MAIN IDEA:

This book explores the relationship between power and corruption. The author defines his objective this way:” This book answers four main questions.

First, do worse people get power?

Second, does power make people worse?

Third, why do we let people control us who clearly have no business being in control? Fourth, how can we ensure that incorruptible people get into power and wield it justly?

To answer these questions the author goes all the way to the very beginning starting with chimpanzees and human anatomy that provide the ability to fight over some distance such as through a stone or a spear. that other animals do not have. Another core difference is by far superior communication abilities. All of this provides for the development of hierarchies and the implementation of highly organized violence. After reviewing many cases and situations, the author comes up with a list of 10 lessons that could alleviate or even resolve the problem of power and corruption. These are:

Lesson 1: Actively Recruit Incorruptible People and Screen Out Corruptible Ones

Lesson 2: Use Sortition and Shadow Governance for Oversight

Lesson 3: Rotate to Reduce Abuse

Lesson 4: Audit Decision-Making Processes, Not Just Results

Lesson 5: Create Frequent, Potent Reminders of Responsibility

Lesson 6: Don’t Let Those in Power See People as Abstractions

Lesson 7: Watched People Are Nice People

Lesson 8: Focus Oversight on the Controllers, Not the Controlled

Lesson 9: Exploit Randomness to Maximize Deterrence While Minimizing Invasions of Privacy

Lesson 10: Stop Waiting for Principled Saviors. Make Them Instead

MY TAKE ON IT:

The lessons provided by the author are pretty good, but I do not think they go to the core of the issue and therefore hardly would help to resolve it. In my opinion, this core is the process of resource acquisition for individuals in power and the ability of these individuals to control other people’s behavior using the violent hierarchy of the state. The rules should be simple:

1. Nobody who obtains control over the violent hierarchy of a state, however temporarily, should be able to become wealthier than he or she was before obtaining such power. It should be extended all the way until the end of life and include strict control over wealth acquisition by the members of their families. This rule would exclude young individuals who are after wealth from pursuing high-level positions in government. Simultaneously it would attract older individuals who already obtained wealth from voluntary market exchange and would bring their experience to bear. It should not exclude younger individuals who seek a career in government, it would just ensure that plane material corruption such as taking bribes would not be possible.
2. Another important way to minimize corruption of power would be to minimize the power itself by expanding individual rights as much as possible, strictly identifying all and any limitations, and making enforcement of such limitations not optional, but required. For example, freedom of speech should be complete, except for incitement of violence against a group of people with the condition that failure to apply such restriction is in itself a severe offense.
3. Finally, there should be a completely separate hierarchical violent structure that is in no way, shape, or form connected to the general violent hierarchy of the state and limited only to control over members of this general hierarchy. It should be elected or selected via a separate process from the selection of members of the general hierarchy.

I do not think that such rules could be implemented in the current condition of society, but we are living during a time of the growing crisis of society and its mores, so the future resolution of this crises could lead to the establishment of these or some other rules that do make corruption of power technically impossible.