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This will strongly depends from place to place. It's true there's a lot of corruption in many Golarion's governments and the corruption is one of the most easiest themes to create antagonist to players face.
The point is just like the corruption is inside in almost every relevant sized government in real world the same happens in Golarion too. But have corruption doesn't mean that it's accepted, even in evil governments that's why theres many adventures facing corrupted figures and organizations.
Corruption is just like evil it's something that you need to constantly fighting.
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We've only just started lowering corruption in modern times compared to nearly the whole of human history so I don't think it should be all that surprising.
When you add in actual evil beings and many anti-social or xenophobic creatures and societies that take resources and lives away, then is it any wonder why people in positions of power cut corners and make deals? Even with good intentions just trying to keep things stable, there's a lot going on.
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This is a surprisingly deep topic and one that I think can SWIFTLY veer off topic so lets all just try to keep this related to the game setting to avoid the hammer for now.
That said, like the real world, I don't believe that ANYONE with a functioning healthy brain that is free from major high-function executive disorders or other mental disabilities is functionally CAPABLE of being entirely altruistic, selfless, or honest at all times, it is very simply not only against human nature to act in such a way it actively goes against every natural instinct living creatures are typically born having. Animals lie and steal, children lie and steal, we humans routinely hurt one another for NO GOOD REASON, even if we don't stand to gain anything from it let alone in circumstances where you're in power can can wield it against others to get something for your self/cause/image/family/ego/legacy/company/etc. If you show me, someone who claims to be honest at all times and only does what is best for everyone else, even at their own expense, I'll show you a liar and conman - the two are the same person.
In a game setting like this, it only makes sense for corruption to be rampant, though I will say that because this is a fictional/fantasy setting where afterlives are REAL and PROVEN things that actually are known widely to exist it would make a LOT more sense for it to be a bit rarer than in real life since you can basically know without a shadow of a doubt that if you uphold the values required of you to attain your desired afterlife it will eventually pay off 100% guaranteed. Certain perfectly holy types who were born with or developed an unnatural amount of patience and who are able to withstand personal suffering could VERY realistically just "wait out the clock" and be guaranteed their prize that they actually KNOW is real but then again, doing that while sacrificing and doing only what your faith says is best is STILL serving the goals of the faith in many ways probably caused your family and loved ones to suffer as you give your all not for them but, in some ways, to selfishly ensure YOUR eternal prize when you could instead have been doing X/Y/Z to fight, scratch, bite, haggle so your loved ones can stand atop the heap in their mortal life.
I also don't really buy the idea that we've reduced corruption in modern times either, it's simply that leaders of various stripes have to be a LOT more careful not to leave evidence of self-serving actions in their wake now that cameras, news media, computer records, and the internet not only just exists but is ubiquitous, the brighter the light the deeper in the shadows one must be to hide what one wishes not to be seen.
This is a surprisingly deep topic and one that I think can SWIFTLY veer off topic so lets all just try to keep this related to the game setting to avoid the hammer for now.
Yeah, there is already one thread active currently with a bunch of people wearing "I'm troll food, bite me" signs taped to their backs.
And no, I have nothing else productive to add to the conversation. I'll see myself out.
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I'm now wondering what would define a setting as "more corrupt" or "less corrupt". Because in a situation where there's no set system and things are determined by personal relationships, then of course you do things for people who have done things for you, but I wouldn't consider that to be "corruption", because that's just literally any group of people with no formal roles or hierarchy. And "paying someone so that they'll deal with your problem" isn't inherently "corruption" either, that's just... okay so I don't know the actual word for it, but yeah.
When I think "corruption", at least in the sense of a business or a government, I think... something where it's not how things should be. Not on a moral level (although that too), but like, it was set up to be one way, and they're adding in an extra cost for their own benefit. So by that definition, a system (like, the abstract concept of it) can't be INHERENTLY corrupt, because if bribes are anticipated from the get-go, they're just like... the expected fee for doing business. (A system might be more SUSCEPTIBLE to corruption, but that's a different issue.) "Corruption" is when someone is supposed to do something for XYZ fee (which might be "zero, because they're already getting paid") but they'll only ACTUALLY do it if you pay them XYZ+ABC.
Or, wait, that's not quite it... I'm having some trouble wrangling all my thoughts. The bits I can articulate though, are that corruption is "not doing the job how you're supposed to be doing it" and "it's for your own personal benefit". And I suppose also "you're not trying to dismantle the system", because that's sabotage instead of parasitism.
