Lord Acton famously wrote in 1887
that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad
men." Most of us are familiar with
the dictum. Fewer are aware of the
context, and probably even fewer know that there has been a modest amount of
research to try to ascertain if Acton was correct. (No, the topic didn't arise for me because of
the 2016 U.S. elections. I've long been
curious about and intrigued by the claim.)
"The historian Henry Adams was
being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as 'a sort of tumor
that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.'"
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton,
1st Baron Acton, 1834-1902, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and
writer. The "Catholic" part of
it is important. One thing I learned
about him, in doing some reading, was that he was a strong supporter of the
South in the (American) Civil War. He
believed in state's rights; as an historian, he had come to distrust
centralized governments and believed that the U.S. would eventually become
tyrannical. According to Wikipedia,
After the South's surrender, he wrote
to Robert E. Lee that "I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more
deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo," adding that
he "deemed that you were fighting battles for our liberty, our progress,
and our civilization."
There
are other reasons not to admire Acton that don't warrant exploration here—but
there are also good reasons to admire him that also don't need elaboration
here. (For example, in a major lecture
he proclaimed that "opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall,
but the moral law is written on
the
tablets of eternity." He knew what
that moral law was. Few in any field
would make that kind of claim today.)
Acton was deeply involved in the
affairs of the Catholic church, including editing a monthly Catholic
publication. He traveled to Rome for the
First Vatican Council (1869-70) to lobby against the doctrine of papal
infallibility; he "was influential in formulating the case against
infallibility, publicizing it within the council and to the outside world, and
coordinating the activities of the minority of bishops who opposed the
doctrine," according to the conservative historian Gertrude Himmelfarb,
who wrote a book on Acton. His views did
not prevail; the Church reified papal infallibility (on matters of church
doctrine) at the Council in 1870 (and Acton was nearly excommunicated, but for
the intervention of powerful friends, Himmelfarb reported). It was in the context of debates about papal
infallibility that Acton wrote about power, in a letter 17 years after the
Vatican Council, to a scholar colleague.
Not only did he pen the dictum about power corrupting, there was
another, equally interesting claim.
I cannot accept your canon that we are
to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that
they did no wrong. If there is any
presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as
the power increases. Historic
responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. 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 when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by
authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of
it [emphasis mine].
That
last is an assertion with which many Americans would probably take issue. I do not.
I think it should be widely broadcast.
Now, as for research. The first question is "why
bother?" The authors of one of the
articles, Bendahan et al (2015, so quite recent), that explicitly mentions
Acton explain why (citations omitted).
Leaders wield power and can have
important consequences on outcomes whether in micro- or macro-organizational
settings. The hierarchical nature of
organizations, rooted in status and power differences, results in political
tensions, power asymmetries, and conflicting interests. These dynamics raise an important question . .
. : Do those with power use it in ways
that serves the greater good or do they succumb to its corruptive effects?
They
go on to point out that the relationship between power and corruption has been
the subject of debate since antiquity (e.g., Plato's philosopher kings) because
of the effect corruption can have on organizations and economies and because
leaders often shape or at least affect culture.
Basic research findings at the
individual leader level thus have important policy implications for
institutions, which would want to ensure that they have the necessary
safeguards so that leaders use power in prosocial ways. That power may corrupt
is indeed possible; however, it is also equally possible that those who are
corrupt "at heart" may seek power.
They summarize the results of earlier
studies.
Overall, it appears that those who have
power rationalize and legitimize its discretionary use to maintain social
status differentials; in essence power appears to make individuals
self-serving. There are several mechanisms
that give us reason to believe that power may corrupt. Power appears to engender a sense of
entitlement, emotional disengagement, and self-interest. In other words the powerful see the less
powerful as less worthy and evidence also suggests that the powerful may even
become more prejudiced; they also tend to stereotype the less powerful. In addition, the powerful tend to become very
self-centered. Experimental studies show
that powerful individuals tend to ignore the advice of others and demonstrate
reduced perspective taking. . . . It
also appears that power makes individuals overconfident; such findings suggest
that those who are powerful may be prone to engaging in more self-serving
behavior and somehow feel immune to sanctions. . . . These psychological channels imply that those
who have power may be blinded to social norms, behave in socially inappropriate
ways, feel superior to others, and fail to see wrong from right; additionally,
those with power will disregard others and see them as means to satisfying
ends.
