Leadership & Warfare Flashcards

Question

Hit Them Where it Hurts: The Center-of-Gravity Strategy

Answer 1

- Everyone has a source of power on which he or she depends. When you look at your rivals, search below the surface for that source, the center of gravity that holds the entire structure together. That center can be their wealth, their popularity, a key position, a winning strategy. Hitting them there will inflict disproportionate pain. Find what the other side most cherishes and protects--that is where you must strike. Keys to Warfare - The key is analyzing the enemy force to determine its centers of gravity. In looking for those centers, it is crucial not to be misled by the intimidating or dazzling exterior, mistaking the outward appearance for what sets it in motion. You will probably have to take several steps, one by one, to uncover this ultimate power source, peeling away layer after layer. - To find a group's center of gravity, you must understand its structure and the culture within which it operates. If your enemies are individuals, you must fathom their psychology, what makes them tick, the structure of their thinking and priorities. - It is almost always strategically wise to disrupt your enemy's lines of communication; if the parts cannot communicate with the whole, chaos ensues. - Your enemy's center of gravity can be something abstract, like a quality, concept, or aptitude on which he depends: his reputation, his capacity to deceive, his unpredictability. But such strengths become critical vulnerabilities if you can make them unattractive or unusable.

Answer 2

Their concern extends only to their own people because they need their aids. Overseas they can freely plunder and enrich themselves.

Answer 3

We all hate taxes and are impressively inventive and looking for ways to avoid them. Leaders however are rather fond of taxes, as long as they don't have to pay them. Being a dictator can be a terrific job, but it also can be terribly stressful, especially if money is in short supply. Taxes are one of the great antidotes to stress for heads of governments. Taxes afterall generate much needed revenue, which can then reward supporters, as a general principle leaders always want to increase taxes. That gives them more resources with which to reward their backers and not to be forgotten themselves. Nevertheless, they will find it difficult to raise taxes with impunity. Leaders face three constraints on how much money they can skim from their subjects. First, taxes diminish how hard people work. Second, some of the tax burden inevitably will fall upon the essential backers of the leader. In general, the first constraint limits taxes and autocracies, and the second constraint sets the boundary on taxes and democracies. The third consideration is that tax collection requires both expertise and resources. The costs associated with collecting taxes limit what leaders can extract and shapes the choice of taxation methods. The first and most common complaint about taxes, is that they discourage hard work, enterprise and investment.

Answer 4

- People are constantly struggling to control you--getting you to act in their interests, keeping the dynamic on their terms. The only way to get the upper hand is to make your play for control more intelligent and insidious. - Shift the conflict to terrain of your choice, altering the pace and stakes to suit you. Maneuver to control your opponents' minds, pushing their emotional buttons, and compelling them to make mistakes. If necessary, let them feel they are in control in order to get them to lower their guard. The Art of Ultimate Control - The superior strategist understands that it is impossible to control exactly how an enemy will respond to this move or that. To attempt to do so will only lead to frustration and exhaustion. There is too much in war and in life that is unpredictable. But if the strategist can control the mood and mind-set of his enemies, it does not matter exactly how they respond to his maneuvers. If he can make them frightened, panicky, overly aggressive, and angry, he controls the wider scope of their actions and can trap them mentally before cornering them physically. - Control can be aggressive or passive. It can be an immediate push on the enemy, making him back up and lose the initiative. It can be playing possum, getting the enemy to lower his guard, or baiting him into a rash attack. The artist of control weaves both of these into a devastating pattern--hitting, backing off, baiting, overwhelming. - There are four basic principles of the art: Keep them on their heels. - Before the enemy makes a move, before the element of chance or the unexpected actions of your opponents can ruin your plans, you make an aggressive move to seize the initiative. You then keep up a relentless pressure, exploiting this momentary advantage to the fullest. Shift the battlefield. - An enemy naturally wants to fight you on familiar terrain. Terrain in this sense means all of the details of the battle--the time and place, exactly what is being fought over, who is involved in the struggle, and so on. By subtly shifting your enemies into places and situations that are not familiar to them, you control the dynamic. Compel mistakes. - Your enemies depend on executing a strategy that plays to their advantages, that has worked in the past. Your task is twofold: to fight the battle in such a way that they cannot bring their strength or strategy into play and to create such a level of frustration that they make mistakes in the process. Assume passive control. - The ultimate form of domination is to make those on the other side think they are the ones in control. Believing they are in command, they are less likely to resist you or become defensive. You create this impression by moving with the energy of the other side, giving ground but slowly and subtly diverting them in the direction you desire. It is often the best way to control the overly aggressive and the passive-aggressive. - To control the dynamic, you must be able to control yourself and your emotions. Getting angry and lashing out will only limit your options. And in conflict, fear is the most debilitating emotion of all. - Before anything else you must lose your fear--of death, of the consequences of a bold maneuver, of other people's opinion of you. That single moment will suddenly open up vistas of possibilities. And in the end whichever side has more possibilities for positive action has greater control.

Answer 5

- The greatest dangers in war, and in life, come from the unexpected: people do not respond the way you had thought they would, events mess up your plans and produce confusion, circumstances are overwhelming. - In strategy, the discrepancy between what you want to happen and what does happen is called friction. - The idea behind conventional offensive warfare is simple: by attacking the other side first, you create your own circumstances before friction can creep in. - To be successful at offensive warfare, you must plan in intense detail, thinking in terms of the whole campaign, not individual battles.

Answer 6

In reality, supporters of the late King are often best off to elevate his son, and hope that he then dances with the one that brought him to the ball, new leaders need supporters to stay in power, and with inheritance those supporters are all already in place. The prince knows who they are and how to pay them. Of course, as we saw with Francis Louie the 14th. The prince might radically alter the coalition, but supporters of the old king correctly believe in the old adage. Like father like son. It's not a bad gamble for them. Essential supporters have a much greater chance of retaining their privileged position when power passes within a family from father to son, King to Prince than when power passes to an outsider. If you are a prince, and you want to be king, then you should do nothing to dissuade your father's supporters have their chances of being important to you too. They will curry favor with you. You should let them. You will need them to secure a smooth transition. If you want them gone, and you may not, then banish them from court later. But the first time they need to know your true feelings for them is when you banish them from court. Well after your investiture and not a minute before. Naturally, if you're a young prince who hopes to be king, you'll have to make sure to outlive your supporters first. Leaders often nominate their successor, and sometimes choose from outside their immediate relation. Perhaps because they understand the dire risks the family, if they turn to one member and not another. For instance, the first Roman Emperor Augustus formally adopted his successor Tiberius, my bosses often do the same. Carlo Gambino nominated big Paul Castellano to succeed him as head of his New York mafia family. In each case, the designated successor was seen as someone likely to continue the programs and projects so the prior leader.Therefore, there wasn't much rushed to replace the old leader. The new designated successors might even enhance the old boss's reputation for sick and decrepit leaders nominating a new air can help them live out the rest of their life in power, provided the essentials in the coalition believe the air will retain sufficient continuity in the coalition's makeup inheritance, makes it very difficult for outsiders to offer essential coalition members, more than they expect from the Father Son succession.

Answer 7

Elections for their own sake should never be the objective. When the international community pushes for elections, without being careful about how meaningful they are all that is accomplished, is to further entrench and nasty regime. International inspectors for instance like to certify whether people could freely go to the polling place, and whether their votes were properly counted as if that means there was a free and fair election. There's no reason to impede the opportunity to vote, or to cheat. When counting votes If, for instance, our regime first bans parties that might be real rivals, or if a government sets up campaign constraints that make it easy for the government's party to tell its story. It makes it impossible for the opposition to do the same. Russian incumbents don't need to cheat and counting votes to get the outcome they want. They don't need to block people from getting into the polling place. They deprive the opposition from having access to a free press from holding rallies, so sure. Observers will easily conclude that elections were free and fair in the narrow sense. And just as easily we can all recognize that they were neither really free nor fair. Ultimately, elections need to follow expanded freedom and not be thought of as preceding it.

Answer 8

Supporters are made worse off because their share of private goods is greatly diluted as additional supporters are brought on board. However, as the coalition gets ever larger, the extent of the dilution declines. As a rough approximation, each of the two original coalition members must give up a third of their lucrative private rewards to compensate, bringing in a third coalition member. They are in part compensated for this loss by the greater availability of public goods and a more productive society. But they take huge personal losses in exchange for their societal gains. The trade off works out differently in initially larger coalition. Again, as a rough approximation, consider the costs and benefits for a coalition of six members to bring in a seventh coalition member. Each of the six existing coalition members forsake about a seventh of their private members If it's in exchange for the societal game, as the losses in private rewards from an expanded coalition decline, the coalition's members, far from continuing to oppose expansion support additional members being brought into the coalition from this point onwards, which occurs in a coalition size of around seven members. In our admittedly simple example, the essentials prefer to continue expanding the coalition. This puts them at odds with their leader who remains committed to the first rule of staying in power. Keep the coalition small. Thus, except under extreme duress, leaders don't expand the coalition the masses press for democratization Essential supporters vary and what they want.

Answer 9

Blind fools don't often get to rule countries or companies. Pretty much any leader with assault can see the dangers he faces when economic circumstances leave him bereft of funds to buy loyalty. Under such circumstances, even leaders can believe that reform is their best shot, had political survival. They might look for a fix, even before their coalition does. When the time or circumstances are ripe for change,coalition members must recognize that they do not pressure for an expansion of public goods and public welfare, then others will provided that the chances of success are good enough. And the expected gains from success outstrip the costs involved in gambling on a revolt, an intransigent coalition and leadership will find itself besieged by an uprising. in this circumstance, such as was seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. And as we saw in the proxy fight at HP over Carly Fiorina, his decision to merge with Compaq people are willing to take big risks to improve their lot.

Answer 10

Diplomacy is an important characteristic of any politician. Granted, Underwood’s diplomacy borders on maniacal manipulation, but the end goal is the same. Understanding the motives and ambitions of everyone around him, he carefully plods through the complicated waters of politics while furthering his own agenda. And while this may come at the cost of compromise or consolation, his long term goal is his only priority.

Answer 11

- The problem in leading any group is that people inevitably have their own agendas. If you are too authoritarian, they will resent you and rebel in silent ways. If you are too easygoing, they will revert to their natural selfishness and you will lose control. You have to create a chain of command in which people do not feel constrained by your influence yet follow your lead. - Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into Groupthink. - A proper chain of command, and the control it brings you, is not an accident; it is your creation, a work of art that requires constant attention and care. Keys to Warfare - This is the game you must play: Do whatever you can to pressure unity of command. At the same time, hide your tracks. Work behind the scenes; make the group feel involved in your decisions. - A critical step in creating an efficient chain of command is assembling a skilled team that shares your goals and values. - In creating this team, you are looking for people who make up for your deficiencies, who have the skills you lack. - Be careful in assembling this team that you are not seduced by expertise and intelligence. Character, the ability to work under you and with the rest of the team, and the capacity to accept responsibility and think independently are equally key. - The single greatest risk to your chain of command comes from the political animals in the group. Try to weed them out before they arrive. - Finally, pay attention to the orders themselves--their form as well as their substance. Vague orders are worthless. - On the other hand, if your commands are too specific and too narrow, you will encourage people to behave like automatons and stop thinking for themselves--which they must do when the situation requires it. Erring in neither direction is an art. blood.

Answer 12

Rarely do any of us stopped to probe beneath these observations to find out why dictators paid to have well educated third graders, but do not carry that quality of education forward to higher learning. The logic behind political survival teaches us to be suspicious. We cannot help but believe that these public goods are not intended to uplift and assist the people unfortunate enough to live in such places. The rules of politics as we know, instruct leaders to do no more for the people than is absolutely essential to prevent rebellion leaders who spend on public welfare at the expense of their essentials are courting disaster, these leaders whether dictators or democrats are all grappling with the same question. How much education is the right amount. For those who rely on few essential bankers, the answer is straightforward educational opportunity, should not be so extensive as to equip ordinary folks. The interchangeable to question government authority, an IE person might look at any number of offload regimes, and yet come to the conclusion that because they provide such public benefits as nationalized health care or sound primary education, they're actually better to their people than many democratic states are to theirs. This is nonsense, of course, in the vast majority of cases autocrats are simply keeping the peasants healthy enough to work and educated enough to do their jobs. Either way, literate or not, they're still peasants, and they're going to stay that way, a far better measure of leaders interest in education is the distribution of top universities with the sole exception of China and Singapore. No, none democratic country has even one university rated among the world's top 200. Despite its size and not counting universities in Hong Kong, which were established under British rule before Hong Kong's returned to China in 1997, the best ranked Chinese University is only in 47th place. This by China's opportunity to draw top minds from its vast population. The highest ranking Russian university with Russia as long history of dictatorship is 210. By contrast, countries with relatively few people, but with dependence on many essential backers like Israel, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada have several universities ranked among the top 200, that this uneven distribution of top notch universities favors large coalition locales is no accident, highly educated people are a potential threat to autocrats, and so autocrats Make sure to limit educational opportunity autocrats want workers to have basic labor skills like literacy and they want their own children, they're most likely successors to be truly well educated and so send them off to schools and places like Switzerland, or Kim Jong Hoon Kim Jong Il's youngest son and designated successor was educated

Answer 13

Sometimes the most influential thing you can do is NOT get what you want. This is known as the “door in the face” technique. This is when you purposefully ask for something that you know the other person is likely to say no to. The theory is that if they have said no to you for one thing, they are more likely to comply to the next…or the next. When done well, you trigger the “mark’s” desire to be polite and helpful and they are more likely to work with you because they did, after all, already shut you down on one thing. Or, in Frank’s words: FRANK:The only thing more satisfying than convincing someone to do what I want is failing to persuade them on purpose. It’s like a do not enter sign. It just begs you to walk in the door.

Answer 14

Take oil for example, it flows out of the ground, whether it is taxed at zero percent or 100% labor represents a small part of the value of oil extraction. This makes it a leaders dream and the people's nightmare. In a phenomenon, often called the resource curse nations with readily extractable natural resources, systematically underperform nations without such resources resource rich nations have worse economic growth, are more prone to civil wars and become more autocratic than their resource poor counterparts, Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa achieved independence from Britain in 1960. At the time of independence. It was a poor nation, but expectations were high these expectations grew with the discovery of oil, Nigeria is believed to have the world's 10th largest reserves. With the rise in oil prices during the oil crises in the early late 1970s Nigeria found itself awash with funds, and yet by the early 1980s, a country was swamped by debt and poverty. from 1970 to 2000, Nigeria, had accumulated 350 billion dollars in oil revenue. It has not helped the people over the same years. Average annual income per capita went from $1,113 in 1972 to $1,084 in 2000, making Nigeria one of the poorest nations in the world. In spite of its vast oil wealth, poverty has risen to $1 per days a common standard used for assessing poverty in 1970 36% of Nigerians lived on less by 2000. This figure in jumped to nearly 70%, the situation can hardly be said we have improved since then. Even with today's inflated dollars a majority of Nigerians earn less than $1 a day and per capita income has continued to fall adjusted for inflation income is below what it was when Nigeria became independent Nigeria is not exceptional figure 4.2 shows exactly that, the horizontal axis shows the natural resource exports, as a percentage of GDP in 1970. The vertical axis shows the average level of economic growth, between 1970 and 1990. The trend is clear, nations flush with oil, copper, gold diamond, or other minerals grow more slowly. Nevertheless, natural resources are wonderful for leaders. I like getting their subjects to work leaders don't have to encourage natural resources to work. Admittedly, the minerals need to be extracted. But by and large autocrats can achieve this, without the participation of the local population in Nigeria, for instance, the oil is concentrated in the Niger Delta region, foreign firms with foreign workers do most of the extraction. Few Nigerians participate, the oil companies run security firms effectively small private armies to keep the locals from obstructing the business or complaining about the environmental degradation that results, VP and other foreign firms are free to act with impunity, provided they deliver royalty checks to the government. This is not so much a failing of these companies as the way business must be conducted in countries whose leaders rely on a few cronies to back them up, a company that acts responsibly will necessarily have less money to deliver to the government. And that will be enough for them to be replaced by another company that is willing to be more cooperative.

Answer 15

Everything about House of Cards is give and take – with the emphasis on take. Even though Frank’s angle is always to someone’s detriment, there is a lesson to be learned here: the Law of Reciprocity. In general, the Law of Reciprocity goes like this: someone is more likely to do you a favor if you have done something or given something to them first. The interesting thing about the Law of Reciprocity is that you can likely get a return on value that well exceeds the value that you initially gave. Frank is aware of this when he helps Edward Meechum get back on his security detail. FRANK:It requires very little of me and will mean the world to him. It’s a very inexpensive investment. Simple favors can have a significant ROI. And Frank is right because that one favor earned him a highly loyal servant. Frank also twists reciprocity into something much more diabolical when he says, “Generosity is its own form of power.”

Answer 16

Staying in power right after having come to power is tough, but a successful leader will seize power and reshuffle the coalition that brought him there to redouble his strength. A smart leader sacks some early backers replacing them with more reliable and cheaper supporters. But no matter how much he packs the coalition with his friends and supporters. They will not remain loyal, unless he rewards them as we will see in the next chapter rewards don't come cheaply. For steal from the poor, give to the rich. Whether you're taking charge of the Ottoman Empire of corporation or Liberia, controlling the flow of funds is essential to buying support. However, once you've empty the state so the corporate coffers by buying off both your essential supporters and the replacements, if necessary, you must reckon with the entirely new challenge of refilling the Treasury. If a leader cannot find a reliable source of income, then it is only a matter of time until someone else will offer his supporters greater rewards then he can. Money is essential for anyone who wants to run any organization without their share the state's rewards, Hardly anyone will stick with an incumbent for long.

Answer 17

Democracies hardly fight each other. Losing men, equipment and money isnt popular and people will vote them out of office. They only really go to war if they think they will win.it has to be mostly certain. 93% of wars started by Democrats have been won by them.

Answer 18

Corporations suffer from two big problems. first in big corporations there tend to be millions of little shareholders, a handful of big institutional shareholders and a bunch of insider owners, the millions of little shareholders might as well not exist. They are not organized and the cost to any of them to organize the massive owners, just isn't worth it. Second, the flow of information about the firm's performance comes from pretty much only two sources. The firm itself and the financial media. Few owners read annual reports or SEC filings. And the financial media, don't spend much time reporting on any one firm unless it is in huge trouble. By then it is usually too late for the shareholders to save the day. We live in the age of networking, much of the world including owners of shares, Twitter and chat with friends on Facebook. They aren't LinkedIn. They can easily communicate with one another, even if they don't always do so. Surely it would be relatively simple to design firm specific Facebook's or other networking sites. Companies maintain lively websites to put their view across, but entrepreneur owners have not stepped forward, to do the same to help organize the mass of little owners and to provide a way for them to share views. Sure, there are bloggers writing about anything and everything, but there don't seem to be shareholder controlled sites to exchange thoughts and ideas about a company that participants own in common. If something like this existed. The size of the influential informed voters in any corporation would go way up. Then for the first time, boards would really be elected by their owners, and then the board would need like any leadership group to be responsive to their large coalition of constituents. A simple change that exploits the internet to be a conduit for increasing coalition size can turn the AI G's Bank of America's General Motors and 18 T's of the world into big coalition regimes that serve their millions of small owners, instead of a handful of senior managers. Ah, you were thinking, senior management can thwart such efforts. They will, as they already do hold shareholder meetings in places. Most owners can't afford to go, or the meetings will be so brief, that it will be impossible for dissidents to express their views, their preferred shareholder meeting strategy in Japan, and after all proxies pour in turning millions of votes over to a handful of board members. None of that of course will stop shareholder control. Once the millions of little owners have a cheap and easy way to exchange views. Then they will set the rules by majority vote for who casts proxies. They can set some of their own up to represent competing parties, and they can make the annual shareholders meeting a purely decorative event, all such skeptics should remember that social networking websites have already successfully mobilized revolutions and brought down governments. Changing corporate governance is far easier corporations don't have armies that can go out and bashing the heads of dissidents pursue a course of connecting and informing shareholders, and we will see whether shareholders who limit CEO salaries do better or worse, whether firms that alter behavior to meet the social expectations of their shareholders do better or worse, and whether shareholders care more about employees who are about themselves. Whatever the millions of little owners decide to do. They will be responsible for their own fate management will serve them just as Democratic leaders are more constrained than autocrats to do what their citizens want. We also want to comment a bit on how not to improve corporate governance. In the wake of Enron's collapse and other big frauds Congress decided to regulate corporate governance offensively to make it better. By now every listener knows that the interest of government leaders is not in making shareholders, or even the man or woman on the street better off their interest is in making themselves better off the regulations they imposed on corporate governance may have played well with voters, many of whom had little stake in many of the companies that were harmed by the regulations, but they have not made corporate governance better. The Sarbanes Oxley bill passed in 2002 was supposed to tamp down management's greed and make companies responsive to their shareholders interest in equity growth. Study after study however shows us that this is not what happened in a brilliant summary of the statistical assessments of each of the governance planks in Sarbanes Oxley for instance, he had a law professor, Roberto Romano shows that Sarbanes Oxley did not do what it was supposed to do, and often made things worse.