And there's instances where something might appear "corrupt", because of a dissonance in expectation for "what needs to get paid for and what doesn't". It's like how sales tax is different from the store owner deciding to just put a mark-up on everything at the register for their own profit; the former will seem like the latter if you're from somewhere that the price you pay is the price that's marked.
When I think of a corrupt system... I think of one where they don't have anything stopping them from abusing what power they have. Which isn't just "oversight" or "enforced regulations", but also "social pressure" (it's amazing the force conveyed in "making eye contact and shaking your head"). Something where the people who work there are making each other worse, because "everyone does it". And they don't feel a need to hide what they do, because they've been getting away with it for this long; they prolly COULDN'T hide it even if they tried, it's become too much of a habit.
And that type of thing can pop up anywhere, so long as there's people and some of them have power over others in some regard.
Um. I'm not sure if I came to any conclusion there; I think my original point was something about how you'd first need to define "corruption".
But anyways. In a game setting, of COURSE you'd be dealing a lot with corrupt systems; if they WEREN'T corrupt, you wouldn't have to deal with them in-game, or it'd just be short chunks of role-playing. The same principle as how "fighting monsters" isn't something your character does 24/7, it's just the stuff which an adventure is about. (Or how a plumber only sees your house when there's a problem with the plumbing; it doesn't necessarily mean your pipes are horrible, it just means the plumber won't be there when everything's working fine.)
The corruption in a fictional government usually depends on the scale of the story. If the author sets two assassins chasing the hero, then the assassins are probably criminals and the government is trustworthy. If the author sets twenty assassins chasing the hero, then the assassins work for a shady organization with ties to the government. When the villain would leaves too much evidence of their villainy, then the question arises, "Why didn't the government step in?" The possilbe answers are, "The villain works for the government," "The government works for the villain," or "The government is useless."
My players like when I alter the modules to make the government more competent. In Trail of the Hunted, the beginning of the Ironfang Invasion adventure path, the town of Phaendar is caught surprised and unprepared by the invasion. The invasion did use magic to sneak up on the town, but my players would not have believed that the town was totally unprepared. For example, the ranger Zinfandel was training under a retired ranger in Phaendar who would have taught her neighbors basic defense. Thus, I altered the module so that the villagers grouped together to fight back and defend their homes. The retired ranger assigned the party members to evacuate the young and the elderly.
* Phaendar was in Nirmathas, a freedom-loving country with almost no national government. Their government therefore was useless rather than corrupt.
* The dwarven city Kraggodan in Nirmathas ignored the national government and instead had its own dwarven king. He and the various princes and princesses seemed compentent, probably because a corrupt government might have distracted the party's attention from the main plot.
* The Fangwood Forest in Nirmathas had once been ruled by the fey Accressiel Court, which had been more a prestigious club than a true government. One of its members had betrayed them and now ruled the center of the Fangwood as a despot.
*The neighboring country Molthune was an aristocracy built around military service. The lord generals vied for status rather than focusing on ruling well, but they did have to ensure that the towns could support well-trained armies.
* Another adventure path, Iron Gods, took place in Numeria. That was a land of barbarian tribes that had been united by the conquest of barbarian sovereign Kevoth Kul. During the adventure path, Kevoth Kul had been lured into drunkenness by the corrupt Technic League so that they could get away with terrible crimes, but after the destruction of the Technic League, as recorded in Lost Omens Legends, Kevoth Kul had shaped up and resumed ruling properly by barbarian tribal standards.
* In yet another adventure path, Jade Regent, powerful oni had forced the emperor of Minkai into hiding, so Minkai was ruled by an incompetent regeant. Actually, the emperor was dead and the regeant worked for the oni, so this government was totally corrupt. The party had found a lost heir and escorted her to Minkai to restore the throne and proper government.
Calliope5431's friend in international relations might be interested that Golarion has very few international interactions between governments. The planet is a patchwork quilt of fantasy settings. Numeria is a barbarian land with alien high technology found in crashed spaceships. Minkai is mythological Japan. Osirion is mythological Egypt. Ustalav is a gothic horror setting. Galt is a permanent French revolution. The Land of the Linnorm Kings is a Viking setting. The witch Baba Yaga from Russina folklore established the nation Irrisen to the east of the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
Some nations are grouped into states of an empire or former states of a fallen empire, but otherwise they have essentially no cultural influence on each other. Trade between them exists just so that port cities and trade routes can let the player characters travel easily. The fallen Taldoran empire did teach everyone to speak Taldoran, which is the common language for the Avistan and Garund continents.