Other than that, there's nothing
wrong with power.
Psychologists, however, are not of one
mind about the accuracy of Acton's assertion.
A U of California-Berkeley psychologist did some experimental as well as
observational research. After a
near-serious accident, in which a very expensive Mercedes almost ran over him,
Professor Keltner speculated about whether there was a difference between
drivers with really expensive cars—and presumably thus from wealth and
positions of authority—and those who didn't have such cars. So he sent students out to observe traffic in
Berkeley.
The results couldn’t have been
clearer. Mercedes drivers were a quarter
as likely to stop at a crossing and four times more likely to cut in front of
another car than drivers of beaten-up Ford Pintos and Dodge Colts. The more luxurious the vehicle, the more
entitled its owner felt to violate the laws of the highway.
I
don't know about you, but this finding is in line with my observations over
many years about the people who drive Cadillacs and Lincolns.
So then Keltner did some lab
experiments.
The results all stacked the same
way. People who felt powerful were less
likely to be empathetic; wealthy subjects were more likely to cheat in games
involving small cash stakes and to dip their fists into a jar of sweets marked
for the use of visiting children. When
watching a video about childhood cancer they displayed fewer physiological
signs of empathy. . . . Similar results
occurred even when the privilege under observation had no meaning beyond the
experiment room. Rigged games of
Monopoly were set up in which one player took a double salary and rolled with
two dice instead of one: winners failed
to acknowledge their unfair advantage and reported that they had triumphed
through merit.
There are earlier studies, although
not laboratory experiments. C. Wright
Mills wrote one of the most well-known, The
Power Elite, in 1956, "an account of American society that shocked a
generation: partly because it suggested
the country was controlled by self-sustaining cliques of military, political
and corporate men." A refugee from
Lenin's Russia, founder of Harvard's sociology department, wrote, shortly after
Mills, that "Taken as a whole, the ruling groups are more talented
intellectually and more deranged mentally than the ruled population." Similarly, a guy in business psychology,
after interviewing American business executives, found that "most
professed that they treated colleagues with suspicion, regarded friendship as a
weakness and allowed self-interest to govern their behaviour." Then the Stanford prison experiment, by
Philip Zimbardo, led to the proposition that the corruption of power is
situational, not individual. (Students
were divided into guards and prisoners; over a couple of weeks, the guards
became brutal, the prisoners submissive, and Zimbardo had to stop the
experiment because the situation was getting out of hand.) There remains debate about what or how much
one can infer from Zimbardo's experiment, but it highlighted Acton's proposition
that those with power behave badly.
Some don't like the conclusion. Keltner learned that some believe "the
world only progressed through the efforts of superior people . . . and there
are a lot of people who are committed to the idea that the powerless are
mentally deficient." He tells
companies and governments "that too much power is bad for individuals, bad
for society, bad for commerce. They’re not always pleased to hear it."
On a little bit further reading, I
discovered a summary of the work of Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at
McMaster University. He looks at brains,
not behavior. He did work with neural
stimulation, with subjects who were both powerful and not, and "found that
power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, 'mirroring,' that may be a
cornerstone of empathy." Those with
power can lose the ability to mirror; Obhi hypothesizes that there are
permanent neural changes in those who hold power for any length of time, and their
sensibilities to those around them diminishes.