Answer 19

Oil is the devil's excrement at least according to one Pablo Perez alfonzo, a Venezuelan who founded the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC a cartel of oil producing nations. 10 years from now, 20 years from now, you will see oil will bring us ruin. And he was right. As many leaders have learned the problem with raising revenue through taxation is that it requires people to work tax to aggressively or failed to provide an environment conducive to economic activity, and people simply don't produce actually extracting revenue from the land itself provides a convenient alternative cutting the people out of the equation all together.

Answer 20

Economic Hitman Economic hitman will first get the target snared in debt using public works that they cannot possibly pay back and using projections that are mostly false but benefit as small elite in the country. When the target defaults on the loan they then get concessions such as UN votes, access to oil and land for military bases. The case in Iran: After WWII the British allowed more popular participation in the government leading to a communist Mohammad Mossadegh to be elected. In 1952 the US and British engineered a coup to get him overthrown. (he was sorta of a dick though) Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelts nephew, was the first EHM. He used bribe and intimidation in Iran to overthrow its leader and install one faithful the the US, UK and British petroleum (BP). He pushed the Shiah clergy to demonstrate against the Shah after a communist was elected The shah was put back into power. He abolished the other political party. He tried to modernize the country, education and oil revenues, infant mortality fell etc. He was also very repressive and tried to give women the vote angering Islamic fundamentalists. Iotolah Komenihi objected against the Shah and said he was corrupt and and election rigging (Though he was also a dick) This lead to protest, the protests lead to crackdown, which lead to overthrowing the monarchy. He appointed the supreme leader (Faquih) who could interfere directly with the government leaders and veto anything he didn't like. He was a stand-in for God. Now women can vote and there are women in congress, but criminals are still exectued at a high rate and is very repressive. This is the biggest revolution. Bigger than the america, French, industrial. The pillars of empire are fear, debt, rapid consumerism, divide and conquer mindset.

Answer 21

- Communication is a kind of war, its field of battle the resistant and defensive minds of the people you want to influence. The goal is to advance, to penetrate their defenses and occupy their minds. Anything else is ineffective communication, self-indulgent talk. Learn to infiltrate your ideas behind enemy lines, sending messages through little details, luring people into coming to the conclusions you desire and into thinking they've gotten there by themselves. Some you can trick by cloaking your extraordinary ideas in ordinary forms; others, more resistant and dull, must be awoken with extreme language that bristles with newness. At all cost, avoid language that is static, preachy, and overly personal. Make your words a spark for action, not passive contemplation. - To communicate in a deep and real way, you must bring people back to their childhood, when they were less defensive and more impressed by sounds, images, actions, a world of preverbal communication. It requires speaking a kind of language composed of actions, all strategically designed to effect people's moods and emotions, what they can least control. - It is imperative in life's battles to be able to communicate your ideas to people, to be able to alter their behavior. - Understand: you may have brilliant ideas, the kind that could revolutionize the world, but unless you can express them effectively, they will have no force, no power to enter people's minds in a deep and lasting way. You must focus not on yourself or on the need you feel to express what you have to say but on your audience--as intently as a general focuses on the enemy he is strategizing to defeat. When dealing with people who are bored and have short attention spans, you must entertain them, sneaking your ideas in through the back door. With leaders you must be careful and indirect, perhaps using third parties to disguise the source of the ideas you are trying to spread. With the young your expression must be more violent. In general, your words must have movement, sweeping readers along, never calling attention to their own cleverness. You are not after personal expression, but power and influence. The less people consciously focus on the communicative form you have chosen, the less they realize how far your dangerous ideas are burrowing into their minds. Keys to Warfare - What you need to pay attention to is not simply the content of your communication but the form--the way you lead people to the conclusions you desire, rather than telling them the message in so many words. If you want people to change a bad habit, for example, much more effective than simply trying to persuade them to stop is to show them--perhaps by mirroring their bad behavior in some way--how annoying that habit feels to other people. - If you want to communicate an important idea, you must not preach; instead make your readers or listeners connect the dots and come to the conclusion on their own. - Silence, for instance, can be used to great effect: by keeping quiet, not responding, you say a lot; by not mentioning something that people expect you to talk about, you call attention to this ellipsis, make it communicate. - In putting this strategy into practice, avoid the common mistake of straining to get people's attention by using a form that is shocking or strange. The attention you get this way will be superficial and short-lived. By using a form that alienates a wide public, you narrow your audience; you will end up preaching to the converted. Reversal - Even as you plan your communications to make them more consciously strategic, you must develop the reverse ability to decode the subtexts, hidden messages, and unconscious signals in what other people say. When people speak in vague generalities, for example, and use a lot of abstract terms like justice, morality, liberty, and so on, without really ever explaining the specifics of what they are talking about, they are almost always hiding something. - Meanwhile people who use cutesy, colloquial language, brimming with clichés and slang, may be trying to distract you from the thinness of their ideas, trying to win you over not by the soundness of their arguments but by making you feel chummy and warm toward them. - And people who use pretentious, flowery language, crammed with clever metaphors, are often more interested in the sound of their own voices than in reaching the audience with a genuine thought.

Answer 22

- When you look at your enemies, do not be intimidated by their appearance. Instead look at the parts that make up the whole. By separating the parts, sowing dissension and division from within, you can weaken and bring down even the most formidable foe. - In setting up your attack, work on their minds to create internal conflict. The joints are the weakest part of any structure. - The best way to make an enemy divide is to occupy the centre. - Think of battle or conflict as existing on a kind of chessboard. The chessboard's center can be physical--an actual place like Marathon--or more subtle and psychological: the levers of power within a group, the support of a critical ally, a troublemaker at the eye of the storm. Take the centre of the chessboard and the enemy will naturally break into parts, trying to hit you from more than one side. - To make people join you, separate them from their past. When you size up your targets, look for what connects them to the past, the source of their resistance to the new. - A joint is the weakest part of any structure. Break it and you divide people internally, making them vulnerable to suggestion and change. Divide their minds in order to conquer them. Keys to Warfare - The divide-and-conquer strategy has never been more effective than it is today: cut people off from their group--make them feel alienated, alone, and unprotected--and you weaken them enormously. - Divide and rule is a powerful strategy for governing any group. It is based on a key principle: within any organization people naturally form smaller groups based on mutual self-interest--the primitive desire to find strength in numbers. These subgroups form power bases that, left unchecked, will threaten the organization as a whole. - The solution is to divide to rule. To do so you must first establish yourself as the center of power; individuals must know they need to compete for your approval. There has to be more to be gained by pleasing the leader than by trying to form a power base within the group. - The divide-and-rule strategy is invaluable in trying to influence people verbally. Start by seeming to take your opponents' side on some issue, occupying their flank. Once there, however, create doubt about some part of their argument, tweaking and diverting it a bit. This will lower their resistance and maybe create a little inner conflict about a cherished idea or belief. That conflict will weaken them, making them vulnerable to further suggestion and guidance.

Answer 23

One of the key teachings in the art of war is avoiding protracted conflict, like many of sons whose concepts it can be updated and used in the modern era without meaning a literal aggressive conflict. Modern protracted wars in order to think about the idea of a protracted conflict in a way, which is useful for the modern era, think of it as any unusual situation which expands effort and resources at a rate which is more rapid than usual. A few examples of concrete situations which consists of modern protracted wars will now be expanded upon. Personal situations are one way in which a modern protracted war can be seen as undesirable some situations which consist of a modern protracted war including putting in more hours than normal into a project, acquiring a new skill or traveling excessively. Basically, any unusual activity which saps energy, time or other resources in a more than unusual manner can be seen as a personal protracted conflict. Sometimes it is necessary to enter into a situation which will drain your time or resources. Before taking such a course of action However, a few things need to be clearly established. First, it must be considered whether the rewards of the action will be equal or greater to the resources expended in order to acquire it. Second, it should be considered whether some other less taxing course of action could result in the same benefits. Finally, if the protracted personal war is seen as beneficial or unavoidable, it should be considered whether there are any ways to mitigate the negative effects shorten the war, often in the case of personal war There will be a way to achieve victory faster than it initially seemed. Plan rapidly for every situation, life is chaotic and the pace of change can be fast. One mistake which often results in organizations or individuals becoming trapped in a long war is expecting things to go a certain way without considering the alternative possibilities. Let's say for example, a company is launching a new product and competing directly against another organization. In such circumstance, a key mistake would be to assume there is only one possible way other act

Answer 24

- If you seem too ambitious, you stir up resentment in other people; overt power grabs and sharp rises to the top are dangerous, creating envy, distrust, and suspicion. Often the best solution is to take small bites, swallow little territories, playing upon people's relatively short attention spans. Stay under the radar and they won't see your moves. And if they do, it may already be too late; the territory is yours, a fait accompli. You can always claim you acted out of self-defense. Before people realize it, you have accumulated an empire. Keys to Warfare - The truth is that most people are conservative by nature. Desperate to keep what they have, they dread the unforeseen consequences and situations that conflict inevitably brings. They hate confrontation and try to avoid it. - The strategy works as follows: Suppose there is something you want or need for your security and power. Take it without discussion or warning and you give your enemies a choice, either to fight or to accept the loss and leave you alone. Is whatever you have taken, and your unilateral action in taking it, worth the bother, cost, and danger of waging war? - The key to the fait accompli strategy is to act fast and without discussion. If you reveal your intentions before taking action, you will open yourself to a slew of criticisms, analyses, and questions. - Finally, the use of the piecemeal strategy to disguise your aggressive intentions is invaluable in these political times, but in masking your manipulations you can never go too far. So when you take a bite, even a small one, make a show of acting out of self-defense. It also helps to appear as the underdog. - In fact, it would be the height of wisdom to make your bite a little larger upon occasion and then giving back some of what you have taken. People see only your generosity and your limited actions, not the steadily increasing empire you are amassing.

Answer 25

Politics is often about personal relationships and favors, but also revenge. And behind many a handshake lies a world of hate. Sure, we’d like personal differences to be put aside, and sometimes they are. But people need to be aware that many public figures are incredibly egotistical and have no trouble plotting long-term revenge for even slight offenses. And Frank is never shy about warning people not to cross him or he will make the disagreement personal. The sex-feud between Zoe and Frank is one of many cases in point: he tells Zoe, quoting Oscar Wilde: “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” Sometimes these rivalries come to the surface (see the ever-obnoxious and strongly-disliked-by-many-fellow-Republicans Ted Cruz) but many more times they will seethe below the surface, the public blithely unaware of how they drive major events, just like in House of Cards.

Answer 26

When in doubt, sleep on it. Be it a new business venture or a momentous life change, it’s never wise to commit to a decision without first giving thoughtful consideration to every conceivable outcome. People who avoid this tactic end up getting swindled into buying a timeshare in Barbados for $15,000 a year.

Answer 27

Dont forgive debt until he democratize the country. The lease hint of fraud elections and taking away rights should be tied to a lose in fund. Foreign aid should be tied to actually of political reform and not to its promise. They just will steal aid money. Their books should be audited. Democrats spend more money on war because they have less bribes to pay. Autocracies need to pay their coalition or be overthrown Democrats would rather negotiate than fight when they can't easily win like the us and Soviets

Answer 28

Borrowing to much like Greece and Iceland can have the effect of pushing up the cost of borrowing and making it much harder to secure, new loans. It is supply not demand that is shrunk markets limit how much a nation can borrow, if individuals borrow too much and either cannot or will not repay it, then banks and other creditors can seize assets to recover the debt .With sovereign lending to countries, however, creditors cannot repossess property. On a few occasions creditors have tried. For instance, France invaded Mexico in 1862, in an attempt to get Mexico to repay loans. France also invaded the rural industrial area of Germany in 1923 to collect reparation payments due from World War One that Germany had not paid, both attempts failed. In practice, the only leverage lenders have over nations, is to cut them off from future credit. Nevertheless, this has a profound effect as the ability to engage in borrowing in financial markets is valuable. For this reason nations generally pay their debt. However, once the value of access to credit is worth less than the cost of servicing the debt, then leaders should default. If they don't, then surely a challenger will come along, will offer to do so. This was one of the appeals of Adolf Hitler to the German people in the 1930s, Germany faced a huge debt, in part, to pay reparations from World War One. Hitler defaulted on this debt. It was a popular policy with the German people, since the cost of servicing the debt was so high.

Answer 29

Grief is both natural and necessary. It breeds integrity and resolve. You can’t allow the pain to come to define you; rather, you must turn the tables on the pain and define it. Show the world you are able to overcome your suffering. Grow from the experience; don’t become consumed by it.

Answer 30

Democratic leaders listen to their voters because that is how they and their political party get to keep their jobs. Democratic leaders were elected after all, to advance the current interests, at least of those who chose them, the long run is always on someone else's watch democracy overseas is a great thing for us if and only if the people of a democratizing nation happened to one policies that we like. When a foreign people are aligned against our best interest. Our best chance of getting what we want is to keep them under the yoke of an oppressor, who is willing to do what we, the people want. Yet, we want people to be free and prosperous, but we don't want them to be free and prosperous enough to threaten our way of life, our interests and our well being. And that is as it should be. That too is a rule to rule by for Democratic leaders, they must do what their coalition wants. They are not beholden to the coalition in any other country, just to those who help keep them in power. If we pretend otherwise we will just be engaging in the sort of utopianism that serves as an excuse for not tackling the problems that we can. We began with caches employing Brutus to act against Julius Caesar's despotism. The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves. We humbly add that the reason the fault is in ourselves, is because we the people care so much for ourselves. And so little for the world's underlings.

Answer 31

There were many other Coalition's that could have formed, but doe grabbed hold of power first and suppressed the rest. This is the essence of coming to power. Consider a room filled with 100 people. Anyone could take complete control. If only she had five supporters with automatic weapons pointed at the rest. She would remain in power so long as the five gunman continued to backer, But there need be nothing special about her or about the government beyond the fact that they grabbed the guns first had someone else secured the guns and given them to five supporters of their own, then it would be someone else telling everyone what to do. Waiting is risky business. there is no prize for coming in second

Answer 32

- You must actively resist the emotional pull of the moment, maintaining your mental powers whatever the circumstances. - Make your mind tougher by exposing it to adversity. Learn to detach yourself. The Hyperaggressive Tactic - In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined and aggressive. Any mistakes you make can be rectified with more aggression. The Detached-Buddha Tactic - Presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself and see the whole battlefield with clarity. What gives you that distance is preparation, mastering the details beforehand. Let people think your Buddha-like detachment comes from some mysterious source. The less they understand you, the better. Keys to Warfare - What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness. - No one can teach you this skill. It can only come through practice, experience, and even a little suffering. To toughen your mind: Expose yourself to conflict. - It is better to confront your fears than to ignore them or tamp them down. - The more conflicts and difficult situations you put yourself through, the more battle-tested your mind will be. Be self-reliant. - Dependency makes you vulnerable to all kinds of emotions. - We tend to overestimate other people’s abilities, and we tend to underestimate our own. Compensate for this by trusting yourself more, and others less. - Remember, though, that being self-reliant does not mean burdening yourself with petty details. Suffer fools gladly. - Your time and energy are limited, and you must learn how to preserve them. - Instead, think of fools as you think of children, or pets, not important enough to affect your mental balance. - Crowd out feelings of panic by focusing on simple tasks. Unintimidate yourself. - See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. - Develop your Fingerspitzengefuhl (fingertip feel). - Presence of mind depends not only on your mind's ability to come to your aid in difficult situations but also on the speed with which this happens. - There are things you can do to help you respond faster and bring out that intuitive feel that all animals possess. Deep knowledge of the terrain will let you process information faster than your enemy, a tremendous advantage. Getting a feel for the spirit of men and material, thinking your way into them instead of looking at them from outside, will help to put you in a different frame of mind. - Get your mind into the habit of making lightning-quick decisions, trusting your fingertip feel. Your mind will advance in a kind of mental blitzkrieg, moving past your opponents before they realize what has hit them.

Answer 33

The only person who you can unfailingly rely on is yourself. Ultimately, we are all pitted against one another in the battle that is life. We fight to climb the hierarchical ladder, clawing our way past one another in pursuit of a higher status. You can’t depend on some benevolent entity coming to your aid.

Answer 34

- The feeling of emptiness or void--silence, isolation, nonengagement with others--is for most people intolerable. As a human weakness, that fear offers fertile ground for a powerful strategy: give your enemies no target to attack, be dangerous but elusive and invisible, then watch as they chase you into the void. This is the essence of guerrilla warfare. Instead of frontal battles, deliver irritating but damaging side attacks and pinprick bites. Frustrated at their inability to use their strength against your vaporous campaign, your opponents will grow irrational and exhausted. Make your guerrilla war part of a grand political cause--a people's war--that crests in an irresistible revolution. - The bigger your enemy, the better this strategy works: struggling to reach you, the oversize opponent presents juicy targets for you to hit. Keys to Warfare - The primary consideration should always be whether a guerrilla-style campaign is appropriate for the circumstances you are facing. It is especially effective, for instance, against an opponent who is aggressive yet clever. - Having nothing to strike at neutralizes their cleverness, and their aggression becomes their downfall. - It is interesting to note that this strategy works in love as well as in war and that here, too. - This strategy of the void works wonders on those who are used to conventional warfare. - Large bureaucracies are often perfect targets for a guerrilla strategy for the same reason: they are capable of responding only in the most orthodox manner. - Once you have determined that a guerrilla war is appropriate, take a look at the army you will use. A large, conventional army is never suitable; fluidity and the ability to strike from many angles are what counts. The organizational model is the cell--a relatively small group of men and women, tight-knit, dedicated, self-motivated, and spread out. These cells should penetrate the enemy camp itself. - You will win your guerrilla war in one of two ways. The first route is to increase the level of your attacks as your enemies deteriorate, then finish them off. - The other method is by turning sheer exhaustion to your advantage: you just let the enemy give up, for the fight is no longer worth the aggravation. The latter way is the better one. It costs you less in resources, and it looks better: the enemy has fallen on his own sword. - Remember: this war is psychological. It is more on the level of strategy than anything else that you give the enemy nothing to hold on to, nothing tangible to counter.

Answer 35

Tourism fuels change because the dictators need tourist dollars. This let's people rise up because they can oppress them as much.

Answer 36

A good guiding rule when thinking through changes is to try and put a percentage probability on different impacts. This makes a range of different potential decisions and the consequences of executing them comparable and possible to understand. It is also important to think conservatively and skeptically, it is always better to be prepared for something worse than what actually happens, than to be caught out unaware by something which was not anticipated, and ends up causing bigger problems than expected, the best decision is often hidden. Sometimes it is only through the process of careful exploration and evaluation of the range of decisions that are possible, and what their consequences may be that exposes the best course of action to take. Countless times leaders have been faced with a range of choices with one of the choices seeming to be the obvious course of action after delving deep into the process of rational evaluation and explanation. An unlikely course of action ends up emerging as the wisest, what are the implications of this first it is important to be open minded to every possible course of action within a given scenario, and not to rule anything out until it has been properly considered overlooking something without actually thinking it through may lead to a worthwhile course of action being forgotten or not acted upon when it would have ended up producing the best outcome. Second, it is important to have a solid understanding of the criteria by which various courses of action will be compared to one another, for example, in a particular situation. Is it better to incur a loss of money, or a loss of time. It is better to take a course of action which results in lower organizational morale, or one which results in short term savings, without a clear methodology by which to make decisions, it is impossible to choose the best option at any given time

Answer 37

There is only one glimmer of positive influence from Frank Underwood in the series. It is when he convinces Congressman Russo to get sober and not have a drink for a month so that he can run for Governor. A month goes by and Russo accomplishes the task. He returns to Frank saying the he’s prepared and ready to run. When they conclude the meeting, Frank says, “Peter, I feel like I just met you for the first time right now” – implying he’s a changed man now that he’s sober. Frank is positively reinforcing Russo’s behavior. With this, he is appealing to Russo’s higher self. Everyone has a vision for themselves–the person they know they can become. One of the best positive ways to influence someone is to show them how your idea will help them attain their higher self. Of course, in House of Cards this positive technique is overshadowed by Frank’s bigger plans.

