Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas
BOOK REVIEWS BY BINOD
BINOD’S RATING: 8/10
Key points:
1. Humans seem somehow drawn to giving power to the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
2. Innovations in warfare and agriculture contributed to the rise of hierarchical societies between 11,000 and 5,000 years ago.
3. When humans get together in larger groups, flat societies become impossible. Put enough people together, and hierarchy and dominance always emerge.
4. Many of the legendary psychology experiments performed over the last 60 years (Milgram, Stanford Prison, etc.) have been partially or wholly debunked as their participants were overwhelmingly undergrads from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries. Western college students are not the best representatives of human emotion, behavior, and sexuality
5. Power-hungry people are, by definition, more likely to seek power.
6. When you recruit into positions of power, it’s not just about who gets the job and who doesn’t. It’s also about who applies in the first place.
7. If you have a low number of recruits, you don’t have much competition or only the power-hungry compete. So, it’s no surprise that you end up with these corruptible people in power. You have to proactively seek out people who don’t want power, which is very difficult to do but is also the quintessential starting point.
8. In the US, the police force attracts the wrong people. Military veterans sign up by the thousands, ready, willing and able to shoot or smash anyone they don’t like. Worse, the federal govt donates billions of dollars worth of surplus military equipment to local police forces, a lot of which is unnecessary (armored vehicles??).
9. If you’re a bully, a bigot, or a sexual predator, policing is a really attractive career choice. Policemen are renowned for domestic violence in their own families, abuse of steroids, and lying-in court, all far in excess of national averages.
10.Cultures of corruption had a drastic effect on individual behavior. But enforcement—the system—mattered, too. Culture matters, but so do consequences.
11.Why do we think power corrupts, if the evidence points to the opposite? Because: A) It’s not that leaders are inherently corrupt, but that they have to make tough choices most of us will never have to face. B) Bad leaders may not necessarily be worse than the average person; they have more opportunities to screw up and are under more scrutiny and hence more likely to get caught.
12. Give power to more women. Substantial research has shown that, on average, women are less prone to despotism than men and more eager to rule by democratic means.
13. Our modern surveillance systems have everything backward. We’re watching the wrong people. CEO’s and board members can do far more damage than low-level workers, but who is monitored more closely in most organizations?
14. Leaders need to be constantly reminded of the real-world consequences of their actions.
15. If we can recognize our own tendencies to vote for or promote the wrong people based on superficial assessments made with our Stone Age brains, we can try to do better.
Written by a social scientist who has advised many organizations (including NATO, the EU & Amnesty Int’l), this is a nuanced and entertaining guide to the meaning and function of power.
Must read!