Lord David Owen—British foreign
secretary and member of Parliament, but before that a neurologist—examined
"the various maladies that had affected the performance of British prime
ministers and American presidents since 1900." Some had identifiable problems (stroke,
substance abuse), but, he argued, "at least four others acquired a
disorder that the medical literature doesn’t recognize." He and a co-author describe it as the
"Hubris syndrome, . . . a disorder of the possession of power, particularly
power which has been associated with overwhelming success, held for a period of
years and with minimal constraint on the leader. Its 14 clinical features include: manifest contempt for others, loss of contact
with reality, restless or reckless actions, and displays of incompetence."
Other academics looked at power and
corruption as well. Some reached a
contrary conclusion, based on large data sets rather than experiment and
observation. "Privileged individuals,
the data suggested, were proportionally more generous to charity than their
poorer fellow citizens; more likely to volunteer; more likely to help a
traveller struggling with a suitcase or to look after a neighbour’s
cat."
Who knows why these results are
different. It may be deception on the
part of the wealthy and powerful; it may be a difference in methodology
(relying on self-reported survey information rather than experiment and observation). Or the experiments may not be getting at the
issues. Keltner believes his results
have been replicated many times; he believes power does indeed corrupt.
The group I cited earlier, Bendahan et al, did a careful literature review and
conducted sophisticated experiments.
Here's what they concluded.
The results of our experiments suggest
that both the situation and the person predict corruption. As expected, power affects individuals in a
way that makes them behave antisocially.
Leaders who received additional power and more discretionary choices,
whether in one-shot decisions or in repeated choices over time, were more
likely to profit from their power and . . . to violate the very social norms to
which they had subscribed. . . . It
seems that individuals given power somehow become inoculated against the
psychological costs incurred for violating social norms, and are more likely to
benefit themselves while destroying public wealth.
A friend of mine who worked at the
executive level doesn't agree. He and I
exchanged emails about power and corruption; he had a very different view,
based on his experience.
I met and had dealings with many [individuals with power] on
boards and organizations. . . . With
very few exceptions, I found them to have qualities the opposite of most of the
negative ones noted in the studies.
An observation I made long ago, and have found reinforced time and
again, was that it seemed the more successful one was, the more kind,
empathetic, nonjudgmental, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly obedient, cheerful,
thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent they seemed to be. During the journey
to success they may have been bastards, but somewhere along the line success
freed them.
A lot of those successful and powerful people who came into my
orbit were Midwesterners at heart, and I do think there is something to that.
Garrison is right, after all. Nevertheless, I have noted a difference in
the work ethic and personalities of different parts of the country.
My personal experience has led me to believe that once powerful
people have "arrived", they often exhibit a gratefulness, or great
fullness, about their station in life, and many try to help others. On the other hand, I could just be a cockeyed
optimist or delusional.
When it comes to the negatives your preview documented, I couldn't
help but think that you could put Donald Trump's name down time and again and
the personification of all those negatives.
Pursuing
my friend's different take and experience would require a far deeper dive into
the literature than I want to undertake (at least for the purpose of this
letter). Moreover, there's no guarantee
that the questions he implicitly raises, such as whether there is a difference
between a political context, a private-sector context, and a private non-profit
sector context. In my experience at a
university, and in conversations with college presidents around the Twin
Cities, I would assert that the executives in such organizations really don't
have a lot of power (not as most people would understand the term, anyway)—and
they say so themselves. A
college/university president can give orders to do something—and it may or may
not happen. I don't know if that's true
in other parts of the non-profit sector (e.g., hospitals, churches at a level
below the Vatican—the original source of Acton's irritation—social service
organizations, K-12 schools). In many
such organizations, power is dispersed across offices and levels.
(There
is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about Dwight Eisenhower when he was president of
Columbia University after World War II (1948-53). One time he supposedly exclaimed in
frustration something to the effect that when he was Supreme Commander of the
Allied Forces in Europe, he would give an order and everyone would jump to obey
it, but as president of Columbia he would give an order and nothing
happened. There is another story, retold
in our local newspaper, that "President Harry Truman famously predicted of
his successor, Dwight Eisenhower: 'Poor
Ike. He will sit here and say "Do
this! Do That!" and nothing will
happen.'")
