An observation that a person's sense of morality lessens as his or her power increases.

The statement
was made by Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely Meaning

Definition: Having power corrupts a man, or lessens his morality, and the more
power a man has, the more corrupted he will become.
This idiom means that those in power often do not have the people’s best
interests in mind. They are primarily focused on their own benefits, and they may
abuse their position of power to help themselves. If you follow the thread that
absolute power corrupts absolutely, you can believe that monarchs—those with
the most authority—have the least amount of morals. Kinder souls would be
found among poorer, less influential people.

Naturally this is not always the case, as there are many examples of kind and
good leaders. Of those who are corrupted, it is it is hard to distinguish whether
the power corrupted the man or the men who were drawn to power were already
corrupted.

Origin of Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Quotations of similar ideas have

been around since the 1700’s, often referring to the monarchs of the time.
William Pitt the Elder, the British Prime Minister at the time, said in a speech in
the House of Lords in 1770:

“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”
This idea was later expressed in an essay by Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de
Lamartine in 1848 as (translated from French):

“It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in becoming free… the master
himself did not gain less in every point of view,… for absolute power corrupts the
best natures.”
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton coined the most current incarnation of the
phrase, writing, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are
almost always bad men.”
Example of Absolute Power Corrupts
Absolutely

In the modern day, this idiom is used

as an admonition against letting power change your character. It is not often said
in conversation, and only occasionally appears in writing with a specific reference
to it being an idiom. It does not flow naturally off the tongue.

“People always say absolute power corrupts absolutely… I’m not surprised he
spent our tax money on personal interests.”

More Examples
 “Absolute power, they say, corrupts absolutely. Brussels, the seat of
power of the European Union, is learning that lesson the hard way…
Unelected Brussels bureaucrats, drunk on centralized power and the ability
to impose a globalist agenda on their subjects, went too far.” –The
Washington Times
 “‘Start with Lord Acton and the famous axiom that power corrupts,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ said Wayne Flynt, a retired
professor of history at Auburn University. ‘Alabama has had a seamless
transition from Democratic one-party rule and synonymous corruption to
Republican one-party rule and synonymous corruption.'” –The New York
Times
Summary
As a person’s power increases, their sense of morality decreases.
The option to impose one’s will on another is an option that position alone wrongly affords all too many
individuals. Indeed this option to impose on, rather than work with, this option to impose on without
any regard whatsoever for due process, becomes, in the hands of most, a license to harm, if not destroy
the careers and lives of others. People do, after all, inexplicably lose their jobs; careers do get gently
nudged onto the rocks; professional marginalization does occur; first-rate organizational, social and
political initiatives do encounter untenable resistance, if they are not obstructed altogether; minority
oppression does occur; individual whim decimates cultures and destroys countries.

There are some obvious explanations as to why individuals would abuse the authority associated with
their formal positions. The existence of an altogether unrelated drive for personal gain would be at the
top of that list, such as we saw unleashed through the financial sector before ultimately taking the form
of the housing crash, which devastated not only America, but the global economy. I would further
imagine that the existence of malice toward others characteristic of economic, social, political, religious,
ethnic and racial injustices would be a close second. Now as much as we have just cast a wide net,
something else I have observed, based on my work for over two decades as both an executive consultant
within the business sector and psychoanalytical therapist, is that the majority of these abuses of
position, as they present in their everyday forms within business, professional and political circles, are
attributable to something far less sinister, albeit no less destructive. What I have been led to conclude is
that managerial or leadership incompetence is a significant factor when it comes to such abuses within
business, professional and political circles.

Power is that to which leadership necessarily defaults in the absence of being able to contain and
process meaning with others and within oneself. In the absence of functional interpersonal [with others]
processing and functional intrapsychic [internal] processing there can only be power. In the absence of
functional processing and meaning there can only be the dynamics of imposition, will and power. We
should add to this the alarming fact that many individuals, by way of promotion or other circumstances,
eventually find themselves holding positions of authority that exceed their leadership/consciousness
capabilities to function within meaning rather than power. Looking to current events, even after we
allow for the normal restrictions of partisanship politics, does not the pure inanity of the debt ceiling
fiasco provide us with more evidence of this point than we care to see? How could we not conclude that
those holding positions of authority had exceeded their leadership/consciousness capabilities to function
within meaning rather than power? With the stakes so high for the world’s foremost economy and by
extension yet again the global economy, in light of the leadership/consciousness vacuum, is it any
wonder that for the first time in the history of the United States action, in the form of the downgrading
of the US credit rating, had to be taken by an outside party to contain the chaos, to contain that which
was not being properly processed.

So why does power corrupt? It corrupts because it gives license to unconsciousness and neglect. It
corrupts because it licenses individuals to unilaterally, unreflectively and thus arbitrarily impose their will
on others. It licenses individuals to impose their will without having properly engaged and processed
through the Reality at hand. Power inflates the ego and through it the ego is erroneously led to believe it
has the power to make people, ideas and even Reality itself disappear without due process. In the big
picture nothing is further from the truth. Power corrupts because it gives license to unconsciousness,
and in so doing it not only destroys the growth opportunity of the victim of such imposition, but no less
the growth opportunity of the victimizer. Failure to engage another in consciousness, not only does the
other individual harm, but it no less does serious harm to oneself, for in both cases the precious
opportunity to extend consciousness by way of self-organizing nature is altogether lost, corrupted.

By way of power you corrupt; by way of power you are corrupted. By way of absolute power you
absolutely corrupt; by way of absolute power you become absolutely corrupted.