Does power corrupt?

[Prinskaj]

I have heard the concept of "power corrupts", being described as a bourgeois idea.
Could someone please elaborate?

[KlassWar]

Power per se doesn't corrupt: Thing is, with power comes privilege. People then tend to take measures to preserve their own power, if only for the perks.

It doesn't automatically soil and corrupt them: For examle, A left-wing, populist leader may cling to power by introducing popular, pro-worker reforms to boost his own influence and ensure his re-election. Although this hypothetical democratic leftist is indeed preserving his power/privilege, he isn't actually becoming corrupted by it.

Bourgeois power does corrupt: Bourgeois leaders rule on behalf of the propertied elites. Ultimately, they hold the leash: The bourgeoisie owns the mass media and they largely control public discourse: If a politician went rogue, they'd discredit him. If it didn't work, they might deliberately sabotage the economy to create unrest. If it still didn't work, they'd fund a military coup to overthrow the regime and implement dictatorial class rule.

Reformist politicians then must then sell out the people over and over to cater to the interests of the ultimate owners of the scheme.

[ParaRevolutionary]

I think power corrupts the selfish. If you maintain a firm grasp on the fact that your power has been granted, by the people, for the sole purpose of serving the people then i dont think you will have a problem.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

The idea that power corrupts is bourgeois idealism because it suggests that an abstract idea (power) corrupts a material being (the person in power). Matter does not revolve around ideas, it is actually the other way around.

[Revolution starts with U]

"Corrupt" is a bogus term to begin with. It's not like it takes good people and makes them bad. Poeple are people, who act like people. Give them power and most seek to preserve it. Put yourself in that situation, and think what you would do. (And I mean really what would you do, not that bullshit story you made up to feel better about yourself)

[Rooster]

If you attain real power, absolute power, over society but the material conditions do not allow you to advance the ideas that you have but instead corrupts those ideals that you held then yes, power does corrupt. Men do not make history in the way that they want.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Also, the idea that power corrupts tries to say that all power, in general, corrupts. It overlooks the material conditions specific to the period in which a certain leader is in power, making it anti-materialist and thus unacceptable.

[NewLeft]

See this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/does-power-corrupti-t166798/index.html?t=166798

We can't separate power from the situation.

[Rafiq]

"power corrupting" implies material imparity from day 1.

Many of the times you think power is corrupting, it's merely a shift in class rule/relations.

[The Jay]

So murdering competing comrades in purges is simply a shift in class relations? Got it.

[Caj]

Saying power corrupts makes about as much sense as saying "revisionism" corrupts. Idealist bullshit.

[Amal]

So murdering competing comrades in purges is simply a shift in class relations? Got it.
Compete? For what? Those who compete for posts how can be "comrades"? Actually, by "competing", they had proved that would corrupt when they will come to power.

[The Jay]

I never said that was what I wanted, I don't support a vanguard to begin with. I was making jest with his politics and position but I guess that you didn't understand my joke. Lighten up.

[DrStrangelove]

No. The thought behind "power corrupts" is un-materialist, and un-Marxist. "Power" is an idea and as such is constrained to material conditions of the world in which it exists. The material conditions influence the ideas, not vice versa.

[Ostrinski]

Power does not corrupt. Corruption is an ethical view in its assertion that one is of good moral character from the start, and holding a position of power corrupts them. When we look at it objectively however we see that "power" in the political sense only makes one an agent of ruling class interest. No corruption, conspiring, sneakiness, or any bullshit like that.

Power can, however, turn people into dicks.