Individuals fall to temptation all the time. The issue isn't humans, it's the shape of our structures. If only a handful of people are the lynch pin to everything, they're eventually gonna be corrupted by the power. Spreading the power out and not allowing it to coalesce is the answer.

The humans with spread out power weren't bombastic, so they make for uninteresting reads of history. But those stories are out there, of communities quietly thriving in all times.