Answer 38

Once the old leader is gone, it is essential to seize the instruments of power, such as the Treasury as quickly as possible. This is particularly important in small coalition systems. Anyone who waits will be a loser in the competition for power, speed is of the essence. The coalition size in most political systems is much smaller than a majority of the electorate. Furthermore,even though we tend to think that if one leader has enough votes or supporters, then the other potential candidate must be short. This is wrong. There can simultaneously be many different groups trying to organize to overthrow a regime, and each might have sufficient numbers of lukewarm or double dealing supporters who could aid them in securing power, or just as easily aid someone else, if the price is right. This is why it is absolutely essential to seize the reins of power quickly to make sure that your group gets to control the instruments of the state, and not someone else's.

Answer 39

A reformer who takes what people say at face value, we'll quickly find their reforms at a dead end. Everyone has an interest in change. But interchangeable influentials essentials and leaders don't often agree on what changes they want. Leaders given their druthers would always like the set of interchangeable is to be very large. And there groups of influential and essentials, to be very Small. That's why the world of business has so many massive corporations with millions of shareholders, a few influential large owners, and a handful of essentials on the board of directors who agree to pay CEOs handsomely, regardless. That's why so much of humanity. For so much of human history has been governed by petty despots, who steal from the poor, to enrich the rich. The masses, whether members of the selected or the holy disenfranchised, agree that their group, the interchangeable should be large, but they want all other groups to be big as well. Their best chance at having a better life comes from the coalition and the influential group growing in size such that they have a realistic chance of becoming one of its members, and of benefiting from the profusion of public goods such governance provides, even if they remain excluded from the coalition. As we have seen, it is this very hope of improving the people's lot revolutionaries use as their rallying cry to get them to take to the streets. But even in a large coalition system, these masses are unlikely to get what they want all the time. Their hope is to get what they want more of the time. The group whose desires are most interesting from the perspective of lasting betterment is the set of essentials. More often than not, they are the people who can make things happen. You see, they don't like the idea that they might be purged to make the coalition smaller, but at the same time, ending up in a smaller coalition can provide them with fabulous wealth.

Answer 40

Too many sales people are concerned about sharing their pricing too early, lest their prospects get sticker shock and decides not to buy. But great sales people know that transparency is the key to building trust with a prospect. Plus, you probably don’t want to waste your time talking to prospects that are going to have sticker shock anyway. Let your price speak for the quality of your product or service. Then, as Frank would advise, limit the fine print around what your pricing includes or doesn’t include. A savvy prospect will know how to read the fine print.

Answer 41

- What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. - Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue into the future. Keys to Warfare - Understand: the greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment. That is how creativity is sparked and opportunities are seized. - It can be valuable to analyze what went wrong in the past, but it is far more important to develop the capacity to think in the moment. In that way you will make far fewer mistakes to analyze. - The first step is simply to be aware of the process and of the need to fight it. The second is to adopt a few tactics that might help you to restore the mind's natural flow. Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles. - Your only principle, similarly, should be to have no principles. Erase the memory of the last war. - Attention to the details of the present is by far the best way to crowd out the past and forget the last war. Keep the mind moving. - Superior strategists see things as they are. They are highly sensitive to dangers and opportunities. - Great strategists do not act according to preconceived ideas; they respond to the moment, like children. Absorb the spirit of the times. - Constantly adapt and change, and you will avoid the pitfalls of your previous wars. Just when people feel they know you, you will change. - Reverse course. Sometimes you must reverse course, break free from the hold of the past. Do the opposite of what you would normally do in a given situation. - Act in a novel manner in relationships to break up the dynamic.

Answer 42

if corruption empowers than absolute corruption empowers, absolutely. We have seen how leaders come to power, find money and provide public goods, sometimes even for the benefit of society. Yet precious few successful leaders are motivated, primarily by the desire to do good works on behalf of their subjects. Everyone likes to be liked, and there's no reason to think that the powerful have anything against being beloved and honored by their people. Indeed, it could well be the case that there are many candidates for high office who pursue power with the intention of being benevolent leaders. The problem is that doing what is best for the people can be awfully bad for staying in power, the logic of political survival teaches us that leaders, whether they rule countries, companies or committees, first and foremost want to get in keep our second they want to exercise as much control over the expenditure of revenue as they possibly can. While they can indulge their desires to do good deeds with any money at their discretion to come to power and to survive in office, leaders must rivet their attention on building and maintaining a coalition loyal enough that the ruler can beat back any and all rivals.

Answer 43

Underwood excels at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the people he surrounds himself with, and he understands well that all of his peers in politics have ulterior motives. He leverages this knowledge to motivate and get the best (or worst, as the case may be) from these people and does what is necessary to get the right people in the right place at the right time.

Answer 44

-JP Morgan

Answer 45

They also achieved higher educational attainment and were more attractive places for other Americans to migrate into people live to small coalition states. In fact, the big coalition states or public services were better in all manner of public goods are more extensively provided foreign immigrants also flocked to the larger coalition states, even after correcting for proximity to large ports, per capita incomes are much higher and varied almost directly with coalition size, even after correcting for pre independence differences states with bigger Coalition's simply did better. The lesson here is clear. Well all the states had the same nominal rules redistricting and enfranchisement criteria matter in creating differences and the competitiveness of political systems, and the development of the states if properly attended to districting and enfranchisement decisions could make the United States and even better place than it currently is. Let's start with the Decennial redistricting of Congress, the Supreme Court insists on the principle of one person, one vote. And that is an excellent guideline. But it is a principle so easily distorted as to make congressional elections, almost a farce except under extreme conditions. This is true for the simple reason that it is politicians and state legislators who get to draw up congressional district boundaries shockingly enough, they designed the boundaries to make it easier for their party to win gerrymandering is especially pernicious because it translates into two conflicting consequences. The average American is gravely dissatisfied with the job that Congress does, and the average American is happy with his or her member of Congress. The latter is true because districts are constructed by politicians to give their preferred party a majority and so by definition the majority in any district is likely to be content. But this is a great perversion of governance, a small coalition of state legislators, pick their voters, instead of millions of voters picking their representatives, when politicians pick who votes for them. It comes as no surprise that politicians are easily reelected and barely held accountable. Fixing gerrymandering is something that can be done only once a decade in the United States. It can be done more frequently in many parliamentary democracies that equally suffering from this perversion of representative politics, whether the opportunity is ongoing or infrequent fixing gerrymandering is easy, but to be feasible, the voters must take up the cause and fight for it Many scholars of American politics have worked out lots of better ways to allocate congressional districts than the way it is done now, all the methods come down to variations on a common theme district boundaries should not be manipulated to squeeze some voters in here, and others out there. Boundaries should reflect some basic principles of geometry and the natural constraints of the terrain, like major rivers or mountains. As a simple principle gerrymandering could be greatly diminished by turning redistricting over to some computer programmers and mathematical political scientists who could design rules that are not district specific, but that instead apply common principles of fair representation across all districts, a voter initiative in California has taken a step in this direction, it goes. A voter initiative in California has taken a step in this direction, it calls for the appointment of a nonpartisan commission to handle redistricting. We will see how well that does it being nonpartisan a computer program drawn up in ignorance of any specific districts distribution of political preferences, would be much more likely to achieve fairness and impartiality while fulfilling the spirit, as well as the letter of the Supreme Court's insistence on one person, one vote, along with wiping out coalition reducing gerrymanders, the time may well have come to amend the US Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College. Here we have an institution, whose founders original intent is pretty clear. They wanted to ensure that the slave states would join the United States. And that meant erecting constitutional provisions that would protect slavery.

Answer 46

- Dirty war is political, deceptive, and supremely manipulative. Often the last recourse of the weak and desperate, it uses any means available to level the playing field. - The unconventional has its own logic that you must understand. - First, nothing stays new for long. Those who depend on novelty must constantly come up with some fresh idea that goes against the orthodoxies of the time. - Second, people who use unconventional methods are very hard to fight. The classic, direct route--the use of force and strength--does not work. You must use indirect methods to combat indirection, fight fire with fire, even at the cost of going dirty yourself. To try to stay clean out of a sense of morality is to risk defeat. Weave a Seamless Blend of Fact and Fiction: Misperception Strategies - Since no creature can survive without the ability to see or sense what is going on around it, you must make it hard for your enemies to know what is going on around them, including what you are doing. Disturb their focus and you weaken their strategic powers. People's perceptions are filtered through their emotions; they tend to interpret the world according to what they want to see. Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. The best deceptions are based on ambiguity, mixing fact and fiction so that the one cannot be disentangled from the other. Control people's perceptions of reality and you control them. - More than likely, your concept of deception is wrong. It does not entail elaborate illusions or all sorts of showy distractions. Deception should mirror reality. - Your false mirror must conform to people’s desires and expectations. It must incorporate things that are visibly true. It must seem somewhat banal, like life itself, and can have contradictions. Keys to Warfare - In essence, military deception is about subtly manipulating and distorting signs of our identity and purpose to control the enemy's vision of reality and get them to act on their misperceptions. It is the art of managing appearances, and it can create a decisive advantage for whichever side uses it better. - To master this art, you must embrace its necessity and find creative pleasure in manipulating appearances-as if you were directing a film. - The following are six main forms of military deception, each with its own advantage: The false front. - This is the oldest form of military deception. It originally involved making the enemy believe that one was weaker than in fact was the case. - The appearance of weakness often brings out people's aggressive side, making them drop strategy and prudence for an emotional and violent attack. - Controlling the front you present to the world is the most critical deceptive skill. - The best front here is weakness, which will make the other side feel superior to you, so that they either ignore you (and being ignored is very valuable at times) or are baited into an aggressive action at the wrong moment. Once it is too late, once they are committed, they can find out the hard way that you are not so weak after all. - In the battles of daily life, making people think they are better than you are--smarter, stronger, more competent--is often wise. The decoy attack. - The key to this tactic is that instead of relying on words or rumors or planted information, the army really moves. It makes a concrete action. The enemy forces cannot afford to guess whether a deception is in the works: if they guess wrong, the consequences are disastrous. - The decoy attack is also a critical strategy in daily life, where you must retain the power to hide your intentions. To keep people from defending the points you want to attack, you must follow the military model and make real gestures toward a goal that does not interest you. - Actions carry such weight and seem so real that people will naturally assume that is your real goal. Camouflage. - The ability to blend into the environment is one of the most terrifying forms of military deception. - The camouflage strategy can be applied to daily life in two ways. First, it is always good to be able to blend into the social landscape, to avoid calling attention to yourself unless you choose to do so. When you talk and act like everyone else, mimicking their belief systems, when you blend into the crowd, you make it impossible for people to read anything particular in your behavior. That gives you great room to move and plot without being noticed. - Second, if you are preparing an attack of some sort and begin by blending into the environment, showing no sign of activity, your attack will seem to come out of nowhere, doubling its power. The hypnotic pattern. - Human beings naturally tend to think in patterns. - This mental habit offers excellent ground for deception. Deliberately create a pattern to make your enemies believe that your next action will follow true to form. Planted information. - People are much more likely to believe something they see with their own eyes than something they are told. They are more likely to believe something they discover than something pushed at them. If you plant the false information you desire them to have--with third parties, in neutral territory--when they pick up the clues, they have the impression they are the ones discovering the truth. The more you can make them dig for their information, the more deeply they will delude themselves. - No matter how good a liar you are, when you deceive, it is hard to be completely natural. Your tendency is to try so hard to seem natural and sincere that it stands out and can be read. That is why it is so effective to spread your deceptions through people whom you keep ignorant of the truth--people who believe the lie themselves. Shadows within shadows. - Deceptive maneuvers are like shadows deliberately cast: the enemy responds to them as if they were solid and real, which in and of itself is a mistake. In a sophisticated, competitive world, however, both sides know the game, and the alert enemy will not necessarily grasp at the shadow you have thrown. So you have to take the art of deception to a level higher, casting shadows within shadows, making it impossible for your enemies to distinguish between fact and fiction. - If you are trying to mislead your enemies, it is often better to concoct something ambiguous and hard to read, as opposed to an outright deception. - By creating something that is simply ambiguous, though, by making everything blurry, there is no deception to uncover. Reversal - To be caught in a deception is dangerous. If you don’t know that your cover is blown, your enemies now have more information than you do and you become their tool. - Always leave yourself an escape route, a cover story that can protect you if exposed.

Answer 47

What if Frank had gotten the bid for Secretary of State? Would he have stopped there? Or was his plan to secure the Presidency all along? While we can’t know for sure, it appears Frank always had the end-goal in mind. The sales lesson? Don’t settle for the quick win when, with a little more coaxing and patience, you could land a longer term, more valuable deal. Do you have a prospect that only wants a free sample of your product or a trial of your service, but doesn’t want to pay for anything? Instead of nickel and diming them over a small offer, give them the freebie, and prove why they should spend more money with you down the line.

Answer 48

Sometimes (read: often) in sales, you need to call in a favor. You’ll need an introduction from a friend, a person to transfer your call instead of hanging up, your customer service rep to take good care of your customer. Frank knows that in order to leverage connections well, you need to have the right connections in the first place. Just look at Zoe Barnes, Peter Russo, and Rachel Posner. He carefully identifies and cultivates relationships with the right people so that, later on, he can leverage those connections to win the deal. And even if that relationship doesn’t pan out as you planned, you can always just push them off the Metro platform.

Answer 49

As we have learned, when a country's economy is in trouble, the big problem from a rulers perspective is that she doesn't have enough money to buy continued loyalty. When the privileges enjoyed by essentials are shrinking, they are likely to be tuned into the possibility of change. They know the leader will want to purge people to use what little money is around more effectively. They not wanting to be purged will be amenable to expanding their group, trading their privilege for their future security and well being. coalition members are not the only ones willing to contemplate changing the rules when circumstances warrant. If the economic crisis is severe enough, and foreign aid donors stay away, then even leaders must ponder whether they might be better off liberalizing democratization jeopardizes their long term future. But if they don't pay their supporters today, whether they can win an election tomorrow is not a salient consideration.

Answer 50

For autocrats, money spent on people like convincing little children who are years away from contributing to the Academy is money wasted resources should instead be focused on those who help the rulers stay in power now, not those who might be valuable in the distant future. When you see pictures and images flowing out of populations and crisis, it's apparent that suffering at the extremes of the lifespan is hardly uncommon in autocracies. It's not that these terrible conditions can't be reversed. It's that the autocrat must choose not to reverse them as a simple matter of cost funds diverted in such a fashion or take him right out of her own pocket, and the pockets of the coalition. Considering the availability of his basic and essential in the public good is clean drinking water. In a world in which easily prevented waterborne diseases like cholera dysentery, diarrhea, kill millions of the young and old, non workers, clean water would be a tremendous lifesaver. The problem is that these are lives that autocrats seem not to value. Sure enough, drinking water is cleaner and more widely available in democratic countries than in small coalition regimes.

Answer 51

Let's look at Modern Warfare to show how this works take two modern situations the conflict in Korea between the North and South and the ongoing threat of terrorism in Korea. The threat is obvious and near troops are masked on either side of the border and there is a constant awareness of the potential for conflict. Both sides are prepared and ready and therefore are in something of a stalemate. Terrorism on the other hand remains under the radar. There is no formal membership structure, people assume they're safe and then suddenly a bomb goes off. The proximity of the threat is unknown at any given time and therefore cannot be adequately expected. So what are some of the non violent uses of strategic deception relating to proximity? market entry is one area of business where seeming to be distant can provide an advantage. If you wish to enter a new market such as a region then it may be useful to prepare to do so quietly and discreetly. If your competitors don't know you are close to entering a market, their attention is not drawn to it, they are unlikely to assume the market is worthy of consideration as a result. Have your interest in it.

Answer 52

What could be worse than finding an adversary in someone who knows you intimately? This is an enemy who is able to identify your vulnerabilities and capitalize on your weaknesses more effectively than your typical opponent. Nurture your friendships and avoid burning bridges. If you fail to heed these words, don’t be surprised when a former confidant leads the campaign to cement your downfall.

Answer 53

Where would Frank be without his wife, Claire? While working in sales may seem like a constant competition, the best sales people know how to partner up so that they’re working with their colleagues instead of against their colleagues. Just look at sales and marketing as the perfect example. The two teams are typically portrayed as being at-odds with one another and bickering about leads. But a strong marriage between the two teams leads to greater success than each trying to pave their own independent path to success.

Answer 54

- Retreat in the face of a strong enemy is a sign not of weakness but of strength. By resisting the temptation to respond to an aggressor, you buy yourself valuable time--time to recover, to think, to gain perspective. Let your enemies advance; time is more important than space. By refusing to fight, you infuriate them and feed their arrogance. They will soon overextend themselves and start making mistakes. Keys to Warfare - Your task as a strategist is simple: to see the differences between yourself and other people, to understand yourself, your side, and the enemy as well as you can, to get more perspective on events, to know things for what they are.

Answer 55

One lesson to be learned from our Kurt's ultimate removal in HP is that doing a good job is not enough to ensure political survival. That is true whether one is running a business a charity or a national government, how much a leaders performance influences remaining in office is a highly subjective matter. It might seem obvious that it is important to have people in the coalition of key backers are competent and performing the duties associated with implementing the leaders policies. But autocracy isn't about good governance, it's about what's good for the leader, not what's good for the people. In fact, having competent ministers or competent corporate board members can be dangerous mistake, competent people after all, a potential, and potentially competent rivals. The three most important characteristics of a coalition are one, loyalty to loyalty. Three loyalty successful leaders surround themselves with trusted friends and family in rid themselves of any ambitious supporters. Carly Fiorina had a hard time achieving that objective. And as a result, she failed to last long. Fidel Castro, by contrast, was a master of course he had fewer impediments to overcome and what he could do then did Fiorina, and he lasted in power for nearly half a century, the implications of this aspect of political logic are profound, particularly in small coalition governments Saddam Hussein in Iraq, like, Ed amin and Uganda, and so many other eventual national leaders started as a street thug autocrats don't need West Point graduates to protect them. Once in power, people like me was saying wisely surround themselves with trusted members of the wrong tribe or clan installing them in the most important positions. Those involving force and money and killing anyone that may turn out to be a rival.

Answer 56

We're counting the best opportunity. Wow. Most unavoidably and therefore first on the list of risks of being deposed is the simple inescapable fact of mortality. Dead leaders cannot deliver rewards to their coalition dying leaders face, almost as grave a problem. If essential backers know their leader is dying, then they also know that they need someone new to assure the flow of revenue into their pockets. That's a good reason to keep terminal illnesses secret. Since a terminal element is bound to provoke an uprising, either within the ranks of the essential coalition, or among outsiders, who see an opportunity to step in and take control of the palace Ayatollah Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran and the Corazon Aquino and the Philippines, both chose the right time to seize power, take the case of Ayatollah Khomeini. He was one of the most senior Shia clerics in Iran, and a vehement opponent of Shah Mohamad Araiza lobbies secular regime during early 1960 he spoke out against the regime and organized protests. His activities resulted in his being repeatedly arrested in 1964 he went into exile. First, Turkey in Iraq, and eventually to France, continuing to preach his opposition to the Shah, wherever he was tapes of his speeches were popular throughout Iran in 1977 with the death of the Shahs rival Ali Shariati Khomeini became the most influential opposition leader. Although he urged others to oppose the Shah, he refused to return to Iran, until the Shah was gone, except for a privileged few almost everyone in Iran hungered for change. The Shahs regime and those associated with it were widely disliked seeing that there was a chance for real change people through their support behind the one clearly viable alternative Khomeini. After the Shah fled the country. An estimated 6 million people turned out to cheer Khomeini's return. Judging from what he did next. They may have cheered too soon. Immediately after his return command he challenged the interim government, which was headed by the Shahs former prime minister. Much of the army defected and joined Khomeini. And when he ordered a jihad against the soldiers remaining loyal to the old regime resistance collapsed. Then he ordered a referendum to be held in which the people would choose between the old monarchy of the Shah, or an Islamic Republic. With the endorsement of 98% for the latter, he rewrote the constitution basing it on rule by clerics. After some dubious electoral practices, this constitution was approved, and he became the supreme leader with a Council of Guardians to veto non Islamic laws and candidates. The many secular and moderate religious groups who had taken to the streets on his behalf, providing the critical support needed for his rise to power, found they were left out excluded from running the new regime. Khamenei became leader because he provided a focal point for opposition to the Shahs regime. And because the army did not stop the people from rising up against the monarchy. Once the Shah was gone. Command he quickly asserted that it was he not an interim government council representing all interests, who was in charge. Although the masses brought down the old regime in hopes of obtaining a more democratic government Khomeini ensured that real power it was retained by a small group of clerics. The Parliament are popularly elected could only contain politicians who would support and be supported by the Council of Guardians. There is nothing special or unique about Khamenei success that millions wanted the Shahs regime overturned is unsurprising, the Shah ran a brutal oppressive government under which a thousands disappeared imprisonment, torture and death were commonplace. But that was equally true 14 years earlier, when Khomeini went into exile and the Shahs government seemed invulnerable. The key to Khamenei success at the end of the 1970s was that the army refused to stop the unhappy millions from taking to the streets. They had not allowed such protests before. What changed. The army was no longer willing to fight to preserve the regime because they knew that the Shah was dying. The New York Times published accounts or the forest of a sick leader, desperate to hide the progression.

