Does power corrupt?

[Ostrinski]

What's wrong with ethics? And the OP wasn't about absolute power, just power.

Ethics is a decadent, bourgeois system of analysis that supposes that one concrete moral conception transcends history and the change in material conditions. Thus, it is incompatible with the materialist understanding of morality.

My answer to the question is that power does corrupt, and servitude destroys.

AugustWest said it best.

And no, power does not corrupt as "power" is a relatively meaningless term in itself as to define it you would need to isolate it from its conditions/circumstance and these conditions/circumstance determine how it is exercised and hence determine it as a whole.

[MotherCossack]

it is all very well discussing the definition of particular words and arguing about the typeface used in the ultimate manifesto that we will eventually produce ...
power means a whole load of stuff... in this context i reckon it is the baggage that accumulates around those few who get to tell people what to do... who are put in charge, are asked to make decisions by a body of folk [large or small.]
how they got there is one thing... a can of worms for another time...
once there...good intentions are all very well... the pigs didn't last that long, ...

i suspect that human beings are not equipped to deal with being leaders.

maybe there should be some system whereby we all get a short go... like jury service.
it should be regarded as a highly dangerous occupation with a strict maximum length of service. with lots of intermitent head checks to ensure that the boots still fit.

i know a bunch of you think that all this is nonsense, that when we get rid of the state....it will all be irrelevant ,power will cease to affect our lives and everything will be in perpetual harmony with infinite equilibrium.
but who will organise services? Who will sort out logistics . there is a lot of people on this planet... surely we need some system of delegation?

[GPDP]

Delegation is the correct way to go about it. However, it must feature a robust system of accountability, which can easily be achieved by giving the delegates no power beyond the facilitation of communication between interested parties. In other words, coordination and lawmaking will no longer be done by unaccountable professional politicians or bureaucrats doing whatever they want, but by committees and popular assemblies at various levels, who will have delegates appointed only to convey the decisions made elsewhere.

Of course, it also goes without saying delegates should be instantly recallable. If they fuck up too much or start acting like megalomaniacs, it should be possible to immediately strip them of their position. None of this bullshit we have now where we elect representatives for 4 years, and they have free reign to act as they please until the next election cycle, where we may or may not be able to vote them out.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think also when you read accounts of European encounters with various small bands of people, often there are people with power, even chiefs and kings with defined roles that actually don't have the kind of personally corrupt power in the sense we are used to.

In "Myths of Male Dominance" there's descriptions of North American bands encountering Europeans and thinking it was so odd that the men were slavishly afraid of their higher-ups. People in this band routinely mocked their "leaders" and people in charge of things as a social reminder not to get a big head about it. Leaders in these societies had no real power over other people because the efforts of everyone in the band was important for their survival. The same in personal relationships: when Jesuit priests converted people they had to teach the men to force their wives and children to be obedient but the men would come back the the priests and complain that their wives and kids moved into another home.

In capitalism we have to take shit and be obedient on some level because we are divorced from the fruits of our labor. Unorganized workers have to put up with what their bosses demand or they will be replaced, often women who don't work are forced to stay in bad marriages because they have no other options for support.

I think in communism anything we might call leadership could be more like that: totally situational, organic, and temporary. Just like if you were in a group of friends and someone takes charge of deciding where to eat - they usually aren't a corrupt tyrant (well not for making that decision anyway) and someone else just has to speak up and make a good alternative suggestion in order to usurp that position. Maybe this is a silly example.

At any rate, I do think that in the time right after a revolution, there will have to be more formal accountability and rules to protect worker's power from some sort of bureaucratic counter-revolution or entrenchment of delegates: instant recall etc.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

I am currently questioning my level of "faith" in humanity. One side of me thinks that there should be no 'leaders', and instead everybody directly votes on an issue. At the same time, I don't know whether I can safely trust the majority of the public to handle socialism well. I may feel like most people are too opposed to socialism, and so there needs to be order to keep it in place. Not a dictatorship, but a set of rules that everyone needs to follow.

