By Arnold A. Rogow and Harold D. Lasswell

When Lord Acton observed without qualification that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely/’ he found words for one of the deepest convictions of modem liberals and democrats. Based on broad and unstated sentiments, the Acton aphorism instantly took on something of the quality of a law or of a fundamental axiom of mathematics. Everywhere there was a feeling that in the mechanics of achieving power men and institutions acquired some malignancy and the greater the power the greater the degree of malignancy. “Power . . . corrupts . . seemed to be the trickle of truth brilliantly squeezed out of a mountain of agreement, sentiment, and experience. Tire aphorism was immediately incorporated into the doctrinal exercises of the professional philosophers of democratic and liberal outlook. But it went much further. It appealed to the common sense of the citizen at large and became a mandatory article of faith in the public declarations of men of democratic action.

prentice-hall, INC. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963, 141p.