So I was talking with one of my friends who works in international relations recently about fantasy government.
Her comment: "wow, fantasy RPG settings are pretty corrupt."
How true do people think this is for Golarion? A lot of Pathfinder quests do seem to revolve around blatant cronyism and quid pro quo arrangements with authority figures... but on the other hand, it's semi medieval, when EVERYONE was corrupt.
I do believe that some of the general populace in a given area has an opinion on the political circumstances of said area, and the setting does a really good job outlining both what this stance is to the players/GM, as well as the objective reality of a given political circumstance (as the authors are willing to write, anyway). This means that we both know what the setting is trying to portray versus what the setting is actually representing.
However, saying the entire genre of fantasy settings is corrupt feels like it's missing the mark in regards to the discussion, especially when we stop to consider that a fair amount of these fictional works were written with the specific intent to come across as being corrupt, as well as some that are only viewed as corrupt under a certain lens, which may not actually be corrupt at all (but to the inhabitants of the setting, it may appear to be), mostly for the sole purpose of creating plot/conflict for the players (aka the protagonists) to face and defeat.
I will also point out that it doesn't matter what 'time period' a fantasy RPG setting is, since plenty of futuristic/sci-fi fantasy RPG settings also demonstrate equal (if not more) levels of corruption, and is just expressed in different/subtle ways, meaning the idea of 'the future is incorruptible' is both foolish and also a false pretense.
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We've had talks about that too, yup. The total lack of international relations is pretty funny.
I would imagine that this is largely to keep themed adventures self-contained and not have them spill into every other different region in the world, but the idea that no nation ever has formed an alliance or has declared war or secures trade agreements, etc. seems absurd, especially since there is plenty of lore that suggests these things do happen in-world (even if it's often in regards to whether certain nations are warring or not).
I mean, it's not difficult to ascertain that, say, Riddleport gets shipments in from Magnimar for goods, for example. But because this isn't particularly relevant to the plot, it makes sense that the setting doesn't really spell this out in any fine or even particular detail (unless an AP or something focuses on this as a plot point).
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So I was talking with one of my friends who works in international relations recently about fantasy government.
Her comment: "wow, fantasy RPG settings are pretty corrupt."
How true do people think this is for Golarion? A lot of Pathfinder quests do seem to revolve around blatant cronyism and quid pro quo arrangements with authority figures... but on the other hand, it's semi medieval, when EVERYONE was corrupt.
I think your friend is pretty naïve about the amount of real-world corruption.
How would your friend imagine motivating PCs without it looking like corruption ?
Actually I feel this thread is conflating PCs' motivations in the APs (which are generic by necessity) and corruption in the setting's societies (which is another topic).
I don't see this.
The Paizo adventure paths have pretty good plot hooks to draw the player characters into adventure. Let me use the ones I have played or run as examples.
1. Burnt Offerings in Rise of the Runelords had goblins raid the town of Sandpoint and the PCs fight back. Sheriff Hemlock decided to go to the city of Magnimar to request military aid and he needed a significant number of town guards to protect him on the journey, so he deputized the PCs as substitutes for the absent guards because the PCs had acquired a good reputation during the raid.
Note that the government of Sandpoint was fairly corrupt because the four founding families did what they wanted with little restraint. But Sheriff Hemlock mostly acted like a sheriff. The only shady aspect of the deputization was that he had no authorization to recruit the party and no funds to pay them. His request was as haphazard as an Old West posse of regular townsfolk helping the sheriff arrest outlaws.
2. Souls for Smuggler's Shiv in Serpent's Skull began with a shipwreck on an unexplored island due to a storm. The PCs were the survivors willing to explore the jungle in search of food while the NPC survivors were too stunned or too scared to leave camp.
No government was involved.
3. The Brinewall Legacy in Jade Regent had goblins from the Brinemarsh swamp raiding caravans on the route to Sandpoint. Innkeeper Ameiko Kaijitsu (one of those founding family members I mentioned above) organized a raiding party of her own to take out the overambitious goblin chief.
Okay, an innkeeper declaring war on a goblin tribe is far from legal justice. But the government's only corruption was in letting it happen.
