Power or responsbility

sometime back we had a heated discussion among my roommates, which comes first. power or responsibility. although the subject of discussion was different, the underlying theme was this.

consider the following scenario's

a person who is responsible alone can act and can prevent any loss of property or life, if the act involves him only. however if the damage is caused my some one else actions then this person can only fore warn but cannot prevent the other person from proceeding with his action.


now consider a person who has power ( administrative or political or muscle or financial) he can prevent or stop any person from causing any damage. but for that he should have the responsibility to stop another person / entities potentially damaging action. so power without responsibility can only do root cause analysis.

so i like to conclude that a person should first have the power and then the responsibility to prevent any damages from occurring.