Answer 57

Keep it secret, they will never know your attack is coming and will be will be unable to defend themselves against your intentions in time. Large scale attacks. The idea of hiding your intention to attack so your targets are unprepared does not just apply on a small scale personal level. It also works on a larger scale, such as the actions and strategic plans of an entire organization. This concept is easy to illustrate with an example Apple product launches. Think about the drama and excitement that comes with the launch of a new Apple product. people speculate like crazy about what the new unveiling will bring Apple is as secretive as possible ahead of time. Then on the day of the launch, the product is revealed and usually announced to be on sale within a very short period of time as a result of his competitors are on the backfoot. They never know exactly what is coming and what they should do. As a result, the launch of the original iPhone was a game changer, Apple did not necessarily seem set to attack the portion of the tech market that they chose. As a result of this competing firms had no real time to prepare. Look at the fates of blackberry and Motorola if you doubt this concept, stealth. Another famous quote on deception from the Art of War states when using forces seem inactive. This is more true than ever these days. We live in an era where people are encouraged to broadcast their every thought plan and intention through social media. Countless cases of people being caught out in terms of identity fraud, affairs or going against workplace rules have come to light because of people not being cautious enough. This can be done through sleight of hand. Let's say for example, a skill is valued in a workplace. A number of people are working hard to acquire this skill in the hope of advancing up the career ladder. Someone is Also acquiring this skill but in secret, they not only do this secretly, but make a point of seeming to be uninterested or uninvolved

Answer 58

The best way to stay in power is to keep the coalition small and crucially, to make sure that everyone in it knows that there are plenty of replacements for them. This is why you will often read about regular elections and tyrannical states. Everyone knows that these elections don't count, and yet people go along with them. rig elections are not about picking leaders. They're not about gaining legitimacy. How can an election be legitimate when its outcome is known before the vote even occurs rigged elections are a warning to powerful politicians that they are expendable. If they deviate from the leaders desired path. Vladimir Lenin was the first to really exploit the idea of substitute coalition members in a one party state, he nonetheless perfected a rigged election universal adult suffrage system, any action he took say sending so and so to Siberia, was the will of the people, and any of the people in the replacement pool had a chance. Albeit a slight one of being called up to serve as an influential, or maybe even an essential somewhere down the line. Everybody in the Soviet Selectric could with a very small probability grow up to be General Secretary of the Communist Party, just like the petty criminal Joseph Stalin and the uneducated, Nikita Khrushchev those already in the inner circle knew they had to stay in line to keep their day jobs. Bravo Lenin,

Answer 59

- The target of your strategies should be less the army you face than the mind of the man or woman who runs it. If you understand how that mind works, you have the key to deceiving and controlling it. - Our natural tendency is to see other people as mere reflections of our own desires and values. - The best way to find the leader's weaknesses is not through spies but through the close embrace. Behind a friendly, even subservient front, you can observe your enemies, get them to open up and reveal themselves. Get inside their skin; think as they think. Once you discover their vulnerability--an uncontrollable temper, a weakness for the opposite sex, a gnawing insecurity--you have the material to destroy them. Keys to Warfare - The greatest power you could have in life would come neither from limitless resources nor even consummate skill in strategy. It would come from clear knowledge of those around you--the ability to read people like a book. - In general, it is easier to observe people in action, particularly in moments of crisis. Those are the times when they either reveal their weakness or struggle so hard to disguise it that you can see through the mask. - A warning: never rely on one spy, one source of information, no matter how good. You risk being played or getting slanted, one-sided information. - Finally, the enemy you are dealing with is not an inanimate object that will simply respond in an expected manner to your strategies. Your enemies are constantly changing and adapting to what you are doing. Innovating and inventing on their own, they try to learn from their mistakes and from your successes. So your knowledge of the enemy cannot be static. Keep your intelligence up to date, and do not rely on the enemy's responding the same way twice. Reversal - Even as you work to know your enemies, you must make yourself as formless and difficult to read as possible. Since people really only have appearances to go on, they can be readily deceived. Act unpredictably now and then.

Answer 60

If you want to be successful, never be content standing still. Comfort leads to apathy. Apathy kills ambition. Without ambition, you’re on the fast track to being consumed by regret, forever wondering what might have been. Step outside your comfort zone and don’t be afraid to take risks.

Answer 61

Borrowing is a wonderful thing for leaders, they get to spend the money to make their supporters happy today. And if they are sensible set some aside for themselves, unless they are fortunate enough to survive in office for a really long time, repaying today's loan will be another leaders problem autocratic leaders borrow as much as they can and democratic leaders are enthusiastic borrowers as well. We are all, at least a little bit impatient. It's in our nature to buy things today, and better financial acumen might suggest saving our money. Politics makes financial decision making even more suspect. To understand the logic and see why politicians are properly good borrowers. Of course borrowing more today means higher indebtedness and a smaller ability to borrow tomorrow. But such arguments are rarely persuasive to a leader. If he takes a financially reasonable position by refusing to incur debt. Then he has less to spend on rewards, no such problem will arise for a challenger who offers to take on such debt in exchange for support from members of the current incumbents coalition. This makes the current leader vulnerable incurring debt today is attractive because after all, the debt will be inherited by the next administration. That way, it also ties the hands of any future challenger, a leader should borrow as much as the coalition will endorse and markets will provide. There is surely a challenger out there who will borrow this much. And in doing so, use the money to grab power away from the incumbent. So not borrowing jeopardizes a leaders hold on power, heavy borrowing is a feature of small coalition settings. It is not the result is some economists argue of ignorance of basic economics by third world leaders in an autocracy, the small size of the coalition means that leaders are virtually always willing to take on more debt

Answer 62

- A war can only really be fought against an enemy who shows himself. By infiltrating your opponents' ranks, working from within to bring them down, you give them nothing to see or react against--the ultimate advantage. From within, you also learn their weaknesses and open up possibilities of sowing internal dissension. So hide your hostile intentions. To take something you want, do not fight those who have it, but rather join them--then either slowly make it your own or wait for the moment to stage a coup d'etat. No structure can stand for long when it rots from within. Keys to Warfare - The basic principle here is that it is easiest to topple a structure--a wall, a group, a defensive mind--from the inside out. - A variation on the lotus strategy is to befriend your enemies, worming your way into their hearts and minds. As your targets' friend, you will naturally learn their needs and insecurities, the soft interior they try so hard to hide. - For a more immediate effect, you can try a sudden act of kindness and generosity that gets people to lower their defenses--the Trojan Horse strategy. - The main weakness in any conspiracy is usually human nature: the higher the number of people who are in on the plot, the higher the odds that someone will reveal it, whether deliberately or accidentally. - There are a few precautions you can take. Keep the number of conspirators as small as possible. Involve them in the details of the plot only as necessary; the less they know, the less they have to blab. Revealing the schedule of your plan as late as possible before you all act will give them no time to back out. Then, once the plan is described, stick to it. - Too few conspirators and you lack the strength to control the consequences; too many and the conspiracy will be exposed before it bears fruit.. - In destroying anything from within, you must be patient and resist the lure of large-scale, dramatic action. - Finally, morale plays a crucial part in any war, and it is always wise to work to undermine the morale of the enemy troops. Reversal - There are always likely to be disgruntled people in your own group who will be liable to turning against you from the inside. The worst mistake is to be paranoid, suspecting one and all and trying to monitor their every move. Your only real safeguard against conspiracies and saboteurs is to keep your troops satisfied, engaged in their work, and united by their cause.

Answer 63

- People expect your behavior to conform to known patterns and conventions. Your task as a strategist is to upset their expectations. Surprise them and chaos and unpredictability--which they try desperately to keep at bay--enter their world, and in the ensuing mental disturbance, their defenses are down and they are vulnerable. First, do something ordinary and conventional to fix their image of you, then hit them with the extraordinary. The terror is greater for being so sudden. Never rely on an unorthodox strategy that worked before--it is conventional the second time around. Sometimes the ordinary is extraordinary because it is unexpected. Unconventional Warfare - Unconventional warfare has four main principles, as gleaned from the great practitioners of the art. Work outside the enemy’s experience. - Know your enemies well, then contrive a strategy that goes outside their experience. Unfold the extraordinary out of the ordinary. - Fix your opponents’ expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, and then hit them with the extraordinary, a show of stunning force from an entirely new angle. Act crazy like a fox. - Upon occasion, allow yourself to operate in a way that is deliberately irrational, to frighten people. - As an alternative, act somewhat randomly. Randomness is disturbing to humans. Keep the wheels in constant motion. - Make a point of breaking the habits you have developed, of acting in a way that is contrary to the way you acted in the past. - When striving to create the extraordinary, always remember: what is crucial is the mental process, not the image or maneuver itself. What will truly shock and linger long in the mind are those works and ideas that grow out of the soil of the ordinary and banal, that are unexpected, that make us question and contest the very nature of the reality we see around us.

Answer 64

- When you attack people directly, you stiffen their resistance and make your task that much harder. There is a better way: distract your opponents' attention to the front, then attack them from the side, where they least expect it. - Individuals often show their flank, signal their vulnerability, by its opposite, the front they show most visibly to the world. - Life is full of hostility--some of it overt, some clever and under-handed. Conflict is inevitable; you will never have total peace. - At all cost you must gain control of the impulse to fight your opponents directly. Instead occupy their flank. Disarm them and make them your ally; you can decide later whether to keep them on your side or to exact revenge. Taking the fight out of people through strategic acts of kindness, generosity, and charm will clear your path, helping you to save energy for the fights you cannot avoid. Keys to Warfare - The people who win true power in the difficult modern world are those who have learned indirection. They know the value of approaching at an angle, disguising their intentions, lowering the enemy's resistance, hitting the soft, exposed flank instead of butting horns. Rather than try to push or pull people, they coax them to turn in the direction they desire. This takes effort but pays dividends down the road in reduced conflict and greater results. - The key to any flanking maneuver is to proceed in steps. Your initial move cannot reveal your intentions or true line of attack. - When people present their ideas and arguments, they often censor themselves, trying to appear more conciliatory and flexible than is actually the case. If you attack them directly from the front, you end up not getting very far, because there isn't much there to aim at. Instead try to make them go further with their ideas, giving you a bigger target. Do this by standing back, seeming to go along, and baiting them into moving rashly ahead. (You can also make them emotional, pushing their buttons, getting them to say more than they had wanted to.) They will expose themselves on a weak salient, advancing an indefensible argument or position that will make them look ridiculous. The key is never to strike too early. Give your opponents time to hang themselves. - The more subtle and indirect your maneuvers in life, the better. - The ultimate evolution of strategy is toward more and more indirection. An opponent who cannot see where you are heading is at a severe disadvantage.

Answer 65

If you want someone who is a “moral” leader in his personal, non-professional life, look to a religious leader. Above all, don’t look to your Congressman. Frank is sleeping with intrepid and dreadfully shallow/annoying Zoe Barnes, reporter for some crap blog we really shouldn’t care about but in the real world actually does matter, and possibly one of his old (male) school buddies. And oh, Claire is sleeping with that corny French-seeming photographer. And…who cares. Yes, there comes a time where all the sleeping around affects the passage of Rep Russo’s river development bill, but honestly, all kinds of petty things affect all kinds of bills and we’ll usually never know it. It’s just the way it is. And always has been. Why get more up-in-arms over sex than anything else? Honestly, sex is as good a reason to screw with a bill as any of the other far-too-common reasons we find today. And there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of against-the-rules sex going on Capitol Hill. Do you know how… old and how male many lawmakers are? And how young and attractive and female many interns and staffers are?? When I was on the Hill, interns were generally referred to as skinterns, with spaghetti straps and short hemlines ever-present (not a coincidence). And let’s just add drugs (shout out to self-described “hip-hop conservative” Rep. Henry “Trey Songz” Radel, arrested in 2013 on cocaine possession and doing his best Peter Russo imitation) to this rule, too, while you're at it.

Answer 66

In the opening scene of season 1, we see Frank kill a suffering dog that has been hit by a car with his bare hands. As he tells us, nobody wants to do the unpleasant yet necessary things. To be a great sales person, you also need to do unpleasant yet necessary things sometime. You need to Google your prospects and find out more about them before you cold call them. You need to do some digging to find a new POC when your old contact falls off the face of the planet. Sure, you can try to push that work off to someone else, but like Frank says, nobody really wants to do it for you. The top performers know that, and they put in the time to do the less-fun side of sales.

Answer 67

Approach your relationship with them in coldly rational way, don't ever expect people to do things for you out of loyalty or liking this may work some of the time but it's guaranteed to eventually not work Machiavelli strongly believed that it was vital to see people as the fickle self interested creatures that they are in to interact with and motivate them on this basis, the key way of getting inside people's heads from the Machiavellian standpoint, is to always think in terms of incentives, understand what any given person has to lose or gain in any given situation, when the dual principles of pain and pleasure which are fundamental sources of positive and negative human motivation, are understood and applied in any given situation. It allows a Machiavellian leader to take a carrot and stick approach to ensuring loyalty. Always think not only in terms of what people want. But what they don't want this allows you to offer positive incentives to encourage behaviors and negative incentives to discourage behaviors, of course, the negative incentives should be so severe that people are forced to comply with what you want. Asymmetric risk reward. Always think in terms of asymmetric risk and reward. What is meant by this basically in any course of action you take, you should have a lot more to gain than you have to lose at any given time. This is a key element of protecting what is already yours, risking very little at any given time. What are some of the ways you can seek out asymmetric risk and reward in the modern context. If you were leading a commercial operation in a sales context, bonus and financially incentivized methods of remuneration are great ways of ensuring your risk and reward are asymmetric. If your sales team performs for you, you will make profit, and they will take a small piece of it. If your sales team doesn't perform, they don't get paid and you lose nothing. This is a prime example of setting up situations so that you have more to gain than you have to lose at any given time. If you make this way of living a core part of your philosophy, then it is inevitable you will steadily increase your gains over time. This is because the only time you will ever take action is when it protects what you already have and stands to add to it, the cash reserves of a business, your personal investment portfolio and your skill sets are some examples of areas you should always seek to protect first before adding to understand how vulnerabilities, open up.

Answer 68

- It is the structure of your army - the chain of command and the relationship of the parts to the whole - that will give your strategies force. - You must build speed and mobility into the structure of your army. - That means having a single authority on top, going soldiers a sense of the overall goal to be accomplished and the latitude to take action to meet that goal. It means motivating soldiers, creating an overall esprit du corps that gives momentum. - Before formulating a strategy or taking action, understand the structure of your group.

Answer 69

The congressman always puts his goals ahead of his emotions, with a stoic indifference to revenge, grunges and petty bickering. Ultimately, he has one goal (the White House), so even when faced with personal challenges and threats, he calculates his actions based on what will suit him long term. Overall, Underwood teaches us that success comes from excruciatingly calculated and effectively executed long term strategies. And while you might feel guilty, or even a little sullied, for taking management and leadership tips from a cold and manipulating political stereotype, understand that you don’t need to be malicious in the execution. As you watch Underwood’s accession into power, there is a clear sense of impending doom. Implemented with empathy and compassion, these business lessons can be effectively leveraged in a good way, making you the good guy instead of the villain.

Answer 70

The first and easiest is for the leader to die. If that convenience does not offer itself a challenger can make an offer to the essential members of the incumbents coalition that is sufficiently attractive, that they defect to the challengers cause. Third, the current political system can be overwhelmed from the outside, whether by military defeat by a foreign power or through revolution and rebellion in which the masses rise up to oppose the current leader and destroy existing institutions. That is the general rule of thumb for rebellion, is that revolutions occur when those who preserve the current system are sufficiently dissatisfied with their rewards that they are willing to look for someone new to take care of them. On the other hand, revolts are defeated through suppression of the people always an unpleasant task. So coalition members need to receive enough benefits from their leader that they are willing to do hardly distasteful things to ensure that the existing system is maintained. If they do not get enough goodies under the current system, then they will not stop the people from rising up against the regime.

Answer 71

Confidence is key. Confidence is what allows you to fully appreciate your skills and faults and use them to your advantage. No one wants to surround themselves with people immersed in self-doubt. It comes down to optimism and pessimism. Do you want to be friends with the person who is consistently positive or the person who constantly seeks your validation of his or her worth?

Answer 72

Underwood understands well the playing field on which he games, and he heavily invests his time in surrounding himself with the people who can help him, even if at personal cost. More importantly, he doesn't waste time with and often removes people who are not useful or can ultimately hold him back from his goals. (Of course, I am not advocating that you use his methods to "remove" them.)

Answer 73

The upshot is that the resource curse can be lifted. If aid organizations want to help the peoples of oil rich nations, then the logic of our survival based arguments suggests they would achieve more by spending their donations and lobbying the governments in the developed world, to increase the tax on petroleum, then by providing assistance overseas. By raising the price of oil and gas such taxes would reduce worldwide demand for oil. This in turn would reduce oil revenues and make leaders more reliant on Taxation. Effective taxation requires that the people are motivated to work, but people cannot produce as effectively. If they are forbidden such freedoms has freedom to assemble with their fellow workers and free speech, with which to think about, among other things, how to make the workplace perform more effectively and how to make government regulations, less of a burden on the workers.

Answer 74

On June 12 1966, he announced that there would be a Politburo meeting a week later, and that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss three major issues. One changes in the cabinet to changes in the Army Command three the liquidation of the military opposition. He then left Algiers for RM. This announcement was tantamount to telling his essential supporters that he was getting rid of some of them. Since he did not say who wants to go, he created a common interest among the whole group and getting rid of Ahmed ben Bella's foolish announcement was just the opening that who are egomania needed. No one was certain who would be replaced, or given Ben Bella's sweeping statement. clearly, many would be in this unforced error, then Bella threw away his incumbency advantage and left his general a week to organize a plot of his own. Then Bella returned to Algiers the day before the scheduled meeting, and he was awakened at gunpoint by his friend, Colonel Tahar. He immediately grasp is opportunity, and the essential supporters defected silence. Ben learned far too late. Truly as golden. There is never a point in showing your hand before you have to. That is just a way to ensure giving the game away.

Answer 75

In the end, there is no loyalty. Sure, some people do try to be loyal. But the system tends to punish (not reward) them, making them pay a price. Just ask Peter Russo where his loyalty got him (discarded, if you'll excuse the pun). The amount of tell-all books, leaks, and backstabbing (often done by people looking you in the eye with a smile) are proof enough of this. In the absence of a significant sense of loyalty, there are only three things: utility/usefulness, opportunity, and timing. Loyalty is like the stock market: it is bought and paid for by your utility when you are rising or hot, and can swing up or down based on the mood of the market and your performance. Where there are other opportunities, people are already shopping for other options, and the “loyalty” lasts until the timing for that opportunity seems right. That does not mean, just like in the market, that patience can't and doesn't pay off, but that should not be mistaken for any sense of loyalty. There are, predominantly, just the early jumpers and those who know when to time their desertion so that it looks better and protects their image. But make no mistake, before someone is abandoned, the act has been long in the works, and even when someone has not been abandoned, there has been exploration of other opportunities behind the scenes. This is nothing new in politics. Von Clausewitz, the famous Prussian military philosopher and strategist, is best known for his quip that “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means.” And, going back almost two-and-a-half thousand years, the Greek historian Thucydides wrote in his history of the Peloponnesian War that “right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” which Tom Ricks says “may be the most brutal line I’ve ever read.”