[Q]

I am currently questioning my level of "faith" in humanity. One side of me thinks that there should be no 'leaders', and instead everybody directly votes on an issue. At the same time, I don't know whether I can safely trust the majority of the public to handle socialism well. I may feel like most people are too opposed to socialism, and so there needs to be order to keep it in place. Not a dictatorship, but a set of rules that everyone needs to follow.

Yes, socialism is not at all about worker self-emancipation. As real communists, we know what is best for them. They better listen.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

Yes, socialism is not at all about worker self-emancipation. As real communists, we know what is best for them. They better listen.

I'm sorry, but I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or serious.

[GPDP]

I'm sorry, but I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or serious.

Better get your sarcasm meter fixed.

Although honestly? I can sort of understand. There really are "communists" who think this way.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

Better get your sarcasm meter fixed.

Although honestly? I can sort of understand. There really are "communists" who think this way.

What do you mean? I feel really stupid right now.

[GPDP]

What do you mean? I feel really stupid right now.

Q was being sarcastic. I said I'm not surprised you would think he maybe isn't, because there are some people who say that and are serious.

[Q]

Yes, I was being sarcastic.

Also, I feel like your avatar right now. Or mine for that matter. Or even GPDP's for that matter.

I'm pretty clear on where I stand politically, for example on my blog here on Revleft, so either you didn't care to investigate or I guess you're new.

[MegaBrah]

Does power corrupt? By power it is meant, for example, that person A can use his power over person B to make person B do something that person B otherwise wouldn't have done. But please also come with your own definitions of what power is. Does power in itself corrupt, or do other factors play a role aswell? Does power corrupt due to human nature, or nuture?

Do bears shit in the woods?

Hierachal systems produce inequality and a class society. Any man who wants to place himself above me better be the better man and don't no one qualify

[Q]

Hierachal systems produce inequality and a class society.

No they don't.

Class society is fundamentally based on the mode of production.

Hierarchies on themselves are not an expression of oppression. For example, within an organisation one can have a functional hierarchy just fine. Is that corruption or oppression? Of course not.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Do bears shit in the woods?

Hierachal systems produce inequality and a class society. Any man who wants to place himself above me better be the better man and don't no one qualify

Class society maintains inequality through hierarchical systems.

It's base and superstructure. Think about it: if people were living in egalitarian bands, why would they develop or join a corrupt or repressive hierarchical system? How would things develop in this way?

[Desperado]

People tend to act in their own interests. When these interests are antagonistic to the interests of others and when one group or person has power over the other, then it becomes an exploitative relationship. But, as most of those with power justify it for some other reason, representing a false community of interests - the (exploiting) capitalist is required for efficiency and value, the (abusive) father is caring and protective - we say that the power is corrupt - not doing the moral purpose it says on the tin.

Communism transcends most of this as in it our own interests coincide with the interests of others, hence it requires little forcing of others against their will.

One of Marx's main points is that the main antagonistic groups of interests are those of class, and that most other antagonistic relationships (racism, sexism, between people and the state) stem from this. Certain anarchists or those involved in these other struggles (feminists, black-nationalists) might disagree.

[MegaBrah]

but capitalism and the current mode of production is hierachial by its very nature, so yes hierachy does produce class society.If my boss is extracting surplus value off my labour, thats Hierachal.
Private ownership of the means of production in and of itself is a violent and hierachal act, the same as the fuedal mode of production was.If you abolished Hierachy then capitalism would become abolished, so really yes, what I said was correct.
If society was not based on hierachy then capitalism and all other systems and oppressive modes of production would not have come into existance.

Note Hierachy is not one dude being more popular than another, thats something totally different and rather crude to use to justify a semantic point.

[Desperado]

Note Hierachy is not one dude being more popular than another, thats something totally different and rather crude to use to justify a semantic point.

Well, there's hierarchies of ability and of control, and the two are quite related. If I'm stronger than my brother I can also physically coerce him to do stuff for me.

