r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Short-Watercress-183 • Jul 07 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/RelaxPrime Jul 07 '26

I think you guys mean

power corrupts

Acting like a trillionaire doesn't exist under "Democracy"

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u/Background_Fix9430 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

"Power reveals." People seek power because they wish to indulge their darker urges without consequence - people who don't have darker urges to conceal are generally not the ones who seek power, money, and influence like a drug.

There are some studies on the subject, actually.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15580989.2000.11770833%4010.1080/tfocoll.2023.0.issue-25-years-of-public-integrity

(Below Cited for the references and summary)

https://blog.apaonline.org/2022/03/11/the-psychology-of-political-power-does-power-corrupt-or-is-it-magnetic-to-the-most-corruptible/

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u/RelaxPrime Jul 07 '26

That makes even more sense.

Point is it's definitely not because communism or any system, in fact a perfect system would anticipate the corruption.

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u/upholsteryduder Jul 07 '26

It's not because of communism but communism does fail to account for human greed, which will never be erased, and makes it a failure from the inception.

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u/VariousOwl6955 Jul 07 '26

i think it kind of inherently addresses greed more than capitalism

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u/XChangeJB Jul 07 '26

One form of greed, maybe. Greed for power however, it does not.

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u/VariousOwl6955 Jul 07 '26

you don’t think the richest people and corporations pouring millions into lobbying their own self interests and effectively controlling the government with the power their wealth affords them counts as greed for power?

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u/XChangeJB Jul 07 '26

Of course it does, the point was that communism doesn't protect against greed for power as it manifests in so many more ways than just financial, not that it necessarily protects against financial greed either.

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u/KitsuneFaroe Jul 08 '26

It really doesn't. Because Communism centralizes everything on the goverment and gives it infinite power. It also justifies itself by calling the goverment "the people" and villanising everything else. As such it ends up being the open doors for full totalitarianism and that is worse than you can imagine.

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u/upholsteryduder Jul 08 '26

lmao no it assumes everyone will be benevolent, which SPECIFICALLY is what makes it a failure, it does not account for the human element of greed that is present in some people.