper who knows his shop is the only place you can buy what you’re looking for. He is free to charge or deny service as he sees fit. So we give people power either thru elections or voluntary
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