4. The Fires of Creation in Iron Gods began with the town council of Torch offering a reward for a party that would enter the caves of Black Hill and rescue their missing wizard and his expedition. The town's economy depended on smelting and forging via a superhot plasma torch that projected upwards from Black Hill. When that torch went out, the wizard led expeditions under Black Hill to investigate.
The town council was reckless with lives, because five expeditions had gone under Black Hill and only one had returned. But the culture of Golarion was that adventurers routinely risked themselves for loot and rewards. Furthermore, the town itself could not send a well-funded well-protected expedition because the Technic League brutally enforced a monopoly on investigating alien technology.
5. Trail of the Hunted in the Ironfang Invasion began with a hobgoblin army invading the town of Phaendar. The PCs were the people who followed the ranger Aubrin's advice to evacuate people across the river and then destroy the bridge. They ended up leading a band of refugees hiding in the Fangwood Forest as hobgoblin patrols hunted for escaped humans.
The module never gave a proper description of the government of Phaendar, so I decided that Phaendar had no formal government. Instead, a few high-level NPCs, such as the ranger Aubrin and the cleric Noelan, informally persuaded the townsfolk to keep things in order and donate money for town improvements (the bridge was in terrible condition). I file this under "the government is missing," rather than "the government is corrupt."
In conclusion I don't see any blatant cronyism in the plot hooks. The quid pro quo arrangements were informal contracts between the local leaders and the adventuring party rather than under-the-table dirty dealing.
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"I'll totally help send an army to help the elves against the evil army invading them", says the king of a human kingdom nearby "just as soon as you recover my ancestral scepter from its ancient haunted tomb".
"I'd love to give you the Blade of Demon Slaying" says the Lord Mayor, "but first I'd really appreciate it if you helped me reclaim my manor house from the ghost living there."
"Maybe if you humiliate my rival I'll tell you where the dungeon is," says the local guild master."
It'd be like a president in the modern world declaring war on another country because someone bribed him with a lost Van Gogh painting.
I don't think your examples are good. Corruption happens when someone refuses to do his job properly unless they gain something (in general through bribery) or when someone divert resources for their own personal interest (or those of allies). That's more specific than asking for a compensation to do something.
So, sure, if the king has reasons to help the elves but decides to use that to gain a brand new scepter, that's definitely corruption. But if the king somehow needs the scepter to help the elves (for example to secure his power through a war), or if recovering the scepter would legitimate the heroes' claim, then recovering the scepter is not corruption.
As for the Lord Mayor, it looks much more like personal matters than matters of state. But even if the Blade of Demon Slaying is a matter of state, recovering their manor house may have political implications and as such be just a political bargain like any other.
As for your guild master, it looks like someone who's abusing their position of power more than a case of corruption. Definitely not a good guy, but not a corrupted one either.
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Corruption assumes the authority figures go against their oath or overstep their authority in some way. I think in most circumstances it's more that fantasy governments have a lot more power and far fewer checks and balances.
If an elected representative in Andoran forces his constituent to fight the evil medusa before he will stop the local hospital from being foreclosed, then that's corruption.
If the same interaction happens between an Archduchess of Cheliax and one of her subjects, then she is probably completely within the bounds of both her oath and her authority.
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If we consider corruption any exchange of favor or goods between the party and an authority figure, then yes, the AP are rife with corruptions. But in truth, not all of these interactions are actual corruption, a lot of them are about the party acting as mercenaries, or about the PC doing some task that need to be done for the favor to even happen in the first place.
If we consider that both the party and the authority figure can ask for only two things, either a personal favor (anything that wouldn't benefit the population the authority is bound to protect), or a public favor (something that would benefit the population), then we can see that there can be four kind of "exchange of favor" between the party and an authority figure :
- The party ask the authority for a personal favor, in exchange of which the authority ask for a public favor. This isn't corruption, it's just the authority using the party as convenient mercenary, and using the favor as a salary for their work.
- The party ask the authority for a public favor, in exchange of which the authority ask for a personal favor. This is textbook corruption, with the authority refusing to do it's job until they get something out of the deal. But I can't think of any exemple of this where the authority figure isn't already painted as corrupt by the book itself.
