The saying goes back to 1887, so (whether or not it's a fallacy) it's not all that modern. [EDITED to add:] It occurs to me that the original saying runs as fo

The saying goes back to 1887, so (whether or not it's a fallacy) it's not all that modern. [EDITED to add:] It occurs to me that the original saying runs as follows: "All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" -- which is amusing, at least if you're as easily amused as I am, because your objection is precisely that it's only relative power that corrupts :-).