I wrote:
> I think it was Aristotle (or someone even earlier!) who pointed out a > paradox here. Middle- or upper-class leaders are less likely to be > corrupted than are those who rise to the top from the working and poor > classes. That's because middle- and upper-class types already have the > money, power, and influence while those from the working and poor > classes find it easy to fall for the temptation of bribes or undue > perps [should be: perks].
Yoshie:
I can't think of any individual leader in ancient Athens who rose from the lower order and exercised power in the fashion modern socialist, populist, Islamist, etc. leaders have after taking state power through nationalist revolution, though that may be because I know relatively little about ancient history.
you missed my point completely. If it didn't happen in Ari's time, he was amazingly perceptive about the future. In any event, his employers (the rich), referred to demagogues, representatives of the (non-slave, non-female, citizen) people who took power. They saw Pericles as one, if I remember correctly. me:
> I'm not saying that Evo or Lula is personally corrupt, but some of the > deputies may well be. Evo hasn't been in office long enough, but Lula > has. The corruption of the second rank can be extremely important. > (There's an old phenomenon I know from Chicago: hizzoner da Mare > Richard J. Daley of da Great City of Chicaga wasn't personally > corrupt, but his cronies...)
Yoshie:
Among the 21st-century nationalist leaders that I mentioned above, it is only Lula who has had serious charges of corruption levelled against him, and even in his case, the main charges have concerned a scheme to buy damaging dossiers about rivals and a cash-for-votes scandal (paying deputies to vote for PT legislation ... rather than personal enrichment . Of course, corruption of that sort couldn't have arisen in one-party socialist states for they didn't have competitive elections and parliamentary politics of the sort that exists in multi-party democracies.
one can be corrupted by other things than money or the wish to win in elections. For example, as Yogi Berra once said, "power corrupts." I think that's why the GOPsters are having a lot of trouble these days and dose Dems have been given another chance to blow their electoral chances. The power gave them the idea they could do anything (cover up Foley's fun, etc.) also, I specifically referred to the _second rank_ of leaders. It's not Lula who takes bribes, but his fellow leaders. And the Workers Party turns into a latter-day version of the Mexican PRI in its heyday? -- Jim Devine / "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." -- Nuremberg Tribunal