Answer 76

- Speed and adaptability are critical elements in war, and come from flexible organization. - Decentralize your army, segment into teams, and let go a little to gain mobility. - Give your different corps clear missions that fit your strategic goals, then let them accomplish them as they see fit. Keys to Warfare - The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does. - The key to the mission command is an overall group philosophy. This can be built around the cause you are fighting for or a belief in the evil of the enemy you face. It can also include the style of warfare--defensive, mobile, ruthlessly aggressive--that best suits it. You must bring the group together around this belief. Then, through training and creative exercises, you must deepen its hold on them, infuse it into their blood.

Answer 77

Whether it’s for the causes they believe in or their own careers/power, politicians generally aren’t putting their families first, or they wouldn’t be politicians. If more people would just realize this, accept it, and move on, we stop wasting endless hours examining the family. Leave them out of it (even if they do stupid things). I mean, seriously, if you’re going to vote for a public policy professional based on what his kid, brother, or wife say/do, maybe you shouldn’t vote. Or engage in politics. Ever. Because do we really elect politicians to put their families first, or ours? Frank and Claire, like many power political couples throughout history, are a marriage of convenience. That does not mean here is not a form of love or genuine affection. And who are we to judge a marriage? Judge the political performance, and the rest is none of our business.

Answer 78

- The best way to fight off aggressors is to keep them from attacking you in the first place. To accomplish this you must create the impression of being more powerful than you are. Build up a reputation: You're a little crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. You take your enemies with you when you lose. - This art of deterrence rests on three basic facts about war and human nature: First, people are more likely to attack you if they see you as weak or vulnerable. Second, they cannot know for sure that you're weak; they depend on the signs you give out, through your behavior both present and past. Third, they are after easy victories, quick and bloodless. That is why they prey on the vulnerable and weak. - The following are five basic methods of deterrence and reverse intimidation. You can use them all in offensive warfare, but they are particularly effective in defence: Surprise with a bold maneuver. - This will have two positive effects: First, they will tend to think your move is backed up by something real--they will not imagine you could be foolish enough to do something audacious just for effect. Second, they will start to see strengths and threats in you that they had not imagined. Reverse the threat. - Turn the tables with a sudden move designed to scare them. Threaten something they value. You needn’t go too far, just inflict a little pain to indicate you are capable of worse. Seem unpredictable and irrational. - In this instance you do something suggesting a slightly suicidal streak, as if you felt you had nothing to lose. You show that you are ready to take your enemies down with you, destroying their reputations in the process. (This is particularly effective with people who have a lot to lose themselves--powerful people with sterling reputations.) Play on people's natural paranoia. - Instead of threatening your opponents openly, you take action that is indirect and designed to make them think. This might mean using a go-between to send them a message--to tell some disturbing story about what you are capable of. Or maybe you “inadvertently” let them spy on you, only to hear something that should give them cause for concern. Establish a frightening reputation. - This reputation can be for any number of things: being difficult, stubborn, violent, ruthlessly efficient. Build up that image over the years and people will back off from you, treating you with respect and a little fear.

Answer 79

We watch Frank’s climb to power by how close he is to the President during press events. At first, he’s barely in the shot, then he’s only one or two people removed from the President, and then he is standing right behind him during the State of the Union. In his words… FRANK:Power is a lot like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location. The closer you are to the source, the higher your property value. A related influential lesson is the familiarity principle. This basically states that people tend to build a preference for things simply because they have been exposed to them often enough. This is also called the mere-exposure effect. It’s the reason why companies spend so much in advertising and product placement. They want you to become familiar with their brand so that you develop a preference towards it. There is personal application for this principle as well. If you want to influence someone, plan out how they can regularly be exposed to you. Attend events that they will be at, communicate periodically, and include video conversations in your plan because you want them to see and hear you. Video is much more influential than email.

Answer 80

- You are judged in this world by how well you bring things to an end. A messy or incomplete conclusion can reverberate for years to come, ruining your reputation in the process. The art of ending things well is knowing when to stop, never going so far that you exhaust yourself or create bitter enemies that embroil you in conflict in the future. It also entails ending on the right note, with energy and flair. It is not a question of simply winning the war but the way you win it, the way your victory sets you up for the next round. The height of strategic wisdom is to avoid all conflicts and entanglements from which there are no realistic exits. - The worst way to end anything--a war, a conflict, a relationship--is slowly and painfully. The costs of such an ending run deep: loss of self-confidence, unconscious avoidance of conflict the next time around, the bitterness and animosity left breeding--it is all an absurd waste of time. Before entering any action, you must calculate in precise terms your exit strategy. How exactly will the engagement end, and where it will leave you? - And if you do find you have made this mistake, you have only two rational solutions: either end the conflict as quickly as you can, with a strong, violent blow aimed to win, accepting the costs and knowing they are better than a slow and painful death, or cut your losses and quit without delay. Keys to Warfare - Endings in purely social relationships demand a sense of the culminating point as much as those in war. - Overstaying your welcome, boring people with your presence, is the deepest failing: you should leave them wanting more of you, not less. You can accomplish this by bringing the conversation or encounter to an end a moment before the other side expects it. Leave too soon and you may seem timid or rude, but do your departure right, at the peak of enjoyment and liveliness (the culminating point), and you create a devastatingly positive afterglow. - Since defeat is inevitable in life, you must master the art of losing well and strategically. First, think of your own mental outlook, how you absorb defeat psychologically. See it as a temporary setback, something to wake you up and teach you a lesson, and even as you lose, you end on a high note and with an edge: you are mentally prepared to go on the offensive in the next round. - Second, you must see any defeat as a way to demonstrate something positive about yourself and your character to other people. This means standing tall, not showing signs of bitterness or becoming defensive. - Third, if you see that defeat is inevitable, it is often best to go down swinging. That way you end on a high note even as you lose. This helps to rally the troops, giving them hope for the future. - Planting the seeds of future victory in present defeat is strategic brilliance of the highest order.

Answer 81

The first key question for a leader to ask when carrying out a course of action is what does this change. Let's take a few examples to make this clear, say for example a leader chooses to allocate a portion of the annual budget towards hiring a new member of staff, this decision should not be seen in isolation, but rather as part of a wider sequence of events, let's explore some possible answers to the question of what does this change in relation to the new hire first hiring a new member of staff incurs costs, both in terms of time and resources, the money that has been expended on the process of the new hire, which is money that can't be spent on anything else. This is known as opportunity cost, this change in terms of a lessening of financial resources, must be evaluated, for example, could the money be spent better elsewhere. Will the reduced budget mean there is not enough money available to cover something else in the future. This is one of the first aspects of change that a leader must think about. Second, the new hire will require members of the organization to devote their time and effort towards the hiring process, will this mean that they're unable to carry out some other type of duty. Will there be a shortfall in productivity. As a result of this aspect of change is vital for a leader to have a comprehensive plan in place for the course of action they're carrying out rather than simply carrying it out haphazardly. Third, there's likely to be a human or staff consequences as a result of the new hire will other members of the organization react well, will they feel that their own jobs are under threat. It is important to consider the aspects of a change which are less easy to quantify, such as the human cultural or psychological consequences of any given decision. It is not enough for a leader to think only in terms of what does this change as Machiavelli states in the prince, what matters is not so much a thing itself, but how that thing appears. It is therefore vital to think in terms of not only the actual change itself, but also how the change will be perceived by other interested parties, and how the change will impact them when this is known the leader can then determine how they wish the change to be perceived aka what type of spin they wish to put on things, the above step of considering how a change will be perceived is absolutely vital, it is not enough to know only what will take place, a leader must also anticipate and take proactive measures to manage the perception of and impact as a result of any decision the leader makes neglecting this step is almost willfully surrendering control and taking a lazy approach to implementing decisions rationality is victory naivete is suicide.

Answer 82

Democrats aren't angels. As we all know, the victor writes history leaders should therefore never refrain from cheating if they can get away with it. Democrats may have to put up with real and meaningful elections in order to stay in power, but it shouldn't be shocking to see that whenever they can. They'll happily take a page out of Lenin's book. There's no election better than a rigged one, so long as you're the one rigging it. The list of tried and trusted means of cheating as long, just as quickly as electoral rules are created to outlaw corrupt practices, politicians find other means. For instance, leaders can restrict who is eligible and registered to vote and who is not. In Malaysia, under a system known as Operation icy immigration is controlled, so as to create demographics favorable to the incumbent party. New York City's infamous Democratic Party machine Tammany Hall acquired its Irish flavor by meeting and recruiting immigrants as they left the boat, promising citizenship and jobs for their vote. When leaders can't restrict who is eligible to vote, or else are unable to buy enough votes, they can use intimidation and violence to restrict access to polling places.

Answer 83

- No matter how strong you are, fighting endless battles with people is exhausting, costly, and unimaginative. Wise strategists generally prefer the art of maneuver: before the battle even begins, they find ways to put their opponents in positions of such weakness that victory is easy and quick. Bait enemies into taking positions that may seem alluring but are actually traps and blind alleys. If their position is strong, get them to abandon it by leading them on a wild-goose chase. Create dilemmas: devise maneuvers that give them a choice of ways to respond--all of them bad. Channel chaos and disorder in their direction. Confused, frustrated, and angry opponents are like ripe fruit on the bough: the slightest breeze will make them fall. Maneuver Warfare - In a society full of attrition fighters, you will gain an instant advantage by converting to maneuver. Your thought process will become more fluid, more on the side of life, and you will be able to thrive off the rigid, battle-obsessed tendencies of the people around you. - The following are the four main principles of maneuver warfare: Craft a plan with branches. - Maneuver warfare depends on planning, and the plan has to be right. Too rigid and you leave yourself no room to adjust to the inevitable chaos and friction of war; too loose and unforeseen events will confuse and overwhelm you. The perfect plan stems from a detailed analysis of the situation, which allows you to decide on the best direction to follow or the perfect position to occupy and suggests several effective options (branches) to take, depending on what the enemy throws at you. Give yourself room to maneuver. - You cannot be mobile, you cannot maneuver freely, if you put yourself in cramped spaces or tie yourself down to positions that do not allow you to move. Consider the ability to move and keeping open more options than your enemy has as more important than holding territories or possessions. You want open space, not dead positions. This means not burdening yourself with commitments that will limit your options. Give your enemy dilemmas, not problems. - Most of your opponents are likely to be clever and resourceful; if your maneuvers simply present them with a problem, they will inevitably solve it. But a dilemma is different: whatever they do, however they respond--retreat, advance, stay still--they are still in trouble. Make every option bad: if you maneuver quickly to a point, for instance, you can force your enemies either to fight before they are ready or to retreat. Try constantly to put them in positions that seem alluring but are traps. Create maximum disorder. - Your enemy depends on being able to read you, to get some sense of your intentions. The goal of your maneuvers should be to make that impossible, to send the enemy on a wild-goose chase for meaningless information, to create ambiguity as to which way you are going to jump. - If you meet the dynamic situations of life with plans that are rigid, if you think of only holding static positions, if you rely on technology to control any friction that comes your way, you are doomed: events will change faster than you can adjust to them, and chaos will enter your system. - Use this strategy in the battles of daily life, letting people commit themselves to a position you can turn into a dead end. Never say you are strong, show you are, by making a contrast between yourself and your inconsistent or moderate opponents. - The greatest power you can have in any conflict is the ability to confuse your opponent about your intentions. - The goal of maneuver is to give you easy victories, which you do by luring opponents into leaving their fortified positions of strength for unfamiliar terrain where they must fight off balance

Answer 84

Although we could fill the whole book with the tricks parties used to monitor vote choices. The reality is that today votes are likely to be anonymous, at least in real democracies bribing voters works far better at the block level. Suppose, there are just three villages and suppose a party call it party a negotiates with senior community figures in the villages and makes the following offer. If party a wins. It will build a new hospital or road or pick up the trash. Send police patrols plow the snow and so on. In the most supportive of the three villages. Once a village elder declares for a party a voters in that village can do little better than support party a, even if they don't like it. The reality is that there are so many voters that the chance that any individuals vote matters is inconsequential yet voters are much more influential about where the hospital gets built, or whose streets get swept than they are about who wins the election to see why, consider the case where two or three of the village elders have been clear in favor of party a, and most voters in these villages, go along with them. Consider the incentives of an individual voter since at least two of the three villages have declared for party a, an alternative party is unlikely to win.

Answer 85

Volunteers undermine the economy by working in subsistence economies for free while workers arent paid

Answer 86

Resource extraction and borrowing are the best ways of acquiring funds for enriching a coalition. discussions that portray taxation differently, are either window dressing to make the process seem more palatable or making arguments based on how people would like the world to work. Leaders tax because they need to spend on their coalition successful leaders, raising as much revenue as they can. The limits of taxation are one, the willingness of people to work as they are taxed to what the coalition is willing to bear and three, the cost of collecting taxes. Having filled government coffers leaders spend resources in three ways. First, they provide public goods that is policies that benefit or Second, they deliver private rewards to their coalition members, this mix of private and public benefits differs across political systems, and it's worth noting that any resources left over after paying off the coalition are discretionary leaders therefore have a third choice to make about spending money. They could spend discretionary money, promoting their pet projects. Alternatively, and all too commonly as we shall see. They can add them in a rainy day fund.

Answer 87

Along the same lines, you can only assure prospects that you’re the superior choice if you intimately understand your own shortcomings. If you don’t, your competitors will uncover them first.

Answer 88

Frank’s a master at getting access to decision makers. How does he do it? He works his way up the food chain and offers his time, advice, and services generously. Then, when it comes time to ask the decision maker for the sale, he has a league of lower-level supporters (often related or close to the decision-maker) singing his praises and supporting his agenda. The analogy to sales here is quite obvious, but I’ll spell it out—no prospect is too unimportant or a waste of your time. It’s only a matter of figuring out how helping a less qualified prospect can get you in touch with a more qualified prospect.

Answer 89

Weinberger doctrine does not emphasize swift victory, but rather a willingness to spend, however much is needed to achieve victory point made even more emphatically in the Powell doctrine Weinberger and Powell argue that the United States should not get involved in any war in which it is not prepared to commit enough resources to when they and Madeleine Albright to argue for being very cautious about risking war. Once a decision is made to take that risk then as Weinberger and Powell recognize the United States must be prepared to raise a larger army and to spend more treasure. if necessitated by developments on the ground war should only be fought with confidence that victory will follow. And that victory serves the interests of the American people. Sun Tzu emphasizes the benefits of spoils to motivate combatants. When you capture spoils from the enemy. They must be used as rewards, so that all human may have a keen desire to fight each on his own account Weinberger emphasizes the public good of protecting vital national interests. For Sun Tzu, the interest of soldiers have in the political objectives behind a fight, or they're concerned for the common good, is of no consequence in determining their motivation to wage war. That is why he emphasizes that soldiers fight each on his own account. Sun Tzu's attentiveness to private rewards and Weinberger his concentration on the public good at protecting the national interest, however, that may be understood, represent the great divide between small coalition and large coalition regimes. Our view of politics instructs us to anticipate that leaders who depend on lots of essential backers only fight when they believe victory is nearly certain. Otherwise they look for ways to resolve their international differences peacefully leaders who rely only on a few essential supporters in contrast, are prepared to fight, even when the odds of winning are not particularly good Democratic leaders try hard to win. If the going gets tough autocrats make a good initial effort. And if that proves wanting they quit.

Answer 90

This isn’t to say that being rich and being powerful are mutually exclusive. However, those who aspire to craft an enduring legacy, move mountains with their words and accrue respect and admiration from the masses, must pursue power above all else. Without influence, your ability to overcome obstacles in your path is compromised.

Answer 91

At last, a new ruler has shaken up the coalition that first brought him to power, and he has the right supporters in place, money is coming in thanks to the taxes being levied. Now comes the real task of governing allocating money to keep the coalition happy, but not too happy and providing just enough to keep the interchangeable from rising up and revolting, as we've seen in North Africa and the Middle East in the past few years. And as we saw in Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. This can be an awkward tightrope to traverse for any leader. The last few decades encourage us by showing that in time, many autocrats fall off that tightrope. It is really hard to strike just the right balance between benefits for one's coalition and a massive interchangeable. Any new incumbent who wants to be around for a long time, needs to fine tune the art of spending money. Of course you can err on the side of generosity to the coalition or two people, but only with any money that is left for his own discretionary use after taking care of the coalition's need to have better not err on the side of shortchanging anyone who could mount a coup, or revolution shortchange the wrong people. And any leader's fate will confirm our abuse of William Wordsworth his famous line, getting in spending, we lay waste our powers. Let's return to the essential question of all democracies, how to allocate resources, aimed at providing policies of benefit everyone in the society. These public goods come in a variety of different forms depending on the tastes of those in a position to demand such policies.

Answer 92

In the first episode, Frank shares a poignant piece of influential advice. FRANK:When it comes to the White House, you not only need the keys in your back pocket, you need the gatekeeper. (referring to the President’s Chief of Staff) When you need to influence someone, you need to know who already influences that person. Whose opinion do they heed. Sometimes the best route to influencing your “mark” – the person you want to influence – is to actually build rapport with the person who already has influence over your “mark” and get them to do the convincing. This comes up again later in the series when Frank says, FRANK:The president is like a tree, bending which ever way the wind blows. And Raymond Tusk’s wind blows a little too strongly for my taste. Frank knows that he has a strong opponent to either win over or remove from the equation. He is always aware of who holds sway over his “mark.”

Answer 93

Caspar Weinberger maintain that first in the United States should not commit forces to combat overseas, unless that particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies. Second, if we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation. We should do so wholeheartedly. And with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives. We should not commit at all. Third, if we decide to commit forces to combat overseas. We should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. Fourth, the relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed their size composition and disposition must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary conditions and objectives, invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements. Fifth, before the United States commits combat forces abroad. There must be some reasonable assurance, we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. Finally, the commitment of US forces to combat shouldn't be a last resort. Sun Tzu's ideas can coarsely be summarized as follows. One in advantage and capabilities is not as important as quick action in war to the resources mobilized to fight should be sufficient for a short campaign that does not require reinforcement, or significant additional provisions from home. And three, the provision of private goods is essential to motivate soldiers to fight. Sun Tzu says that if the army initially raised proves insufficient. Or if new supplies are required more than once, then the commander's lacks sufficient skill to carry the day. In that case, he advises that it is best to give up the fight, rather than risk exhausting the state's treasure.

Answer 94

- People will use any kind of gap in your defenses to attack you or revenge themselves on you. So offer no gaps. The secret is to envelop your opponents--create relentless pressure on them from all sides, dominate their attention, and close off their access to the outside world. Make your attacks unpredictable to create a vaporous feeling of vulnerability. Finally, as you sense their weakening resolve, crush their willpower by tightening the noose. The best encirclements are psychological--you have surrounded their minds. Keys to Warfare - There are many ways to envelop your opponents, but perhaps the simplest is to put whatever strength or advantage you naturally have to maximum use in a strategy of enclosure. - To envelop your enemies, you must use whatever you have in abundance. If you have a large army, use it to create the appearance that your forces are everywhere, an encircling pressure. - Remember: the power of envelopment is ultimately psychological. Making the other side feel vulnerable to attack on many sides is as good as enveloping them physically. - Often, in fact, less is more here: too many blows will give you a shape, a personality--something for the other side to respond to and develop a strategy to combat. Instead seem vaporous. Make your maneuvers impossible to anticipate. - The best encirclements are those that prey on the enemy's preexisting, inherent vulnerabilities. Be attentive, then, to signs of arrogance, rashness, or other psychological weakness. - The impetuous, violent, and arrogant are particularly easy to lure into the traps of envelopment strategies: play weak or dumb and they will charge ahead without stopping to think where they're going. Reversal - The danger of envelopment is that unless it is completely successful, it may leave you in a vulnerable position.

