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Letter: Over powered

Published 23 November 2011

From Nigel Johnson

Please compare and contrast recent quotes from New Scientist. First, from the piece on global capitalism (22 October, p 8), the researchers involved stated: “Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself.”

Then, in Laura Spinney’s analysis of corruption (5 November, p 42), Samuel Bendahan of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology stated: “Power should come with more built-in checks and balances”, and you quoted British historian Lord Acton: “all power tends to corrupt”.

Discuss.

Bridgwater, Somerset, UK

Issue no. 2840 published 26 November 2011

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