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JanetK comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong
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I flat-out disagree that power corrupts as the phrase is usually understood, but that's a topic worthy of rational discussion (just not now with me).
The claim that there has never been a truly benevolent dictator though, that's simply a religious assertion, a key point of faith in the American democratic religion and no more worthy of discussion than whether the Earth is old, at least for usual meanings of the word 'benevolent' and for meanings of 'dictator' which avoid the no true Scotsman fallacy. There have been benevolent democratically elected leaders in the usual sense too. How confident do you think you should be that the latter are more common than the former though? Why?
I'm seriously inclined to down-vote the whole comment community on this one except for Peter, though I won't, for their failure to challenge such an overt assertion of such an absurd claim. How many people would have jumped in against the claim that without belief in god there can be no morality or public order, that the moral behavior of secular people is just a habit or hold-over from Christian times, and that thus that all secular societies are doomed? To me it's about equally credible.
BTW, just from the 20th century there are people from Ataturk to FDR to Lee Kuan Yew to Deng Chou Ping. More generally, more or less The Entire History of the World especially East Asia are counter-examples.
I agree that statements like all As are Bs are likely to be only approximately true and if you look you will find counter examples. But... 'power corrupts' is a fairly reliable rule of thumb as rules of thumb go. I include a couple of refs that took all of 3 minutes to find although I couldn't find the really good one that I noticed a year or so ago.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1298606 abstract: We investigate the effect of power differences and associated expectations in social decision-making. Using a modified ultimatum game, we show that allocators lower their offers to recipients when the power difference shifts in favor of the allocator. Remarkably, however, when recipients are completely powerless, offers increase. This effect is mediated by a change in framing of the situation: when the opponent is without power, feelings of social responsibility are evoked. On the recipient side, we show that recipients do not anticipate these higher outcomes resulting from powerlessness. They prefer more power over less, expecting higher outcomes when they are more powerful, especially when less power entails powerlessness. Results are discussed in relation to empathy gaps and social responsibility.
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/01/power.php from J Lehrer's comments: The scientists argue that power is corrupting because it leads to moral hypocrisy. Although we almost always know what the right thing to do is - cheating at dice is a sin - power makes it easier to justify the wrongdoing, as we rationalize away our moral mistake.
Somewhat relevant:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1548222
I can think of a number of reasons why monarchs may suffer somewhat less from the 'power corrupts' norm. (1) often educated from childhood to use power wisely (2) often feel their power is legit and therefore less fearful of overthrow (3) tend to get better 'press' than other autocrats so that abuse of power less noticeable (4) often have continuity and structure in their advisors inherited from previous monarch.
Despite this, there have been some pretty nasty monarchs through history - even ones that are thought of as great like Good Queen Bess. However, if I had to live in an autocratic state I would prefer an established monarchy, all others things being equal.
Voted up for using data, though I'm very far from convinced by the specific data. The first seems irrelevant or at best very weakly suggestive. Regarding the second, I'm pretty confident that scientists profoundly mis-understand what sort of thing hypocrisy is as a consequence of the same profound misunderstanding of what sort of thing mind is which lead to the failures of GOFAI. I guess I also think they misunderstand what corruption is, though I'm less clear on that.
It's really critical that we distinguish power corrupting from fear and weakness producing pro-social submission and from fearful people invoking morality to cover over cowardice. In the usual sense of the former concept corruption is something that should be expected, for instance, to be much more gradual. One should really notice that heroes in stories for adults are not generally rule-abiding, and frequently aren't even typically selfless. Acting more antisocial, like the people you actually admire (except when you are busy resenting their affronts to you) do, because like them you are no longer afraid is totally different from acting like people you detest.
I don't think that "power corrupts" is a helpful approximation at the level of critical thinking ability common here. (what models are useful depends on what other models you have).