Answer 95

People who live with freedom are rarely impoverished and oppressed, give people the right to say what they want to write what they want. And to gather to share ideas about what they want and you are bound to be looking at people whose persons and property are secure, and whose lives are content, you are looking at people free to become rich and free to lose their shirts in trying, you are looking at people who are not only materially well off, but spiritually and physically too. Sure. Places like Singapore and parts of China prove that it is possible to have a good material life with limited freedom. Yet the vast majority of the evidence suggests that these are exceptions and not the rule, economic success can postpone the democratic moment. but it ultimately cannot replace it, a country's relative share of freedom is ultimately decided by its leaders, behind the world of misery and oppression, like governments run by small cliques of essential, who are loyal to leaders who can make them rich behind the world of freedom and prosperity by governments that depend on the backing of a substantial coalition of ordinary people, drawn from a large pool of influentials who are in turn, drawn from a large pool of interchangeable. It is not difficult to draw a line from the poverty and oppression of the world, to the corrupt hunters and brutal dictators who scam from their country's revenues to stay in power politics and political institutions to find the bounds of the people's lives. By now it should be clear that there is a natural order governing politics. And it comes with an ironclad set of rules that cannot be altered. But that does not mean that we cannot find better paths to work within the laws of politics, we've suggested some ways to work within the rules to produce better outcomes. At the end of the day, the solutions we've suggested will not be applied perfectly, there are good reasons for that. And trenched ways of thinking, make altering our approach to problems difficult. Many will conclude that it is cruel and insensitive to cut way back on foreign aid. They will tell us that all the money spent on aid is worth it, it just one child has helped. They will forget to ask, how many children are condemned to die of neglect because in the process of helping a few aid prompts up leaders who look after the people only after they have looked after themselves and their essential backers, if at all. But before we shift the blame onto our flawed Democratic leaders for their failures to make the world a better place. We need to remember why it is that they enact the policies that they do. The sworn duty of Democratic leaders, is to do precisely what we, the people want.

Answer 96

That's one thing that is always expedient is remaining solvent. If a ruler has run out of money with which to pay supporters, it becomes far easier for someone else to make coalition members and attractive offer financial crises are an opportune time to strike the Russian Revolution is often portrayed through the prism of Marxist ideology in class warfare. The reality might be much simpler currencies revolutionaries were able to storm the Winter Palace in February 1917 because the army did not stop them. And the army did not bother to stop them because the Tsar did not pay them enough. The Tsar could not pay them enough because he foolishly cut the income from one of his major sources of revenue, the vodka tax. At the same time that he fought World War One Tsar Nicholas confused what might seem like good public policy with bad political decision making. He had the silly idea that a sober army would prove more effective than an army that was falling over drunk. Nicolas it seems thought that a ban on vodka would improve the performance of Russia's troops in World War One. He missed the obvious downsides however vodka was vastly popular with the general populace and most assuredly with the troops, so popular and widely consumed was vodka, that it sell provided about a third of the government's revenue, with vodka banned his revenue diminished sharply. His expenses in contrast, kept on rising, due to the costs of the war. Soon Nicholas was no longer able to buy loyalty. As a result, his army refused to stop strikers and protesters Alexander kolinsky, formed Russia's shortly democratic government. After toppling the Czar's regime. But he couldn't hang on to power for alone, his mistake was operating a democratic government, which necessitated a large coalition and implementing and unpopular policy, continuing the Czar's war, thereby alienating his coalition right from the start. Lenin and the Bolsheviks made no such mistakes. The Tsar fell once there was no one to start the revolution, Louie the 16th suffered much the same fate and the French Revolution, successful leaders must learn the lesson of these examples, and put raising revenue and paying supporters above all else, consider Robert Mugabe success and staying on as Zimbabwe's president, the economy has collapsed in Zimbabwe, thanks to my god these terrible policies starvation is common and epidemics of cholera regularly sweep the country. Mugabe succeeds because he understands that it does not matter what happens to the people, provided that he makes sure to pay the army. And despite regular media speculation, so far he has always managed to do so, and to keep himself in office well into his 80s.

Answer 97

Once again Frank takes a blow when he finds out that the President wants to nominate someone else, Raymond Tusk, instead of Frank. And once again, Frank is faced with the need to suspend his ego so that he can serve is bigger mission. When the President asks Frank what he thinks about the idea, Frank responds, FRANK:I think that Raymond Tusk is an exciting, bold idea. Clearly, Frank doesn’t share what he actually thinks. He did something even smarter. Frank chose those words – “exciting” and “bold” – specifically because he was told prior to the meeting that that’s how the President felt about the decision. Frank used the President’s words – instead of his own – which made the President feel good and validated. Be aware of the specific words your “mark” uses to describe a person, situation, thing, or their feelings. When the opportunity presents itself, use those keywords in conversation and you’ll get the same effect that Frank did. They will feel heard. They will feel validated. They will feel like you “get” them.

Answer 98

Foreign aid buys policy concessions, war enforces them

Answer 99

Electoral College. Here we have an institution, whose founders original intent is pretty clear. They wanted to ensure that the slave states would join the United States. And that meant erecting constitutional provisions that would protect slavery. Here's a great example where original intent. Most assuredly should not guide modern day politics. Slavery has been outlawed for about 150 years. And yet, the electoral college persists, and the primary reason, even if rarely spoken out loud for its survival is that it allows politicians to construct a coalition of essential supporters that is substantially smaller than would be the case under direct election. Today the electoral college is justified by its defenders on the principle that it protects the interests of the small states, since they are over represented in terms of electoral college votes. Indeed, that is exactly what it does. But what happens to the idea of one person, one vote. Apparently, a vote in Wyoming or Montana should by this argument. Count more toward choosing the president and vice president than a vote in California or New York. That's a convenient argument, if you're from Wyoming or Montana. The rules of the electoral college make it possible in a two candidate race for one candidate to win a majority of the popular vote, and the other candidate to be elected President of the United States. Indeed, judiciously placed votes in a multi candidate race, such as in the cases of john quincy adams and Abraham Lincoln can allow someone to become president, with a surprisingly small amount of support and the general electorate. When the right combination of states rather than the most voters, and you can be president. This is just another mechanism to keep the winning coalition smaller than it could be, and thereby to empower politicians more than the people less. Just this mechanism helped distort American politics right up to, and contributed to precipitating, the Civil War, and it helps today to favor candidates popular in the right places, rather than across all the country,

Answer 100

Democrats and Republicans, each use taxation, when they can to redistribute wealth from their opponents to their supporters. So democratic governments also have an appetite for taxation, but they cannot indulge that appetite, to the extent autocrats can since their numbers are small, an autocrat can easily compensate his essential backers for the tax burden that falls on them. This option is not available to a Democrat, because his number of supporters is so large, tax rates are therefore limited by the need to make coalition members better off than they can expect to be under alternative leadership on the campaign trail US president George HW Bush told the American people: "Read my lips no new taxes:, yet budget shortfalls left him scrambling for revenue. The result was more taxes. In the wake of the first Gulf War just 18 months earlier Bush had approval ratings of over 90%, but a declining economy and his broken promise on taxes led to his ouster in the 1992 election, all leaders want to generate revenue with which to reward supporters democratic incumbents are constrained to keep taxes relatively low, a Democrat taxes above the good governance minimum, but he does not raise taxes to the autocrats revenue maximization point.

Answer 101

The inherent problem with change is that Improving life for one group generally means making at least one other person worse off, and that other person is likely to be a leader, if change really will solve the people's problems. If the individual harmed by change is the ruler, or the CEO, the same person who has to initiate the changes in the first place, then we can be confident that change is never going to happen. From the beginning, we said we would focus on what is rather than what ought to be. Now we need to talk a bit about what ought to be. In doing so. We want to lay down the ground rules. First among these is that we should never let the quest for perfection, walk the way to lesser improvement. utopian dreams of a perfect world are just that utopian, pursuing the perfect world for everyone is a waste of time, and an excuse for not doing the hard work of making the world better for many. It is impossible to make the world great for everyone. Everyone doesn't want the same thing. Think about what is good for interchangeable influentials and essentially, the three dimensions of political life hardly ever Is it true that what is good for leaders and their essential backers is good for everyone else. If they all had the same once they wouldn't be misery in the world. So even as we are trying to change the world for the better, we are tied to the dictates of political reality. A fix is not a fix unless it can actually be done or can be done must satisfy the needs of everyone required to implement change. Wishful thinking is not a fix and a perfect solution is not our goal and should not be any well intentioned to person's goal. Even minor improvements in governance. can result in significant improvements in the welfare of potentially millions of people or shareholders, shareholders and publicly traded corporations.

Answer 102

No matter what decision you reach there are endless ways to portray it choosing the best one is the only way to ensure you lead effectively make everything seem intended Machiavelli constantly states that the people who will lead or is in charge of must respect the leader, and the choices they make one of the fastest ways to lose the respect of those you lead is to make it seem as if there was no intention behind something that takes place, for example, imagine you have to pull out of a regional market in which you were doing business, due to poor sales performance, rather than admitting This decision was out of your control. It would be better to spend the decision as a planned strategic outcome, the key criteria for how to present decisions which have not worked out in the way you hoped, is to always think in terms of how can I make it seem as if this was the plan all along, it is not enough to simply state it was the plan, you must have some kind of plausible explanation, the explanation doesn't have to be perfect if you are strong enough leader then people's minds will latch on to whatever it is you provide them with, just be sure to give them at least something they can use to picture you as the one in control. Your life is chess. This chapter is focused on the concept of consequences from an organizational standpoint, however the principles are equally valid for the sphere of personal decisions as well. It is important to think through the consequences of any decision in your personal life and realize that anything you do will have a consequence on everything else you do as well. It is often useful to have a written plan for the decisions you make, and the consequences probabilities and impacts of any given decision, and how it will lead to any other decision or impact by making such plans decisions become tangible and the process of consequences is easier to envision these decision plans can also be referred back to in the future. In order to make better decisions.

Answer 103

- Any attempt to bend people to your will is a form of aggression. And in a world where political considerations are paramount, the most effective form of aggression is the best-hidden one: aggression behind a compliant, even loving exterior. To follow the passive-aggressive strategy, you must seem to go along with people, offering no resistance. But actually you dominate the situation. You are noncommittal, even a little helpless, but that only means that everything revolves around you. Some people may sense what you are up to and get angry. Don't worry--just make sure you have disguised your aggression enough that you can deny it exists. Do it right and they will feel guilty for accusing you. Passive aggression is a popular strategy; you must learn how to defend yourself against the vast legions of passive-aggressive warriors who will assail you in your daily life. Keys to Warfare - We humans have a particular limitation to our reasoning powers that causes us endless problems: when we are thinking about someone or about something that has happened to us, we generally opt for the simplest, most easily digestible interpretation. - An acquaintance is good or bad, nice or mean, his or her intentions noble or nefarious; an event is positive or negative, beneficial or harmful; we are happy or sad. - The truth is that nothing in life is ever so simple. People are invariably a mix of good and bad qualities, strengths and weaknesses. - This tendency of ours to judge things in simple terms explains why passive aggression is so devilishly effective as a strategy and why so many people use it--consciously and unconsciously. - There are two kinds of passive aggression. The first is conscious strategy as practiced by Metternich. The second is a semiconscious or even unconscious behavior that people use all the time in the petty and not-so-petty matters of daily life. - We are generally too lenient with this second variety. - Remember: it is never wise to seem too eager for power, wealth, or fame. Your ambition may carry you to the top, but you will not be liked and will find your unpopularity a problem. Better to disguise your maneuvers for power: you do not want it but have found it forced upon you. Being passive and making others come to you is a brilliant form of aggression. - Subtle acts of sabotage can work wonders in the passive-aggressive strategy because you can camouflage them under your friendly, compliant front. - Passive aggression is so common in daily life that you have to know how to play defense as well as offense. First, you must understand why passive aggression has become so omnipresent. - Most often their behavior is relatively harmless: perhaps they are chronically late, or make flattering comments that hide a sarcastic sting, or offer help but never follow through. These common tactics are best ignored; just let them wash over you as part of the current of modern life, and never take them personally. You have more important battles to fight. - There are, however, stronger, more harmful versions of passive aggression, acts of sabotage that do real damage. A colleague is warm to your face but says things behind your back that cause you problems. - To defeat the passive-aggressive warrior, you must first work on yourself. This means being acutely aware of the blame-shifting tactic as it happens. Squash any feelings of guilt it might begin to make you feel. - Second, once you realize you are dealing with the dangerous variety, the smartest move is to disengage, at best to get the person out of your life, or at the least to not flare up and cause a scene, all of which plays into his hands. - If it happens to be a partner in a relationship in which you cannot disengage, the only solution is to find a way to make the person feel comfortable in expressing any negative feelings toward you and encouraging it. - The most effective counterstrategy with the passive-aggressive is often to be subtle and underhanded right back at them, neutralizing their powers. You can also try this with the less harmful types--the ones who are chronically late, for instance: giving them a taste of their own medicine may open their eyes to the irritating effects of their behavior.

Answer 104

The political empowerment of the people by such technology goes way beyond economic benefits, the adoption of such technologies will make it impossible for leaders to turn off an important means through which the citizens can coordinate without also turning off the commerce and economic activities that the leadership needs to provide the tax resources, with which to sustain themselves in power. When economic circumstances dictate that a desperate flow of cash depends on allowing the people to converse, the dictator is truly between a rock and a hard place. Turn off the technology for long, and there will not be enough money to buy coalition loyalty. Only the technology on the people can coordinate, to overthrow their autocrat given such circumstances a smart dictator will look ahead and work out that he is better off liberalizing now and risk being exiled jailed or killed later. Not all leaders can be counted on even to be reluctant Democrats, when they are unprepared to liberalize, even in the face of economic disaster, there is still plenty that foreign aid donors could do to swing the tide in favor of personal and economic freedom, and even to persuade petty dictators, that it is in their interest to liberalize using foreign aid to set up nationwide wireless access to the internet and to provide the poor with mobile phones, could be a win win win among the four constituencies affected by aid leaders will gain because commerce will improve generating more revenue for their discretionary use some donor constituents will benefit because they will sell the necessary technology to their government to be given an aid. That will make them happier with their income and improving the democratic donors chances for re election. And unlike most aid citizens in the recipient countries will also benefit. First, they will have a better chance to make a good living. Second, they will be in a better position to freely assemble over the internet and press their government for greater freedom and reliance on a larger coalition. And as we said, smart leaders benefiting as they will from the flow of money will accept the technology and will in time, be likely to liberalize so that they can stay on in power, those who reject the technology will also be helping the cause of freedom by saying no to technology that helps the people help themselves. They will make clear that they are intransigent autocrats then donors will know better than to waste the resources on them, and that will free up more aid dollars to help those people, places and leaders who are willing to take the political risks to gain the economic benefits. If the policy concessions to be bought with aid or economic, then this is just the sort of aid that can satisfy the donors interests, the recipients interests, the wishes of the donors coalition and the poor people that we all give lip service to wanting to help. For those who want to buy security concessions aid will Alas, probably continue as it has in the past. But then those buying security concessions might also think about how large a business advantage, they are giving to competitor cell phone producers at the expense of their homegrown industry. Finally, even when aid is given for security reasons. It can be utilized more effectively. Lots of aid is bad for poor people, as we know, even when it is just about buying policy concessions, however, it could be made to work better, at least from the donors perspective. Instead of giving aid on the promise by recipients, that they will change their policies aid money could be put in an independently controlled escrow account. Eight deals then would need to define precise performance criteria. If those criteria are met, then the funds are released. If the criteria are not met, or performance does not come up to agreed standards. The money reverts.

Answer 105

Another famous quote on deception from the Art of War states when using forces seem inactive. This is more true than ever these days. We live in an era where people are encouraged to broadcast their every thought plan and intention through social media. Countless cases of people being caught out in terms of identity fraud, affairs or going against workplace rules have come to light because of people not being cautious enough. If you work quietly behind the scenes, you have a significant advantage over those who do not One of the key areas in which working behind the scenes can work is politics, both in the electoral sense and in general. Often politicians focus heavily on preparing their views, appearance and perception in a way which makes them seem favorable in comparison to a known rival. then out of nowhere, a little known challenger will make a massive push and catch the Favorites off guard. It's not as if the newcomer started overnight, they likely began to work diligently and quietly a long time before, they just had the good sense to not make a big deal of what they were doing, which would give their rivals a chance to prepare and take countermeasures. It is not enough to just act quietly. It is sometimes vital to seem specifically inactive. This can be done through sleight of hand. Let's say for example, a skill is valued in a workplace. A number of people are working hard to acquire this skill in the hope of advancing up the career ladder. Someone is Also acquiring this skill but in secret, they not only do this secretly, but make a point of seeming to be uninterested or uninvolved whenever the topic of the new skill arises. This is an example of proactively hiding one's efforts in order to gain a strategic advantage. The illusion of distance. When near make the enemy believe you are far away states the art of war. This is a powerful concept which can be applied in a number of fields, human beings have evolved to be conscious of the immediate and obvious threats to their safety and prosperity. If something is obviously dangerous and nearby, our guard goes up and our defenses heightened. If something seems like a distant prospect however, we're less worried by it at the time.

Answer 106

Democrats need resources so they can reward the coalition, but they can't take too much. When they risk alienating those very same supporters similar concerns shape how taxes are collected leaders want to collect taxes in a fair or at least transparent way. Few US citizens would regard the Internal Revenue Service IRS as a transparent tax authority, but it is at least governed by rules, albeit an awful lot of them, and enforced by an independent judiciary. As for all the rules and exceptions that make the US tax code so complicated. These inevitably result from politicians doing what politicians inevitably do, rewarding their supporters at the expense of everybody else. This is why sheaves of pages and the tax code are dedicated to farmers, a crucial Coalition for some politicians who need to receive their rewards if their senators and representatives are to remain in power autocrats can be less transparent. When the opportunity arises autocrats will grab whatever they can. Yet even as they work without the constraint of being bound by people's feelings autocrats face real issues in the realm of collecting taxes, high taxes will inevitably drive people to hide their work and profits. This makes monitoring their income difficult. Furthermore, the large bureaucracy required to run a comprehensive tax system, such as the one in the United States can be prohibitively expensive to put this in context, the US Internal Revenue Service spends about $38 per person or about 0.5% of the IRS take on collecting an average of $7,614 in tax per person. This is fine in a nation with per capita GDP of $46,000, but in nations with incomes of only $1,000 per year. Such a cost of collecting taxes would be about 23% of the revenue.

Answer 107

It is often useful to conceal the reasons you were making any given choice, suntzu firmly stated that deception was warfare, when making a choice within the context of a business organization, it is important to realize that you may want to hide your true motives for doing so for a number of reasons you may want the other members of your organization to think you were acting on a more nobler basis than you are in actual fact, you may want your competitors or others outside your organizational boundaries to perceive your actions as one thing, when they are in fact another always consider the way you want your choice to come across.

Answer 108

Basically, any unusual activity which saps energy, time or other resources in a more than unusual manner can be seen as a personal protracted conflict. Sometimes it is necessary to enter into a situation which will drain your time or resources. Before taking such a course of action However, a few things need to be clearly established. First, it must be considered whether the rewards of the action will be equal or greater to the resources expended in order to acquire it. Second, it should be considered whether some other less taxing course of action could result in the same benefits. Finally, if the protracted personal war is seen as beneficial or unavoidable, it should be considered whether there are any ways to mitigate the negative effects shorten the war, often in the case of personal war There will be a way to achieve victory faster than it initially seemed. One of the best ways to see if a protracted personal war can be shortened is to find a role model who is able to achieve results in the modern take on a protracted war can be applied to a more macro context than the personal individual aims and objectives. Often organizations, families or Other groups of people will be engaged in something that is drawn out and constantly for as long as it lasts. Let's look at some examples of protracted wars in the context of a modern business organization. Perhaps the most common analogy to traditional wars in the modern time are the modern wars that take place between corporations price wars, wars for market share wars for talent, there are many ways in which large organizations clash against each other in the course of aiming to achieve their objectives. These take a toll on organizations in terms of the resources expended and also the opportunity cost of not being able to use their resources in another way. Whenever the large scale conflict it is almost always undesirable, it may be necessary to enter into a situation for a period of time.

Answer 109

When you’re pitching, you need to know who you’re up against. Frank is great at staying one step ahead of his competition (like he was with Raymond Tusk). What are your competitors saying to your prospect? What will their next move be? How can you pre-empt them? If you understand your competitors’ products and services, as well as their weaknesses, you can better craft and hone the winning pitch. I’m not saying you should throw your competitors under the bus—as Frank could attest, that never works out well. Buyers don’t like to work with mudslingers and get caught up in the middle of a turf war, but they do want to be assured that they’re making a superior choice. You can only assure them of that if you know why you’re the superior choice.

