“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

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As an aside, I find it interesting that microsoft is suddenly pushing internet standards in microsoft expression web 2, why is this so?

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Parts of your argument are logically fraught.

You can’t really compare a democracy to a monarchy - they are two completely different political systems.

You cannot assume that a democracy automatically means a ’smooth talker’ wins the day. Thabo Mbeki is a good case in point (as is George Bush). Mbeki is hardly charismatic while Bush is anything but a smooth talker.

Then your assumption that Monarchy and royal blood lines ensure good leadership. Did you take history? If you did you will know that there were more lunatics, power hungry maniacs and blood thirsty rulers ensconced in power thanks to a monarchy than any other political system in the world.

Monarchy is a Machiavellian construct of absolute power that is the perfect example of the fact that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

Then there’s the fact that no two democracies have ever gone to war against each other.

You may be interested to read about the psychology of fraud and corruption. Here the experts say in generalist terms that it is not people who are you are immoral and who cause large scale fraud - rather that they are corrupted by power and by environments that enable fraud.

Then it is widely known that the current economic crisis was caused in the US by the sub prime mortgage crisis and in the rest of the world by economies over reliant on oil, high commodity prices, inflation, poor governance, inflation and the knock on effect of the credit crisis.

I am not knocking technological advancement or saying that technological advancement replaces moral advancement. If anything it is the pervasive consumerist and commercial values which have largely replaced moral values that are at fault.

The piece was rather written as a warning on the dangers of power, and the tendency of power to corrupt.

I am sure the people who started Google have significant good intent. But do country managers and growth obsessed sales people in far flung emerging territories share that benevolent intent.

My research on this story has shown that is not the case.

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Compare democracy to monarchy. Democratically elected leaders are the ones that can rally support, appeal to the masses, and recruit good advisers. In monarch families, children are probably bred from day 1 to eventually take over his father’s kingdom.

Which would you rather have? A smooth talker, or someone that literally has leadership in their blood?

The recent everything-collapse is probably more due to the fact that there were immoral people in positions of power, than the existence of that power itself. Like hedge funds - things done in the dark, with no concern for the endgame.

True, technological advancement can’t replace moral advancement, and I think that we’re more morally bankrupt than anything else. But moral advancement isn’t something you can enact a policy for - it’s the collective choices of the individuals, something that no government has control over.

Personally, I’d rather live in a world with it’s eyes focused on the horizon, than on the next politician’s rear end.

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Then one must beg the question whether economic and technological progress is in fact advancement. I think given the recent financial crisis that has plunged sectors of the world into further poverty, some may argue against a world that is that connected and over dependent.

And then you assume that dominance means service and innovation. As Enron, WorldCom, The ANC, George Bush, Robert Mugabe, Rod Blagojevich, Tiger, Adcock Ingram etc etc etc would attest dominance does not auto assume benevolence.

Economic history shows that supreme dominance is usually tied to the supreme abuse of power.

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The government of any one country has a lot of power, and for the most part, its used to provide basic services to its residents. If Google rises to supreme Internet dominance, they’ll be able to provide even more advanced services to the global populace. If a single automobile manufacturer rises to global dominance, they’ll be in a position to push innovation to new frontiers, without having to worry about being competitive or profitable.

That’s something else to think about. People keep wanting to move forward, but they leave their thinking in the dark ages, and they wonder why everything keeps going so wrong.

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