- The party ask for a personal favor, in exchange of which the authority ask for another personal favor. This entirely depend on wether the "favor" the PC ask is something that cost the population in some way, or only the authority itself. If it's the latter, then it's a simple an exchange of good and services between two private party, not corruption. If it's the former, then yes, it's corruption. This is the one exemple of corruption I can think of where it's often not presented as such in the book itself. It's usually because the favor isn't straight up money taken from the city/state coffer, but something like a special privilege that technically don't "cost" the public anything. Something like access to forbidden places or state secrets, things that if you think about it really shouldn't be handed as a prize for a personal favor, yet somehow don't feel quite as wrong as giving state money for the same reason.
- The party ask for a public favor, in exchange of which the authority ask for another public favor. It's almost always because the favor the party ask for is impossible to fufill until the other one is done. Sometime it's because the authority can't allocate any ressources to the party's problem because another one is more urgent, sometime it's actually caused by the checks and balance preventing the authority from helping the party until they go through official channel, whatever the case, it's not corruption.
- Special mention to my personal least favorite trope, which is "the party ask for a personal/public favor, in exchange of which the authority ask for random stuff so that the party can 'prove themselves worthy'". It's usually corruption when it's a personal favor. It's almost always very dumb when it's a public favor, doubly so when the "random stuff" is dangerous and the authority may accidentally kill their only hope in this dumb "trial". Most of the time it just feel like a completely unnatural way for the author to include special noncombat challenges that they didn't manage to naturally weave into the adventure. Very occasionnally, there is a good use of this trope, but most of the time, it completely break my immersion.
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3. The Brinewall Legacy in Jade Regent had goblins from the Brinemarsh swamp raiding caravans on the route to Sandpoint. Innkeeper Ameiko Kaijitsu (one of those founding family members I mentioned above) organized a raiding party of her own to take out the overambitious goblin chief.
Okay, an innkeeper declaring war on a goblin tribe is far from legal justice. But the government's only corruption was in letting it happen.
An excellent list, but unless I recall incorrectly, the bounty on the goblins was posted by Sheriff Hemlock again - in wake of a string of attacks by firework-wielding goblins. Ameiko enters the picture when the source of the fireworks is traced back to their origin and that involvement mainly takes the form of organising a caravan to travel across Varisia based on the information uncovered.
Only a minor distinction, for sure, and which only further reinforces your data about negligible or no corruption in these adventures.
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3. The Brinewall Legacy in Jade Regent had goblins from the Brinemarsh swamp raiding caravans on the route to Sandpoint. Innkeeper Ameiko Kaijitsu (one of those founding family members I mentioned above) organized a raiding party of her own to take out the overambitious goblin chief....An excellent list, but unless I recall incorrectly, the bounty on the goblins was posted by Sheriff Hemlock again - in wake of a string of attacks by firework-wielding goblins. Ameiko enters the picture when the source of the fireworks is traced back to their origin and that involvement mainly takes the form of organising a caravan to travel across Varisia based on the information uncovered. ...
Sibelius Eos Owm is more correct about The Brinewall Legacy than I was. For example, the Licktoad goblin tribe lived in the Brinestump Marsh, not the Brinemarsh as I misremembered the name.
Starting the Adventure
To deal with the goblin threat, Sheriff Belor Hemlock has restored Sandpoint’s old “goblin bounty” after several years of inactivity—it was suspended when a group of eager but too-young adventurers were swept out to sea while in pursuit of goblin ears. The town of Sandpoint will pay 10 gp for every relatively fresh goblin ear delivered to the town hall—with an additional reward of 300 gp for the group who can bring in the head of the Licktoads’ leader, Chief Gutwad.
The next paragraph suggests that the PCs can begin in Ameiko Kaijitsu's tavern, The Rusty Dragon, where Ameiko can encourage them to follow up on the bounty. Putting her in the first scene ensures that the players know the Kaijitsu family name, because the plot hook for Part Two was discovering her family's long lost ship stuck in the Brinestump Marsh.
Putting a bounty on all goblins when only one of the four local goblin tribes was raiding the caravans is tragically unfair to the other tribes, so that qualifies as racist government.
In my own Jade Regent campaign, one player played as a goblin from the new Pathfinder Advanced Race Guide and became the new chief of the Licktoad goblin tribe when the player had to drop out of the campaign. He switched the tribe from raiding caravans to opening a coffee bar along the caravan route to gain wealth honestly (Paizo Blog: Sleep No More, comment #11). As I said, my players clean up the corruption they find in the setting.
