Power Corrupts. Absolutely. Are We Absolutely Insane?

Why Do We Keep Handing Over Our Power to Systems That Corrupt?

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Most of us have heard the famous quote by Lord Acton, a 19th-century British historian, politician, and moralist:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

It’s one of those truths that resonates deeply—like an old scar we recognize but rarely examine. We know that when power is concentrated, even the well-intentioned can be transformed. Power distorts perspective. It feeds ego, distances leaders from the lived reality of those they claim to serve, and fosters a system of control and manipulation. And yet, globally, we continue to organize our societies in ways that centralize power—then act surprised when those at the top fail us.

Why?

In the modern world, representative democracy has become the de facto system we assume is the apex of political evolution. After centuries of monarchies, dictatorships, and empires, the right to vote feels like progress. And in many ways, it was. But we’ve mistaken a step forward for a final destination.

We vote to give our power to someone else—usually someone backed by enormous amounts of money and influence—hoping they will use that power wisely. But how often does that really happen?

It’s not just an American problem. Around the world, the pattern repeats: we rise up to overthrow corrupt leaders or regimes, only to replace them with new leaders who eventually become corrupt or ineffective themselves. The faces change. The slogans change. But the system remains intact. And so does the cycle.

Isn’t that Einstein’s definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?

We claim to distrust power, yet we keep reinforcing systems that concentrate it. We believe absolute power corrupts, yet we keep handing over absolute power—through our votes, through our institutions, through our belief that “someone else” should be in charge.

The Problem Isn’t Just the Leaders. It’s the System.

This isn’t about any one politician or political party. Yes, we can point to figures like Donald Trump, who seem to embody the worst effects of centralized power. I used to believe the U.S. presidency was mostly symbolic, a position more constrained by checks and balances than actual influence. But I watched as one man’s rhetoric and decisions echoed around the globe—affecting millions, even billions, of lives.

And we let it happen. Not because we’re evil or apathetic, but because we’ve internalized the belief that this is the only way.

But what if it's not?

Power Is a Drug—and the Science Backs It Up

Social psychologists and neuroscientists have studied the effects of power, money, and fame. The research is clear: when people gain power, they tend to become more impulsive, more entitled, less empathetic. The very traits we need most in ethical leadership—humility, compassion, collaborative thinking—are eroded by the very structures we build to elevate leaders. Power literally rewires the brain.

Even when people begin their leadership journey with noble intentions, the incentives are misaligned. Our current systems reward dominance, charisma, and fundraising—not wisdom, cooperation, or systems thinking.

We’ve built a game that selects for narcissism and sociopathy—and then we wonder why our leaders behave accordingly.

Alternative Models Exist—and Always Have

The idea that representative democracy is the end of the road is a kind of collective amnesia. Across time and space, countless cultures have lived without centralized hierarchies of power (see The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow). Many Indigenous societies operated—and some still operate—through consensus decision-making, rotating leadership, and deep social accountability rooted in kinship and community.

Even today, there are living examples: the autonomous zones of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and the democratic confederalist system in Rojava, northern Syria. These are not utopias, but they prove that horizontal governance and decentralized decision-making are not only possible—they are happening now, often under conditions of extreme adversity.

There are also contemporary experiments with digital direct democracy, participatory budgeting, and sociocratic or holocratic models of self-governance. These systems aren’t perfect either—but they decentralize power, encourage distributed intelligence, and foster a culture of shared responsibility.

It’s Time to Stop "Making Decisions" and Start "Arriving at Decisions"

As Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project once said, “We must stop making decisions through systems of electoral politics, governed by money and power, and start arriving at decisions using science, technology, and the needs of all.” Fresco challenged us to imagine a world beyond politics—a world where decisions are not made through lobbying, marketing, and manipulation, but through data, dialogue, and collective well-being.

To do that, we must transcend the foundational assumptions of our current system—what I call MMO: Money, Markets, and Ownership. These concepts, while once functional, now trap us in zero-sum games of scarcity, control, and competition.

Instead, we can begin to build systems rooted in ACAI: Abundance, Coordination, and Aligned Incentives.

With today’s technology—yes, including AI—we have the tools to coordinate at scale without concentrating power. We can build transparent systems of governance that evolve, adapt, and reflect the collective intelligence of the people they serve.

Power Doesn’t Need to Be Taken—It Can Be Dissolved

Many revolutions throughout history have attempted to take power from the corrupt and redistribute it. But even these revolutions often fall into the same trap—replacing one hierarchy with another. That’s the pattern we must finally break.

We don’t need a global civil war to seize control from the powers-that-be. That will only destroy us in the process. We need a deeper shift—a shift in consciousness.

The real revolution is not in taking power. It’s in refusing to play the power game at all. It’s in withdrawing consent, withdrawing belief, and withdrawing participation from the structures that no longer serve us—and instead creating new ones that do.

The Shift Begins Within

This is a paradigm shift. And like all paradigm shifts, it starts invisibly—inside us.

It begins when we stop believing the lie that there is no alternative (TINA).
When we stop asking, “Who should we vote for?” and start asking, “Why do we still think someone else should decide our lives for us?”

The truth is, we don’t need better rulers.
We need to rediscover our own power.

We are not powerless—we’ve just been trained to outsource our agency to systems that keep us divided and distracted. But we can reclaim it. Not through domination, but through participation. Not through control, but through coordination. Not through hierarchy, but through shared stewardship.

We can have governance without governments.
We can practice self-governance without needing governors.
And we can overcome the massive coordination failure at the heart of our collapsing systems.

The rivalrous dynamics and misaligned incentives of our MMO paradigm have fractured our collective intelligence. But we have the tools, the models, and the will to shift into a post-MMO world built on ACAI : Abundance, Cooperation, and Aligned Incentives.

This isn’t just possible. It’s already happening in pockets around the world.
The question is: Will we continue propping up the old paradigm out of fear, or step courageously into the next one?

The future doesn't need rulers.
It needs us.
Together. Empowered. Awake. Aligned.

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