Answer 110

But we have also seen that there is hope for the future, every government, and every organization that relies in a small coalition, eventually erodes its own productivity and entrepreneurial spirits so much that it faces the risk of collapsing under the weight of its own corruption and inefficiency. When those crucial moments of opportunity arise when the wave of bad governance catches up with despots, then a few simple changes can make all the difference. We have learned that just about all of political life revolves around the size of the selected. The influentials, and the winning coalition. Expand the mall and the interchange rules, no more quickly than the coalition and everything changes for the better for the vast majority of people. They are liberated to work harder on their own behalf to become better educated, healthier wealthier happier and free their taxes are reduced and their opportunities in life expand dramatically. We can get to these moments of change faster through some of the fixes proposed here, but sooner or later, every society will cross the divide between small coalition large symmetric misery, to a large coalition that is a large proportion of the electorate, and peace, and plenty will ensue. With a little bit of hard work, and good luck. This can happen everywhere sooner. And if it does. We all will prosper from it.

Answer 111

- You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressure. Put yourself in situations where you have too much at stake to waste time or resources--if you cannot afford to lose, you won't. Cut your ties to the past; enter unknown territory where you must depend on your wits and energy to see you through. Place yourself on "death ground," where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive. The No-Return Tactic - In the back of your mind, you keep an escape route, a crutch, something to turn to if things go bad. - You may see this fallback as a blessing, but it is in fact a curse. It divides you. Because you think you have options, you need involve yourself deeply enough in one thing to do it thoroughly, and you never quite get what you want. Sometimes you need to burn the ships. The Death-at-Your-Heels Tactic - You must think of death in order to embrace your limited days left. Make the most of them and live with a sense of urgency. Keys to Warfare - Put yourself in a comfortable situation, and we may grow bored or tired. Put yourself in a high-stakes situation, and the dynamic changes. You get a surge of energy, and your mind focuses. - Use the following five actions to put yourself on a psychological death ground: Stake everything on a single throw. - It is better to take on one daunting challenge than diffuse our efforts across many. Act before you are ready. - Do this often and you will develop your ability to think and act fast. Enter new waters. - Leave stale relationships and comfortable situations behind, and cut your ties to the past. Make it “you against the world." - A fighting spirit needs a little edge, some anger and hatred to fuel it. Get aggressive and irritate and infuriate people directly. Keep yourself restless and unsatisfied. - Make risk a constant practice; never let yourself settle down. - Life has more meaning in the face of death. Reversal - Never attack enemies with nothing to lose. - Conversely, attacking enemies when morale is low gives you the advantage. - Always try to lower the other side’s sense of urgency.

Answer 112

- Terror is the ultimate way to paralyze a people's will to resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic response. Such power is gained through sporadic acts of violence that create a constant feeling of threat, incubating a fear that spreads throughout the public sphere. The goal in a terror campaign is not battlefield victory but causing maximum chaos and provoking the other side into desperate overreaction. Melting invisibly into the population, tailoring their actions for the mass media, the strategists of terror create the illusion that they are everywhere and therefore that they are far more powerful than they really are. It is a war of nerves. The victims of terror must not succumb to fear or even anger; to plot the most effective counterstrategy, they must stay balanced. In the face of a terror campaign, one's rationality is the last line of defense. - Understand: we are all extremely susceptible to the emotions of those around us. It is often hard for us to perceive how deeply we are affected by the moods that can pass through a group. This is what makes the use of terror so effective and so dangerous: with a few well-timed acts of violence, a handful of assassins can spark all kinds of corrosive thoughts and uncertainties. The weakest members of the target group will succumb to the greatest fear, spreading rumors and anxieties that slowly overcome the rest. The strong may respond angrily and violently to the terror campaign, but that only shows how influenced they are by the panic; they are reacting rather than strategizing--a sign of weakness, not strength. Keys to Warfare - Although terror as a strategy can be employed by large armies and indeed whole states, it is most effectively practiced by those small in number. The reason is simple: the use of terror usually requires a willingness to kill innocent civilians in the name of a greater good and for a strategic purpose. - Being so few in number, they cannot hope to wage a conventional war or even a guerrilla campaign. Terror is their strategy of last resort. Taking on a much larger enemy, they are often desperate, and they have a cause to which they are utterly committed. - This asymmetry brings war to its ultimate extreme: the smallest number of people waging war against an enormous power, leveraging their smallness and desperation into a potent weapon. The dilemma that all terrorism presents, and the reason it attracts so many and is so potent, is that terrorists have a great deal less to lose than the armies arrayed against them, and a great deal to gain through terror. - A violent temper or outlandish act, volcanic and startling, can also create the illusion of power, disguising actual weaknesses and insecurities. - If you have to deal with a terroristic spouse or boss, it is best to fight back in a determined but dispassionate manner--the response such types least expect. - To combat terrorism--classical or the new version on the horizon--it is always tempting to resort to a military solution, fighting violence with violence, showing the enemy that your will is not broken and that any future attacks on their part will come with a heavy price. - The problem here is that terrorists by nature have much less to lose than you do. A counterstrike may hurt them but will not deter them; in fact, it may even embolden them and help them gain recruits. - More valuable than military force here is solid intelligence, infiltration of the enemy ranks (working to find dissidents from within), and slowly and steadily drying up the money and resources on which the terrorist depends. - At the same time, it is important to occupy the moral high ground. As the victim of the attack, you have the advantage here, but you may lose it if you counterattack aggressively.

Answer 113

Debt forgiveness is a popular policy, a one that is generally misguided. Those in favor of forgiving the debt of highly indebted poor countries argue that the debt burden falls on the poor people of the nation who did not benefit in a consequential way from the borrowed funds. This is certainly true, as we have explained the benefits go to the leader and the coalition, while the debt obligation falls on everyone. But people who argue for debt forgiveness construct their arguments in terms of how they think the world should operate, rather than how it actually works. Therefore we advocate a conservative approach of little or no debt relief, as a way to improve the quality of governance and the quality of life of people currently living under wretched oppressive regimes. We know that that relief allows autocrats to entrench themselves in office debt forgiveness with the promise of subsequent democratization never works, an autocrat might be sincere in his willingness to have meaningful elections and return for funds. He had once the financial crisis is over, and the leader can borrow to pay off the coalition. Any promised election will be a sham for Democrats debt relief while helpful is unnecessary. By eliminating debt relief for autocrats, we can help precipitate the sorts of rebellions seen in the Middle East in 2011 rebellions that as discussed later may very well open the door to better government and the future.

Answer 114

- Life's greatest dangers often come not from external enemies but from our supposed colleagues and friends, who pretend to work for the common cause while scheming to sabotage us and steal our ideas for their gain. Although, in the court in which you serve, you must maintain the appearance of consideration and civility, you also must learn to defeat these people. Work to instill doubts and insecurities in such rivals, getting them to think too much and act defensively. Bait them with subtle challenges that get under their skin, triggering an overreaction, an embarrassing mistake. The victory you are after is to isolate them. Make them hang themselves through their own self-destructive tendencies, leaving you blameless and clean. The Art of One-Upmanship - Throughout your life you will find yourself fighting on two fronts. First is the external front, your inevitable enemies--but second and less obvious is the internal front, your colleagues and fellow courtiers, many of whom will scheme against you, advancing their own agendas at your expense. Understand: internal warfare is by nature unconventional. Since people theoretically on the same side usually do their best to maintain the appearance of being team players working for the greater good, complaining about them or attacking them will only make you look bad and isolate you. - You need to adopt a form of warfare suited to these nebulous yet dangerous battles, which go on every day. And the unconventional strategy that works best in this arena is the art of one-upmanship. Developed by history's savviest courtiers, it is based on two simple premises: first, your rivals harbor the seeds of their own self-destruction, and second, a rival who is made to feel defensive and inferior, however subtly, will tend to act defensive and inferior, to his or her detriment. - When you sense you have colleagues who may prove dangerous--or are actually already plotting something--you must try first to gather intelligence on them. Look at their everyday behavior, their past actions, their mistakes, for signs of their flaws - Begin by doing something to prick the underlying wound, creating doubt, insecurity, and anxiety. It might be an offhand comment or something that your victims sense as a challenge to their position within the court. Your goal is not to challenge them blatantly, though, but to get under their skin: they feel attacked but are not sure why or how. The result is a vague, troubling sensation. A feeling of inferiority creeps in. - You then follow up with secondary actions that feed their doubts. Here it is often best to work covertly, getting other people, the media, or simple rumor to do the job for you. The endgame is deceptively simple: having piled up enough self-doubt to trigger a reaction, you stand back and let the target self-destruct. You must avoid the temptation to gloat or get in a last blow; at this point, in fact, it is best to act friendly, even offering dubious assistance and advice. Your targets' reaction will be an overreaction. - The worst colleagues and comrades are often the ones with inflated egos, who think everything they do is right and worthy of praise. Subtle mockery and disguised parody are brilliant ways of one-upping these types. - The easiest types to one-up are those who are rigid. Being rigid does not necessarily mean being humorless or charmless, but it does mean being intolerant of anything that breaks their code of acceptable behavior.

Answer 115

Last but not least, any successful sales professional can tell you that it’s not easy to be the voice of your organization to the outside world. The responsibility for growing the business rests on your shoulders. I’ve heard business leaders say that, if not for sales, the rest of us would not be able to put dinner on the table. But that sort of sentiment can understandably rub people the wrong way, because it makes sales seem more important than any other team. You may overhear colleagues complaining about your work ethic, the hours you put in, the way you respond (or don’t respond) to customer emails, etc. etc. But at the end of the day, your job is to sell. As Frank knows, the best way to divert negative attention is to make people forget what they were complaining about. You don’t often hear complaints being made about top sales performers, because it’s hard to complain about a salesperson who is feeding the pipeline and closing quality deals.

Answer 116

- People will always try to take from you in negotiation what they could not get from you in battle or direct confrontation. They will even use appeals to fairness and morality as a cover to advance their position. Do not be taken in: negotiation is about maneuvering for power or placement, and you must always put yourself in the kind of strong position that makes it impossible for the other side to nibble away at you during your talks. Before and during negotiations, you must keep advancing, creating relentless pressure and compelling the other side to settle on your terms. The more you take, the more you can give back in meaningless concessions. Create a reputation for being tough and uncompromising, so that people are back on their heels before they even meet you. - Those who believe, against the evidence, that niceness breeds niceness in return are doomed to failure in any kind of negotiation, let alone in the game of life. People respond in a nice and conciliatory way only when it is in their interest and when they have to do so. Your goal is to create that imperative by making it painful for them to fight. - Sometimes in life you will find yourself holding the weak hand, the hand without any real leverage. At those times it is even more important to keep advancing. By demonstrating strength and resolve and maintaining the pressure, you cover up your weaknesses and gain footholds that will let you manufacture leverage for yourself. - Understand: if you are weak and ask for little, little is what you will get. But if you act strong, making firm, even outrageous demands, you will create the opposite impression: people will think that your confidence must be based on something real. You will earn respect, which in turn will translate into leverage. Once you are able to establish yourself in a stronger position, you can take this further by refusing to compromise, making it clear that you are willing to walk away from the table--an effective form of coercion. The other side may call your bluff, but you make sure there's a price to pay for this--bad publicity, for instance. And if in the end you do compromise a little, it will still be a lot less than the compromises they would have forced on you if they could.

Answer 117

Building infrastructure raises productivity but also allows people to organize. The army's roll in an autocracy is not for invading other countries or fighting wars. The goal of the army is to protect the dictator and the system.

Answer 118

Sure, we’ve banned earmarks. We added some lobbying restrictions. We “want” transparency. We put cameras in the House and Senate (with the effect of dramatically lessening the importance of any debate that actually happens on the floor and empowering megalomaniacal airtime addicts like Ted Cruz to engage in meaningless pseudo-filibusters that accomplish nothing legislatively, are entirely for public consumption, and are likely totally misunderstood by their intended audience). The 2013 “nuclear option,” the deal to end the shutdown and save us from default, the decisions and planning about the Iraq War... none of these were really conducted in the public eye, but behind closed doors. Frank Underwood understands this and even tends to do better behind the scenes than in the spotlight (remember his disastrous live debate with the head of the teachers' union?) But then Frank triumphed on that issue with his behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and pretty much did everything big (from murdering Peter Russo to elevating himself to VP contention to bargaining for Peter’s water bill) behind closed doors. Stop clamoring for transparency and be happy with actual results; they don’t go hand in hand. Without wheeling and dealing, very little gets done. After an entire season of manipulation, which of Franks’s big plays were publicly known?

Answer 119

- In a world in which many people are indecisive and overly cautious, the use of speed will bring you untold power. - This strategy works best with a setup, a lull - your unexpected action catches your enemy off guard. - We live in a world in which speed is prized above almost all else, and acting faster than the other side has itself become the primary goal. But most often people are merely in a hurry, acting and reacting frantically to events, all of which makes them prone to error and wasting time in the long run. In order to separate yourself from the pack, to harness a speed that has devastating force, you must be organized and strategic. First, you prepare yourself before any action, scanning your enemy for weaknesses. Then you find a way to get your opponents to underestimate you, to lower their guard. When you strike unexpectedly, they will freeze up. When you hit again, it is from the side and out of nowhere. It is the unanticipated blow that makes the biggest impact. Keys to Warfare - Velocity creates a sense of vitality. Moving with speed means there is less time for you and your army to make mistakes. It also creates a bandwagon effect: more and more people admiring your boldness, will decide to join forces with you. - This strategy can be particularly devastating for those who are particularly hesitant or afraid of making mistakes, or those who have divided leadership or internal cracks. Reversal - Appearing slow can be an advantage, particularly as a setup. - In general, when facing a fast enemy, the only true defense is to be faster.

Answer 120

Having trouble finding that confidence to overcome insecurity? Fear not. Everyone falls victim to insecurity at one time or another. In order to move past it, you need to accept things for the way they are, good or bad. Denial only propels the cycle of uncertainty.

Answer 121

Do an action and plan what will happen if 3 different actions occur. Try to anticipate the most likely outcomes and plan for those

Answer 122

- The best way to advance your cause with the minimum of effort and bloodshed is to create a constantly shifting network of alliances, getting others to compensate for your deficiencies, do your dirty work, fight your wars, spend energy pulling you forward. The art is in choosing those allies who fit the needs of the moment and fill the gaps in your power. Give them gifts, offer them friendship, help them in time of need--all to blind them to reality and put them under subtle obligation to you. At the same time, work to sow dissension in the alliances of others, weakening your enemies by isolating them. While forming convenient coalitions, keep yourself free of negative entanglements. - A common mistake is to think that the more allies we have, the better; but quality is more important than quantity. - Understand: the perfect allies are those who give you something you cannot get on your own. They have the resources you lack. They will do your dirty work for you or fight your battles. - No one can get far in life without allies. The trick, however, is to recognize the difference between false allies and real ones. A false alliance is created out of an immediate emotional need. It requires that you give up something essential about yourself and makes it impossible for you to make your own decisions. A true alliance is formed out of mutual self-interest, each side supplying what the other cannot get alone. It does not require you to fuse your own identity with that of a group or pay attention to everyone else's emotional needs. It allows you autonomy. Keys to Warfare - The first step is to understand that all of us constantly use other people to help and advance ourselves. - There is no shame in this, no need to ever feel guilty. Nor should we take it personally when we realize that someone else is using us; using people is a human and social necessity. - Next, with this understanding in mind, you must learn to make these necessary alliances strategic ones, aligning yourself with people who can give you something you cannot get on your own. This requires that you resist the temptation to let your decisions about alliances be governed by your emotions; your emotional needs are what your personal life is for, and you must leave them behind when you enter the arena of social battle. - One of the best stratagems in the Alliance Game is to begin by seeming to help another person in some cause or fight, only for the purpose of furthering your own interests in the end. - A variation on the Alliance Game is to play the mediator, the center around which other powers pivot. While remaining covertly autonomous, you make those around you fight for your allegiance. - The brilliance of this variation is that merely by assuming a central position, you can wield tremendous power. - A key component of the Alliance Game is the ability to manipulate other people's alliances and even destroy them, sowing dissension among your opponents so that they fight among themselves. Breaking your enemy's alliances is as good as making alliances yourself. - Your focus here is on stirring up mistrust.

Answer 123

- Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the battle and calculating ahead. It requires focusing on the ultimate goal, and considering the politics and long-term consequences of what you do. - To become a grand strategist in life, you must follow the path of Alexander. First, clarify your life--decipher your own personal riddle--by determining what it is you are destined to achieve, the direction in which your skills and talents seem to push you. Visualize yourself fulfilling this destiny in glorious detail. - Ignore the conventional wisdom about what you should or should not be doing. It may make sense for some, but that does not mean it bears any relation to your own goals and destiny. You need to be patient enough to plot several steps ahead--to wage a campaign instead of fighting battles. - Your task as a grand strategist is to extend your vision in all directions--not only looking further into the future but also seeing more of the world around you, more than your enemy does. Keys to Warfare - The first step was to think beyond the immediate battle. Supposing you won victory, where would it leave you--better off or worse? To answer that question, the logical step was to think ahead, to the third and fourth battles on, which connected like links in a chain. The result was the concept of the campaign, in which the strategist sets a realistic goal and plots several steps ahead to get there. - Grand strategy has four main principles. The more you can incorporate these principles into your plans, the better the results: Focus on your greater goal, your destiny. - What have distinguished all history's grand strategists and can distinguish you, too, are specific, detailed, focused goals. Contemplate them day in and day out, and imagine how it will feel to reach them and what reaching them will look like. By a psychological law peculiar to humans, clearly visualizing them this way will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. - Your goals must be rooted in reality. If they are simply beyond your means, essentially impossible for you to realize, you will grow discouraged, and discouragement can quickly escalate into a defeatist attitude. On the other hand, if your goals lack a certain dimension and grandeur, it can be hard to stay motivated. Do not be afraid to be bold. Widen your perspective. - Grand strategy is a function of vision, of seeing further in time and space than the enemy does. - Your task as a grand strategist is to force yourself to widen your view, to take in more of the world around you, to see things for what they are and for how they may play out in the future, not for how you wish them to be. Sever the roots. - In a society dominated by appearances, the real source of a problem is sometimes hard to grasp. To work out a grand strategy against an enemy, you have to know what motivates him or is the source of his power - the roots. Take the indirect route to your goal. - The greatest danger you face in strategy is losing the initiative and finding yourself constantly reacting to what the other side does. The solution, of course, is to plan ahead but also to plan subtly--to take the indirect route. Preventing your opponent from seeing the purpose of your actions gives you an enormous advantage. - Whenever anything goes wrong, it is human nature to blame this person or that. Let other people engage in such stupidity, led around by their noses, seeing only what is immediately visible to the eye. You see things differently. When an action goes wrong--in business, in politics, in life--trace it back to the policy that inspired it in the first place. The goal was misguided. - This means that you yourself are largely the agent of anything bad that happens to you. With more prudence, wiser policies, and greater vision, you could have avoided the danger. So when something goes wrong, look deep into yourself--not in an emotional way, to blame yourself or indulge your feelings of guilt, but to make sure that you start your next campaign with a firmer step and greater vision.

Answer 124

- The secret to motivating people and maintaining their morale is to get them to think less about themselves and more about the group. Involve them in a cause, a crusade against a hated enemy. Make them see their survival as tied to the success of the army as a whole. - Lead from the front: let your soldiers see you in the trenches, making sacrifices for the cause. The Art of Man Management - To create the best group dynamic, follow as many of the following steps as possible: - Step 1: Unite your troops around a cause. Make them fight for an idea. - The cause can be anything you wish, but you should represent it as progressive: it fits the times, it is on the side of the future, so it is destined to succeed. - Step 2: Keep their bellies full. - People cannot stay motivated if their material needs go unmet. - Step 3: Lead from the front. - Step 4: Concentrate their ch’i. - Idleness has a terrible effect on chi’i. - Keep your soldiers busy, acting for a purpose, moving in a direction. - Step 6: Mix harshness and kindness. - The key to man management is a balance of punishment and reward. - Step 7: Build the group myth. - The armies with the highest morale are armies that have been tested in battle. Soldiers who have fought alongside one another through many campaigns forge a kind of group myth based on their past victories. - To generate this myth, you must lead your troops into as many campaigns as you can. It is wise to start out with easy battles that they can win, building up their confidence. - Step 8: Be ruthless with grumblers. - Above all else, pay attention to your staff. - Morale is contagious, and you, as leader, set the tone. - If aiming at emotions, you must aim indirectly: get them to laugh or cry over something that seems unrelated to the issue at hand. Emotions are contagious - they bring people together and make them bond.

