1/4 - On "absolute power corrupts absolutely" - this is a valid insight, but it has three valid interpretations and another (the most common) which is backwards
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Acton and Pitt were talking about offices. Offices delegate state power to office-holders, to wield for the public good, while in office Here, "unlimited"/"absolute" refers to the power *of an office*, and corruption refers to violating those two defining limits
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Acton and Pitt were working within a much older tradition about the way in which slavery/despotism corrupts both the master and the slave Here it is not power that corrupts the master, but the power his slaves gain over him: he depends on them, they subvert him in self-defense
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oh I see what you mean. Before the coronation you need to claim a 1M-man army, and that's a sort of organized lie that gives all the liars informal power?
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i'm not exactly following the parallelism, but I assume we agree - I wrote about the way traditions/fibs intersect with bureaucratic power here:https://quaslacrimas.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/early-modern-statecraft-and-statecruft/ …
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Right, ppl just don't get mean reversion That said, formalists can't afford to be pollyanna-ish about succession disputes. Kings worry about dukes with good reason
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