Scan barcode
gijs's review against another edition
4.0
Well researched, accessible text on the many ways corruption happens. Condensed into one sentence: Those who shouldn’t be in power, are more likely to seek it.
branch_c's review against another edition
3.0
A fairly entertaining read, and it does cover a lot of ground, presenting interesting anecdotes to illustrate many of the points. The evolutionary roots of human desire for and misuse of power are explained, with Klaas pointing to ancestral tendencies to choose bigger, stronger (p. 72-82), overly confident (p. 104) men as leaders. Studies showing how people behave when they're in positions of power, and why (ch. V - IX), are likewise revealing.
However, the author puts a lot of effort into being clever and entertaining, and for me it isn't quite as successful as he seems to think it is. Overly dramatic lines like "She's the daughter of a monster." (p. 42) and "Power didn't corrupt them. They learned to be good at being bad." (p. 141) are transparent hooks to pull the reader forward. I'd have preferred for him to dispense with the gimmicky writing and just present the material.
And some of the material that is presented seems questionable to me: for example...
- The discussion of the battlefield math of archers and swordsmen (p. 32) doesn't clearly demonstrate why the army with archers is superior. Although the conclusion seems to be true, given a complete understanding of "Lanchester's square law", the explanation in the book is not sufficient to reach that conclusion.
- Regarding the classic thought experiment about the morality of smothering a crying baby to save the village from invaders (p. 100), Klaas concludes "Perhaps it's a benefit in modern society to be immune from moral self-reflection." No, in fact, a "modern society" should never have situations like the one described here - that's the problem that needs to be solved.
- In the discussion of "Bad Systems or Bad People" (ch. VI), there are several attempts to blame the system rather than the people, and again, even if it's true, I don't think it follows from the text. For example, after describing how some Americans try to bribe Chilean cops, thinking that "everything south of the border is hopelessly corrupt", Klaas states that "Bad behavior clearly doesn't arise exclusively from bad character." (p. 114) - really? I'm not sure how he reached that conclusion. Don't we need to take into account data about all the ("invisible") incidents of Americans who didn't try to bribe officials in Chile?
- Regarding the role of opportunity when judging bad actions, Klaas presents the example of a person who pockets the money from a found wallet five times out of fifty opportunities, and is judged to be five times worse than one who only comes across ten wallets and pockets the money once. Klaas suggests that this "doesn't seem like a sensible way of making moral judgments" (p. 142) - but in fact it certainly is! Things are only "bad" because of their effects on other people, so it simply is worse to affect more people with one's actions.
Then there are several other cases where studies are described and then Klaas hedges and gives caveats about the conclusion, or cautions "this doesn't mean that..." we should take the action suggested by the study to its extreme.
But the thing is, this is an absolutely critical topic: putting corrupt people in positions of power is a problem that has gone on far too long, and desperately needs to be solved. The suggested ideas here for solving the problem seem reasonable: "recruit smarter, use sortition to second-guess powerful people, and improve oversight" ... "rotate personnel to deter and detect abuse" ... "focus on those at the top" (p. 246) But the critical question is how exactly to accomplish those things - because the answer is needed now. While I applaud Klaas for his survey of the issue, I'm afraid that for me, this book doesn't seem like it meaningfully moves the needle toward the end goal.
So, overall, the book was less impressive than I'd hoped. But I did learn some things, with the most fascinating being the explanation for how "ordeals" actually worked for determining the guilt or innocence of an accused in the middle ages - the key point being that the priest responsible for administering the ordeal would simply "fix" it to result in the answer he thinks is correct (p. 223). I also can't help but give credit to Klaas for finding an excuse to include the "strange women lying in ponds" dialog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the book (p. 225). It was worth reading, but more work is clearly needed in this area.
However, the author puts a lot of effort into being clever and entertaining, and for me it isn't quite as successful as he seems to think it is. Overly dramatic lines like "She's the daughter of a monster." (p. 42) and "Power didn't corrupt them. They learned to be good at being bad." (p. 141) are transparent hooks to pull the reader forward. I'd have preferred for him to dispense with the gimmicky writing and just present the material.
And some of the material that is presented seems questionable to me: for example...
- The discussion of the battlefield math of archers and swordsmen (p. 32) doesn't clearly demonstrate why the army with archers is superior. Although the conclusion seems to be true, given a complete understanding of "Lanchester's square law", the explanation in the book is not sufficient to reach that conclusion.
- Regarding the classic thought experiment about the morality of smothering a crying baby to save the village from invaders (p. 100), Klaas concludes "Perhaps it's a benefit in modern society to be immune from moral self-reflection." No, in fact, a "modern society" should never have situations like the one described here - that's the problem that needs to be solved.
- In the discussion of "Bad Systems or Bad People" (ch. VI), there are several attempts to blame the system rather than the people, and again, even if it's true, I don't think it follows from the text. For example, after describing how some Americans try to bribe Chilean cops, thinking that "everything south of the border is hopelessly corrupt", Klaas states that "Bad behavior clearly doesn't arise exclusively from bad character." (p. 114) - really? I'm not sure how he reached that conclusion. Don't we need to take into account data about all the ("invisible") incidents of Americans who didn't try to bribe officials in Chile?
- Regarding the role of opportunity when judging bad actions, Klaas presents the example of a person who pockets the money from a found wallet five times out of fifty opportunities, and is judged to be five times worse than one who only comes across ten wallets and pockets the money once. Klaas suggests that this "doesn't seem like a sensible way of making moral judgments" (p. 142) - but in fact it certainly is! Things are only "bad" because of their effects on other people, so it simply is worse to affect more people with one's actions.
Then there are several other cases where studies are described and then Klaas hedges and gives caveats about the conclusion, or cautions "this doesn't mean that..." we should take the action suggested by the study to its extreme.
But the thing is, this is an absolutely critical topic: putting corrupt people in positions of power is a problem that has gone on far too long, and desperately needs to be solved. The suggested ideas here for solving the problem seem reasonable: "recruit smarter, use sortition to second-guess powerful people, and improve oversight" ... "rotate personnel to deter and detect abuse" ... "focus on those at the top" (p. 246) But the critical question is how exactly to accomplish those things - because the answer is needed now. While I applaud Klaas for his survey of the issue, I'm afraid that for me, this book doesn't seem like it meaningfully moves the needle toward the end goal.
So, overall, the book was less impressive than I'd hoped. But I did learn some things, with the most fascinating being the explanation for how "ordeals" actually worked for determining the guilt or innocence of an accused in the middle ages - the key point being that the priest responsible for administering the ordeal would simply "fix" it to result in the answer he thinks is correct (p. 223). I also can't help but give credit to Klaas for finding an excuse to include the "strange women lying in ponds" dialog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the book (p. 225). It was worth reading, but more work is clearly needed in this area.