[MegaBrah]

Well, there's hierarchies of ability and of control, and the two are quite related. If I'm stronger than my brother I can also physically coerce him to do stuff for me.

I am talking about systemic hierachy and economic disparity based on hierachal economic mode of production, this is not related to being able to make your brother make you a grilled cheese.

[Jimmie Higgins]

but capitalism and the current mode of production is hierachial by its very nature, so yes hierachy does produce class society.If my boss is extracting surplus value off my labour, thats Hierachal.

There's a connection, but I think the idea that hierarchy creates class is idealism or at least an inverted way of looking at the development of these things.

People didn't conceive of hierarchy first - why would they do this what motivated them, why would anyone go along with someone calling themselves a king? Unaccountable (to those on the bottom anyway) hierarchy it flows out of class society and a minority class needed to insulate their positions from the majority of society as well as convince all of society their position in society is somehow normal or even the natural order (many pre-capitalist class societies) or is somehow more efficient or those at the top know better and are more skilled (bourgeois society).

To argue that hierarchy creates, rather than is one tool to maintain, hierarchy implies that people created hierarchies and then figured out economic systems and ways of producing goods that fits into a hierarchical model. In my opinion it's like arguing that people created pants so that their suspenders could attach to something.

Private ownership of the means of production in and of itself is a violent and hierachal act, the same as the fuedal mode of production was.If you abolished Hierachy then capitalism would become abolished, so really yes, what I said was correct.

I agree with this, but I think it's abstract. You can equally argue that if you knock down pillars you destroy the building, but pillars in themselves do not make a building. In other ways hierarchy is to class society what pillars are to a building. Pillars are essential to a certain kind of building, but people didn't invent pillars and then get the idea for buildings.

If society was not based on hierachy then capitalism and all other systems and oppressive modes of production would not have come into existance.

So if you have pre-class society, what process and what motivating factors made them change to a hierarchical class system?

[MegaBrah]

There's a connection, but I think the idea that hierarchy creates class is idealism or at least an inverted way of looking at the development of these things.

People didn't conceive of hierarchy first - why would they do this what motivated them, why would anyone go along with someone calling themselves a king? Unaccountable (to those on the bottom anyway) hierarchy it flows out of class society and a minority class needed to insulate their positions from the majority of society as well as convince all of society their position in society is somehow normal or even the natural order (many pre-capitalist class societies) or is somehow more efficient or those at the top know better and are more skilled (bourgeois society).

To argue that hierarchy creates, rather than is one tool to maintain, hierarchy implies that people created hierarchies and then figured out economic systems and ways of producing goods that fits into a hierarchical model. In my opinion it's like arguing that people created pants so that their suspenders could attach to something.

I agree with this, but I think it's abstract. You can equally argue that if you knock down pillars you destroy the building, but pillars in themselves do not make a building. In other ways hierarchy is to class society what pillars are to a building. Pillars are essential to a certain kind of building, but people didn't invent pillars and then get the idea for buildings.

So if you have pre-class society, what process and what motivating factors made them change to a hierarchical class system?

Well your point it seems is easily disproveable, hierachies of groups, into tribes into countires and kingdoms did proceed any advanced economic system.

The first step forward in the mode of production was the nomadic and agrarian kind to a fuedal one, how if Hierachy did not predate class did the emergence of fuedalism come about?

One family or tribe in specific parts of the world rose to power to dominate the rest, then out of these groups reaching the top of the hierachy a leap in the mode of production occured and we then saw serf, guildmaster etc etc, new classes performing their own servitude to the ruling class.

Then we saw the bourgeoisie tearing down the fuedal order, the division of labour, competition and the transformation of the mode of production to what we have now, advanced capitalism, industrial and global.

Before the classes emerged, there was hierachal relations where tribes and then kings and nations rose to power, well nations maybe later but kings and tribes did to a large extent predate class society, hte first ones that is.