I think this story explains some aspects of power and corruption—but not the most dangerous ones. I’d say it fails to explain Hitler and Stalin (though it does a better job with Mao, based on my limited understanding).
Hitler and Stalin were not very personally corrupt. They had near total power, and seemed to spend it all on getting more power, and on inflicting pain on vaguely defined enemies—but not on their lifestyles. Nowhere in Stalin and Hitler’s lifestyles do I see the sort of evolutionary self-indulgence that should have been available to the absolute rulers of millions. Imagine what you could indulge in, if you were in their shoes.
Maybe there are still evolutionary reasons for that restrain—after all, we never had the chance to be the ultimate ruler of more than a few thousand back in the past, so we were never wired to take evolutionary advantage on that scale.
But all in all, I think this story doesn’t enlighten much on the true nature of power and corruption. What does it do to constrain our expectations of how people will behave in power?
I think this story explains some aspects of power and corruption—but not the most dangerous ones. I’d say it fails to explain Hitler and Stalin (though it does a better job with Mao, based on my limited understanding).
Hitler and Stalin were not very personally corrupt. They had near total power, and seemed to spend it all on getting more power, and on inflicting pain on vaguely defined enemies—but not on their lifestyles. Nowhere in Stalin and Hitler’s lifestyles do I see the sort of evolutionary self-indulgence that should have been available to the absolute rulers of millions. Imagine what you could indulge in, if you were in their shoes.
Maybe there are still evolutionary reasons for that restrain—after all, we never had the chance to be the ultimate ruler of more than a few thousand back in the past, so we were never wired to take evolutionary advantage on that scale.
But all in all, I think this story doesn’t enlighten much on the true nature of power and corruption. What does it do to constrain our expectations of how people will behave in power?