And related to this discussion of corruption is Paizo moving away from the Always Evil Races trope. The Dungeons & Dragons standard was that goblins are plain evil, always wanting to kill humans. When Paizo invented Golarion, they redesigned goblins as zany pyromaniacs with a lot of barbaric traditions, such as hating horses and forbidding reading. They were cute with their big sharp-toothed grins and became a mascot for Paizo. They became a playable race with the Pathfinder Advanced Race Guide, so we gained examples of civilized goblins. They became a core ancestry in Pathfinder 2nd Edition Core Rulebook, which put them on equal footing with elves and halflings. And the elimination of racism was extended to other species such as orcs and minotaurs.
Nowadays a bounty against another species would be restricted to a particular tribe and provide evidence of that tribe's crimes.
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A large portion of the societies in setting are feudal.
Which in your friend's terms means: "A nation with a relatively weak central government that is mostly ruled through the use of local warlords with minimal oversight. Action is usually only taken against them if they attempt military coups or treason with a neighboring power.
The keys to power are held by a wealthy elite class that owns a large proportion of the country's property rights, and power is usually transferred in a despotic manner through hereditary inheritance.
Only a very small proportion outside of the elite class have any say in governance, and it is typically easier to curry favor with the hereditary warlords. Democratic principles are a minority in most of the region."
We've had talks about that too, yup. The total lack of international relations is pretty funny.
At the very least you'd expect some sort of expansionist power to gobble up Galt. Their military consists of angry mobs.
But I understand that from a game design standpoint. Not everyone wants to play "ninjas vs pirates" or try to figure out what happens when the Vikings try to raid ancient Egypt.
As far as Galt … who would WANT it? And inherit all that lovely chaos? And its neighbours are Kyonin, Five Kings, Andoran, Taldor, the River Kingdoms, and someone in Casmaron. Any of them up for the job?
There are international relations, even those other than ‘bigger army diplomacy’. Thise can eve nfigure into adventures. ‘Protect the Bellzen ambassador on their way to negotiations’ can lead to ‘Who sent the assassins?’.
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Do note that corruption of at least money (tho probably so of other stuff seeing his entire portofolio) is anathema against Abadar. Having the patron deity of the majority of governmental work disapproving you generally is a good motivation to not do so.
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Beware! Paizo could retcon corruption from existing in the setting too /s
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Corruption, in our Golarion?! Why I never. We just have...
- A nation literally ruled by Devil-worshippers, the highest of which are at most a step or three removed from being Devils themselves.
- An ostensible Democracy... except for the large swathes of the country where the heads of the Lumber industry pretty much rule with an iron fist.
- An old-school Constitutional Monarchy (and remains of a major Empire) where, to quote the Inner Sea World Guide "Greed and lack of trust are the hallmarks of Taldan politics, with assassination and betrayal the preferred methods of advancement."
- A nation formerly ruled by a figurehead monarch kept tamed through use of drugs by a shadowy cabal of tech-empowered wizards. The shadowy cabal has since been unseated, and the monarch returned to power... which may have actually made things even worse.
- A tyrannical dictatorship ruled by a man who thinks himself a God.
- An Undead Paradise ruled over by a centuries-old ghost, and its eternal rival the Mage's Wonderland that currently lacks a central government after the disappearance of its own centuries-old archmage. Caught between the two is a small nation that runs like a steampunk wild west, which even the World Guide calls out the Corruption rampant in it.
And that's just to name a few. So yeah... maybe we have a little bit.
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That said, like the real world, I don't believe that ANYONE with a functioning healthy brain that is free from major high-function executive disorders or other mental disabilities is functionally CAPABLE of being entirely altruistic, selfless, or honest at all times, it is very simply not only against human nature to act in such a way it actively goes against every natural instinct living creatures are typically born having. Animals lie and steal, children lie and steal, we humans routinely hurt one another for NO GOOD REASON, even if we don't stand to gain anything from it let alone in circumstances where you're in power can can wield it against others to get something for your self/cause/image/family/ego/legacy/company/etc. If you show me, someone who claims to be honest at all times and only does what is best for everyone else, even at their own expense, I'll show you a liar and conman - the two are the same person.
You have a very weirdly cynical and kind of depressing view on life. I would argue most people are more altruistic than not.
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People drawn to power are typically those who want to abuse it.
Even where that is not true of a person with power their well intentioned uses of power can harm those subject to it.
Its for this reason positions of authority must have constraints, transparency, and accountability to those whom that authority governs.
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The conversation sidelined too far into IRL/politics adjacent. Lets avoid going that way in the future please.