How do you respond to this? It’s not something I’ve done a lot of research into, but it seems like one of the few critiques where you just say “critical support for the USSR, we need to learn from the past mistakes the soviets made and do better the next time around.”
Nah, power doesn’t corrupt. Corrupt people chase positions of power, even petty ones, like middle management.
How do these “corrupt people” come into being? That sounds like essentialist, idealistic thinking to me.
There’s a sizable body of psychological work, to say nothing of empirical evidence, that suggests that when people have opportunities to give themselves disproportionate rewards compared to others, in the absence of social taboos they will do so more often than not, and this will become habitual and shape their thinking.
Saying “there are some people who are immune to corruption” is like saying there are people who are immune to propaganda and advertising.
You’re putting a FUCKTON of words in my mouth there and I don’t appreciate it. I’m not going to bother actually discussing the topic if your first response is this bad faith.