There
is research support for my friend's views and experience. In an article in Nautilus this year, science writer Matthew Hutson began by quoting
Michelle Obama about decisions; "'At the end of the day . . . when it comes time to make that
decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your
vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.' Research in cognitive science reveals the
former First Lady is right: Power
exposes your true character. It releases inhibitions and sets your inner self
free. If you’re a jerk when you gain
power, you’ll become more of one. If
you’re a mensch, you’ll get nicer."
Citing a variety of research, Hutson drew a number of
conclusions. He first reported that
"psychologists generally define power as control
over others, by providing or withholding resources, without social
interference." (That isn't the
usual definition in the social sciences, but whatever.) The research findings suggest that
power
. . . makes people more likely to act on their desires. . . . When working with others, the powerful are
also more likely to voice their opinions. . . .
We are less deliberative and more persistent in pursuing our goals when
we gain power. . . . Overall, power
makes us feel authentic. Power’s effects on expression result largely from the
fact that it frees us from dependence on others, allowing us to ignore their
concerns and pursue our own objectives.
Intoxication from power leads us to focus more clearly on whatever goal
we have in mind. With clear focus on a goal, we then pursue it. Those goals are often selfish, which would
seem to support the historian Lord Acton’s dictum that "Power tends to corrupt,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
But it’s not that simple.
A business school psychology faculty member at
Emory University maintains there are four groups of traits that drive the
nature of someone's leadership:
"personality, individualism, values, and desire for
power." "Narcissism and Machiavellianism are stoked by power. . .
. [But] ethical leadership, on the other
hand, arises out of several positive personality traits." Probably not surprising, "honest, humble
leaders were more ethical than others, while agreeable leaders were more
supportive." Interestingly, people
who feel guilt are also more likely to be rated as better leaders. Those who were more concerned about the
success of a group were also more effective and less obnoxious than someone
with a more individualistic approach; the latter tended to engage in "more
abusive behaviors." One thinks of
cardboard characters like John Galt.
Lord Owen, incidentally, found little interest in businesses in
studying power and the hubris syndrome—and not much more interest in business
schools.
There are also cultural differences. It appears that Hispanics are more focused on
the collective; European Americans tend to use power to take advantage of
others and evidence increased selfishness.
Asian Americans felt increased responsibility and decreased selfishness
when they acquire power. One's
individual values also affect how power is used; if someone downplays the
virtues of being fair, kind, and honest, they're more likely to abuse power.
There are, of course, multiple personal and contextual factors
involved in most behavior. But
correlations between character and power are clear. Ethical and responsible
power holders tend to be agreeable, honest, humble, and cooperative. Their counterparts are narcissistic,
Machiavellian, and socially dominant. . . .
Seeking power is not necessarily bad.
What matters is whether someone craves the freedom to reap selfish
rewards or feels a duty to shoulder social responsibility.
Naturally,
the question arises in politics about how someone will exercise power. The Emory University researcher observed that
"when that someone is a politician, say a presidential candidate, he or
she can be especially tricky to diagnose.
'With presidential candidates it’s hard at this point to get anyone to
say anything that is from the heart. . . .
But one of the things we can look at is, When you weren’t running for
office, what were you doing with your life?
Was it working for organizations that benefit you, or working for
organizations that are intended to benefit a broader constituency?'" Draw whatever conclusions you wish about Mr.
Trump.
In short, when people obtain power, don’t expect them to behave
dramatically differently from how they behaved before. Nice people don’t
suddenly become tyrants, and jerks don’t automatically become servants. How
people behave when few people are watching them is a good indicator of how
they’ll act when everyone is.
I want to note that, as with a number
of the topics I look at here, there is a significant amount of research, more
than I can possibly read, much less summarize.
Given that, and more from history than research, on balance I think
Acton was correct. The problem that Acton
identified, in my view, is who it is that obtains power and how they get it. "Nice people don't suddenly become
tyrants"—but if I had to guess, I would guess that nice people also don't
obtain power as often as those who are not nice.
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