The desire to dominate our fellow human beings is innate. You see it among young children.Three-year-olds boss around their younger siblings, shoving them, grabbing their toys, orderingthem to act as the pet dog or Egyptian slave in a game of make-believe.
      Some adults are just as bad, though usually more subtle. Some bosses force interns to runpersonal errands for them, just because they can. Some managers build empires rather than betterproducts. Some petty officials flex their bureaucratic muscles because they find it deeply, sinfullypleasurable to bend others to their will. In some countries, they grow rich by making ordinarycitizens’ lives so miserable that people bribe them to lay off.
       Since the most powerful organizations in the world are governments, politics naturallyattracts those who most crave power. And if history has taught us anything, it is that lust is onlyever satiated temporarily.
       Stalin was not content to be master of a vast empire； he wanted to command his subjects’thoughts as well as their actions. He punished the slightest hint of dissent with imprisonment ordeath. Millions starved in the famine he caused in Ukraine because he wouldn’t admit the errors ofhis farm policy.
      Twentieth-century totalitarian leaders amassed power on a scale that past emperors couldnot have imagined. Orwell was among the first to notice what that meant: “Obedience is notenough. Unless [a citizen] is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not hisown?” says O’Brien in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a bootstamping on a human face—forever.”
      Communism failed because Karl Marx never understood how corrupting and intoxicatingpower can be. Constitutional democracies are built on a sounder understanding of human nature:we build checks and balances to restrain our leaders.Democracy is always imperfect, and always in need of repairs. But it is preferable to all otherforms of government because it is built on a simple insight: that we, the people, should constantlytighten the binds that tie our masters. Some of them, of course, might enjoy it.
【題組】34. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the phrase “flex their muscles” in the secondparagraph?
(A) To compel one to leave some place with force.
(B) To forcefully interfere with something.
(C) To demonstrate one’s influence or power.
(D) To acquire as many of something as possible.