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Tankie and PROUD, come @ me lemmy liberals
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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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You are right, power is not a super natural force. However, the psychological impact of power is very real and well understood. The evidence of our own experiences should be enough to tell you this. Also, there are countless psychology experiments demonstrating the corrupting influence of power, which often boils down self-preservation through a continued hold on power. People will make up any old bullshit to justify why they should in power.
The degree of corruption varies between individuals and the level of responsibility they have, but once you bring people into groups it becomes unavoidable. Public transparency and oversight is about the only thing that can constrain it.
You're treating it like a supernatural force, though, and further socialist countries do have public transparency and oversight, so you're drawing a false comparison. People's lived existence determines their thought, there isn't an inherent aspect of having managerial duties that turns people evil or "corrupt."
I'll admit I don't know enough about transparency in communist societies, but you need to read up on the experiments done on human behaviour in power structures. It is fascinating and scary.
You've never read a single peer reviewed paper on the subject.
Not about to get into a pantomime back and forth here, but to satisfy your curiosity.Psychology is a personal area of study. I often read the BPS and APA, though my primary interest is Developmental psychology so I prefer the BJP most months. If I had more patience for statistics I'd have made a career of it.