The power to get it wrong

This is an interesting little discourse (in Harpers magazine) examining the idea that people in positions of power are more likely to have errors in their world view, and therefore in the decisions that they make than a given powerless person making the same choices.
Whereas power has recourse to its own resources, the weak must draw on reason. Therefore those that govern have opinions which are just a little less sane and impartial than the powerless.


It could help explain all sorts of catastrophes of governance.  At this moment a majority of the British population are at a loss to explain why Brittan is involved in Libya. One can be sure that the people in charge of the nation know things that we do not and that these are part of the calculus of war. However, I cannot help but feel that that this is at least in part a good example of the powerful collectively talking themselves into a position influenced by the views of each other which has become abstracted from reality due to the closed nature of their intercourse and calculus inputs.


The counter argument could be made that those in power have access to a greater range resources on which to base decisions, and are usually more highly educated than those not in power. So I suspect this articles observation is a mere corner of the oft proved cliché that "power corrupts". Despite the advantages that power brings to decision making, overall the rarefied and abstracted nature of power erodes these advantages such that the quality of perception and the decisions flowing from it are not as good as they might otherwise be.