Answer 125

People often associate the term influence with a single conversation. They believe that you are influential in one moment. But the best influencers know that influence requires time and strategy. Influence is actually a 3-step process: 1) Observe, 2) Connect, 3) Influence. If you try to jump to the 3rd step (influence) without learning your “mark’s” influential drivers (observe) and without building rapport (connect), then you might bungle the whole deal. For example, CIA agents will plan for a year or more for turning an asset. Every step counts. Don’t skip them. Frank highlights his awareness of the necessary steps and the time it takes when he says, “”You can’t turn a no to a yes without a maybe in between.” This is a particularly difficult lesson for our era of instant gratification. Most people aren’t wired for long term planning – especially when we really want to land a big business deal. Just remember, that the bigger the opportunity, the longer your influential timeline might need to be.

Answer 126

One of the absolute keys to putting into action, the protective ideas of sun tzu and Machiavelli is to make the primary initial focus consolidating the territory that is already held at the time of the Prince and the art of war. This meant physically in the modern sense territory can be seen in several different ways within the business sphere of life territory can be seen as market share, revenue share customer preference, or any other metric which can be won and lost to competitors to use the ideas of sun tzu and Machiavelli always protect what you already have before aiming to expand or acquire something else. One of the main mistakes to avoid is pursuing new conquests before consolidating and confirming existing ones, the idea of protecting what is already held this is applicable to your personal life as it is to your business life excessive acquisition without protecting what is already held is one of the main problems that cause people to end up with nothing. How many people have ended up losing their homes and vehicles after losing them as collateral in the pursuit of more to make use of sun tzu and Machiavelli's ideas, always think about ways of keeping what you already have in place before attempting to acquire something new, of course, a measure of risk is always needed being overly cautious is not necessarily the method to take the key point is to treat all risks as calculated ones, always know what you stand to lose in any situation and be willing to lose something if you've risked it, you should always have a concrete idea of how likely any losses and what the consequence of any given loss would be be relied upon to be secure, one of the only ways to ensure your own security in any area of life is to make sure that the people and things you need to succeed are reliant upon you.

Answer 127

All governments are based on a certain type of mix. Changing the size of these can make the difference Essentials- support needed for support to continues (Lords, Senators, etc) Influential- electrical coverage Interchangeable- voting public Dictatorships have less influencial, essentials and interchangeables.

Answer 128

He who is closer to the treasures when the king dies would probably be the next king. The person who can secure the treasure can pay back his supporters/the army. Coming to power is never about doing the right thing. Its about doing what's expedient.

Answer 129

Keep your essentials as small as possible. Make the electorate(interchangeables as big as possible)

Answer 130

One of the key recurring themes in the prince is that a leader can get away with almost anything if he appears to be a certain way in the eyes of the masses. Therefore, almost any true nature can be covered up by careful management of perception. numerous examples show this as true in the modern day as it was in the time of Machiavelli, countless corporations are adept at using marketing to seem as if they were ethical or praiseworthy in some way or another while secretly pursuing entirely different motives. Politicians are another prime example of this idea how many candidates running for office or even prominent politicians have claimed to be wholesome and family friendly and then have been exposed to be engaged in infidelity or some other form of advice. Interestingly, often, even when someone or something's true nature is exposed Many people will still rush to defend it. Why? The person or entity in question was so skilled at using perception to appear a certain way while being another that the false perception is deeply embedded in people's minds. People hate feeling like they have been duped so they will do almost anything to cling on to the false image they held. Think of the countless celebrities who have been caught out as doing disgraceful acts but still command legions of fans who claimed the individuals in question were simply misunderstood. Perception is powerful. use it to your advantage. Keeping a true behavior or nature hidden is harder in the modern era than it ever has been. Even old data can be hacked and released into the public to devastating effect. It is therefore absolutely vital, but anything that you wish to remain hidden is kept in the utmost secrecy. Stay away from email, text messages, social Media, anything that can come back to haunt you conduct your true plans and secrecy and away from any chance of ever being exposed. While doing one thing in secret. It's important to leave a trail of doing something different and acceptable in the eyes of the public publicly

Answer 131

Knew how to make himself liked. He was polite, well groomed. Attitude toward money was strategic. Saw it as a fun into which his friends or solders could dip. He was always giving people presents. Took a dandyish care of his appearance. Parties were legendary. Cicero though ceaser looked too put together to plot against the Republic.

Answer 132

- To fight defensively, you must make the most of your resources, fighting with perfect economy and only battles that are necessary. - Second, you must know how and when to retreat, luring an aggressive enemy into an imprudent attack. Then, when exhausted, launch a vicious counterattack. - To fight this way, you must master the arts of deception. Pick Your Battles Carefully: The Perfect-Economy Strategy - You must know your limits and pick your battles carefully. - Pyrrhic victories are much more common than you might think. - No person or group is completely weak or strong. You must make sure to assess and attack weaknesses. Keys to Warfare - Creativity gives you an edge over enemies dependent on technology; you will learn more, be more adaptable, and you will outsmart them. - The next time you launch a campaign, try an experiment: think deeply about what you have first, then, let your plans and goals blossom. - Do not mistake cheapness for perfect economy. - Several tactics are key to fighting economically: - The use of deception. - Choosing opponents you can beat. - Look for new opportunities and build momentum. Reversal - There is no value in fighting without economy, but it is always wise to make your opponent waste as many resources as possible.

Answer 133

Use it to your advantage. Keeping a true behavior or nature hidden is harder in the modern era than it ever has been. Even old data can be hacked and released into the public to devastating effect. It is therefore absolutely vital, but anything that you wish to remain hidden is kept in the utmost secrecy. Stay away from email, text messages, social Media, anything that can come back to haunt you conduct your true plans and secrecy and away from any chance of ever being exposed. While doing one thing in secret. It's important to leave a trail of doing something different and acceptable in the eyes of the public publicly. Let's say for example, as a manager, you need to get rid of one of your workers you know, you must plot their downfall in secret. It's not enough to plot in scheme behind closed doors, you must appear to be very fair, even on the doomed workers side in public, if done skillfully enough, they will eventually feel almost bad for you and you fire them as you ll seem like a true friend who had their back really their demise was inevitable the entire time, deception and perception sun tzu and Machiavelli combined, like many powerful concepts, deception and perception are more potent together than apart if you take away one core idea.

Answer 134

Democratization sounds good, in principle, only. Of course, many may think that we are just too cynical advocates of democratization are fond of pointing out the success stories. Yet all of these cases, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also happened to involve countries whose populations values largely coincide with American values in resisting for decades large communist neighbors. The big problem with democratizing overseas continues to lie with we, the people, in most cases we seem to prefer that foreign nations do what we want, not what they want. However, if our interests align then successful democratization is more likely. This is particularly so if there is a rival power that wishes to influence policy. the post war success stories fit this category Well, generally the people of West Germany and Japan preferred what the United States wanted to the vision expounded by the Soviet Union, creating powerful states that wanted to resist communism and would try hard was in the US interest as occupying powers the United States, Britain and France might have set Germany on a course to democracy, but they did so only because it was advantageous for them. This confluence of interests is rare. And so as externally imposed democratization Sun Tzu exerted a lasting influence on the study of war, precisely because his recommendations are the right recommendations for leaders like monarchs and autocrats who rule based on a small coalition.

Answer 135

Women have been capitalizing on this concept for centuries. From Helen of Troy, whose face “launched a thousand ships,” to your buddy’s girlfriend who won’t put out until he does the dishes, sex can be an invaluable tool in achieving your goals. Is it unfair to exploit someone’s most primitive, intense craving just to get your way? Probably, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an effective strategy.

Answer 136

The idea of hiding your intention to attack so your targets are unprepared does not just apply on a small scale personal level. It also works on a larger scale, such as the actions and strategic plans of an entire organization. This concept is easy to illustrate with an example Apple product launches. Think about the drama and excitement that comes with the launch of a new Apple product. people speculate like crazy about what the new unveiling will bring Apple is as secretive as possible ahead of time. Then on the day of the launch, the product is revealed and usually announced to be on sale within a very short period of time as a result of his competitors are on the backfoot. They never know exactly what is coming and what they should do. As a result, the launch of the original iPhone was a game changer, Apple did not necessarily seem set to attack the portion of the tech market that they chose. As a result of this competing firms had no real time to prepare. Look at the fates of blackberry and Motorola if you doubt this concept, stealth.

Answer 137

Hirim salase taxed people sending aid to Ethiopia and used the bribes for his supporters. Alot of foreign aid is about bribing regimes we like. Donors know it but aren't willing to change the system. It made us a lot of cold war era allies. Egypt and Pakistan were given 'aid' during the war on terror to help fight the Taliban. Ironically, aid makes it so these nations don't want to fully defeat terrorism because the aid would top. The US gives about .02% of its GDP as aid while other nations give as well. Its a competition for bribes. Japan bribes smaller nation to vote for whaling in international court. Fix: We could escrow money and pay it out as objective are achieved. Have it held in a swiss bank until objectives are achieved. incentivize leaders to solve doner problems instead of just dumping money into them.

Answer 138

The United Nations certainly could build a body of international law that motivates dictators facing rebellion to turn power over to the people peacefully. The UN could prescribe a process for transition from dictatorship to democracy. At the same time, it could stipulate that any dictator are facing the pressure to grant freedom to the people would have a brief fixed period of time, say a week to leave the country in exchange for a blanket perpetual grant of amnesty against the prosecution anywhere for crimes committed as his nation's leader. There is clear precedents for such a policy. It is common practice to give criminals immunity. If they agreed to testify. Some victims are bound to resent that the perpetrator of heinous acts goes unpunished. Unfortunately the alternative is to leave the dictator with few options but to gamble on holding on to power through further murderous acts. Certainly there is little justice and letting former dictators off the hook. But the goal should be to preserve and improve the lives of the many who suffer at the hands of desperate leaders who might be prepared to step aside in exchange for immunity, the incentives to encourage leaders to step aside, could be further strengthened if, in exchange for agreeing to step down too quickly. They will be granted the right to retain some significant amount of ill gotten gains and safe havens for exile, with a soon to be ex leadership and their families can live out their lives and peace offering such deals might prove self fulfilling. Once essential supporters believe their leader might take such a deal. They themselves start looking for his replacement. So even if the leader had wanted to stay in fight. He might no longer have the support to do so. The urge for retribution is better put aside to give dictators a reason to give up rather than Fight, Muammar Gaddafi had none of these opportunities, and so face the star choice. Live the life of the hunted or fight to the death. He chose the letter to the detriment of the Libyan people, and anyone who values humanity. Additional choices can be provided. Britain's transition from monarchy to constitutional monarchy provides a valuable lesson leaders want to survive in office and maximize their control over money. But what are their choice is to trade the power of office in exchange for the right to the money. The English monarchy once had both power and money, but it faced a severe pressure that could have ended, as in so many other places with the erstwhile royal family, having neither power, nor money.

Answer 139

One of the key recurring themes in the prince is that a leader can get away with almost anything if he appears to be a certain way in the eyes of the masses. Therefore, almost any true nature can be covered up by careful management of perception. numerous examples show this as true in the modern day as it was in the time of Machiavelli, countless corporations are adept at using marketing to seem as if they were ethical or praiseworthy in some way or another while secretly pursuing entirely different motives. Politicians are another prime example of this idea how many candidates running for office or even prominent politicians have claimed to be wholesome and family friendly and then have been exposed to be engaged in infidelity or some other form of advice. Interestingly, often, even when someone or something's true nature is exposed Many people will still rush to defend it. Why? The person or entity in question was so skilled at using perception to appear a certain way while being another that the false perception is deeply embedded in people's minds.

Answer 140

The previous cases compared why England's representative government was not the only one possible, get into them on how the historical discussion is relevant to democratic struggles in the present. We have now covered five European cases leading to four divergent outcomes with regard to accountability and Representative institutions. France and Spain saw the emergence of a weak absolutism, in which no principle of parliamentary accountability was established. Both states achieved this result by selling themselves off piecemeal, to a wide variety of beliefs, whose privileges and exemptions protected them but not the rest of their societies from arbitrary state power. In Russia, a more thoroughgoing Chinese style absolutism was established, in which the monarchy could dominate its own elites by conscripting them into State service. In Hungary, a strong and cohesive elite succeeded in putting constitutional checks on the power of the monarch and established a principle of accountability. But these checks were so strong that they hobbled the ability of the state itself to function cohesively. Finally, only in England, did a powerful Parliament succeed in imposing a principle of accountability on the king, but in a way that did not undermine a powerful and unified sovereignty. The question then, is what accounts for the difference in these outcomes? A very simple model can explain this variance, which has to do with the balance of power among only four groups of political actors. In the agrarian societies we have covered. These are the state itself, represented by the king, the upper nobility, the Gentry, and what I call the third estate. This fourfold division oversimplifies things tremendously, but it's nonetheless helpful in understanding outcomes. The state emerged in Europe, when certain noble houses achieved a first mover advantage and becoming more powerful than the others, the competions and friends, the art pots and hungry, the rurik dynasty in Russia, the Norman royal house after the conquest they arise was due to some complex combination of favorable geography, good leadership, organizational competence, and the ability to command legitimacy. legitimacy may have been the source of the rulers initial advantage, as in the case of East Vaughn, leading the mariage Christianity, or it may have followed upon the military success of a prince in vanquishing rival warlords, and bringing about peace and security for the society as a whole. The upper nobility might well be described as residual warlords, who possess their own land armies of retainers and resources. This group effectively govern their own territories, which could be handed down to descendants were traded for other assets. The Gentry were less elites with social status, but who did not necessarily possess significant land or resources. They were more numerous than the nobility and distinctly subordinate to them. The third estate consisted of tradesmen, merchants, free serfs, and others who inhabited towns and cities and lived outside of the manorial economy and feudal legal system. In addition to these four groups, there was the peasantry, which constituted the vast bulk of the population. The peasantry was not However, a significant political actors until it emerged as such in certain parts of northern Europe in the 18th century. dispersed indigent and poorly educated peasants could sell them achieve significant collective action. agrarian societies from China to Turkey to France saw the periodic outbreak of violent peasant rebellions, and all were eventually suppressed, often with great savagery. Those revolts affected the behavior and calculations of other actors, for example, by inducing caution on the part of the state when considering raising agricultural taxes. On other occasions peasant uprisings could help overturn a Chinese dynasty. But the peasantry could sell them act as a corporate group, or force long term institutional change that would take its interests into account. Except for the peasantry, these social groups were mobilized to a greater or lesser extent, and thus could behave as political actors and struggle for power tried to expand its dominion. While the groups outside the state sought to protect and enlarge their existing privileges against the state and against one another. The outcome of these struggles depended largely on the collective action that any of the Major actors could achieve the need for solidarity extended to the state itself. State weakness could be the result of internal cleavages within the ruling dynasty. Organizational failures, a loss of belief in the ruling houses legitimacy on the part of its retainers, or even the simple failure of a king to produce an heir. In addition, any number of alliances were possible among these different groups, between the king and Gentry between the king and the third estate, between the upper nobility and the Gentry, between the Gentry and the third estate and so on. In the cases where absolutism emerged, whether of a strong or weak variety, there were inevitably collective action failures on the part of groups resisting the state where accountability was imposed. The state was relatively weak in relationship to the other political groups. parliamentary government emerged when there was a relative balance of power between a cohesive state and an equally well organized society that could defend its interests.

Answer 141

Weak absolutism, we are now in a position to summarize the outcomes described in the preceding chapters. Weak absolutism emerged in France and Spain when a relatively weak state encountered a well organized society and nonetheless succeeded and nonetheless succeeded in dominating it. In both cases, the power base of the state centered around a limited territory consisting of oil domains and associated lands where the state had direct taxing authority. The PI data in the region surrounding Paris in the case of the French monarchy, and Castiel for the Spanish Hapsburgs. The state nevertheless sought to extend its authority over a far wider region, through co optation dynastic intrigue, and outright conquest. the geography of Western Europe and the military technologies of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were not conducive to rapid military expansion. However, the trusty Italian it should be remembered, made siege warfare unnecessary and expensive. And both the French and Spanish monarchs quickly found themselves in deep financial trouble from military expenditures and imperial overextension. In both cases, there were powerful local actors outside the state that sought to resist the centralization project. These included an ancient blood nobility with land and resources abroad Gentry class, and an urban bourgeoisie, which were organized into formula states, the parliament in France and the Cortez in Spain. Both the French and Spanish states succeeded in the piecemeal co optation of these groups. This seems to have started not as a deliberate state building strategy, but rather as a desperate innovation to stave off bankruptcy. The French state initially bought the loyalty of local leads in the election by granting them special tax exemptions and privileges. After the bankruptcy and repudiation of debts of the drunk party in 1557. It began to sell offices to wealthy individuals, offices that became heritable in the early 17th century, and were thereafter continually sold and resold up to the time of Louis the 14th centuries end. The Spanish state bankrupted itself early on through its prolonged dynastic wars in Italy in the Low Countries. While revenues from the New World kept going through the end of the 16th century, it too resorted to the wholesale auctioning off of parts of the state in the 17th century. The ability of both the French and Spanish monarchs to accumulate power was strictly limited by the prior existence of a rule of law in both countries. Their monarchs felt compelled to respect the feudal rights and privileges of their subjects. They sought to expand their taxing and conscription powers at every opportunity, and try to bend break or go around the law whenever they could. They encouraged intellectuals to promulgate doctrines of absolutism and sovereignty, to buttress their claims that they were the ultimate sources of law. But they did not try to abolish law itself, or seek to ignore it. In the end, they were normatively constrained from acting in the arbitrary fashion of certain Chinese monarchs, like the Empress Whoo hoo implemented a bloody purge of her aristocratic rivals were the first Ming Emperor, who simply seized the land of leading aristocratic families. The piecemeal co optation of elites meant in effect, a broadening of the rent seeking coalition to include first the traditional aristocratic elites, and then newly mobilized social actors, like the urban bourgeoisie. Rather than act cohesively to protect their interests as a class. These elites traded political power for social status and a share of the state, not in the form of parliamentary representation, but rather as a claim on the state's taxing authority. In tocqueville's phrase, Liberty was understood not as genuine self government, but as privilege. This led To a weak form of absolutism, because the state on the one hand faced no formal constitutional constraints and its power, but on the other hand, had mortgaged its future to a host of powerful individuals against whom it had limited power to act. State weakness ultimately proved deadly to both France and Spain. Because State Building was based on exempting elites from taxes, the burden fell on the peasantry and ordinary tradesmen, neither country could raise sufficient revenues to meet the imperial ambitions of their rulers. France could not compete with a smaller England, whose tax base was secured by the principle of parliamentary accountability. Spain for its part went into a centuries long military and economic decline. The states in both countries lost legitimacy because of the corrupt way they were put together in the first place. And France has failed efforts to reform itself paved the way for the revolution. Strong absolutism, Russia was able to establish a strong form of absolutism much closer to that of China. For reasons that become apparent when comparing its development to that of France or Spain, there were at least five important points of divergence.

Answer 142

For reasons that become apparent when comparing its development to that of France or Spain, there were at least five important points of divergence of Russia. First, the physical geography of Russia. A flat open step with few physical barriers to cavalry based armies made it vulnerable to invasion from the southwest, Southeast and northwest, often simultaneously. This put a premium on military mobilization, but also meant that the warlord who moves first to establish military dominance at great scale advantages over his rivals. The power of the Muscovite state was built on its recruitment of the middle surface class, Russia is equivalent to the Gentry into direct military service. It could do this because of its position as a frontier state with poorly defined borders. As in the case of the Ottoman spies, members of the middle service class were rewarded by settling these cavalrymen on new lands as direct dependence of the crown. The closest equivalent of this practice in Western Europe was the Spanish crowns granting of huge encomienda in the new world to the conquistadors as a reward for service, the practice that led to a similarly hierarchical political system. The Duchy of Muscovy obtained significant first mover advantages by its early successes against the totters, which gave it considerable legitimacy over the other ethnic princes. Second, very little time elapsed between the lifting of the Mongol yoke and the state building project undertaken by Moscow. In Western Europe, feudalism had had 800 years to sink roots, producing a proud love nobility entrenched in the impregnable castles that dotted the landscape. Russia's advantage period, by contrast, lasted only a couple of centuries, the members of the noble boyar class were far less well organized to resist the power of the centralizing monarch, and they didn't live in castles. They as well as independent cities like Novgorod were less protected by physical geography, then with their counterparts in Western Europe. Third, Russia had no tradition of rule of law comparable to that of Western Europe. The Eastern Church in Byzantium, which appointed the Russian patriarch itself never went through the equivalent of The Investiture conflict, and remained Caesar papers until the fall of Constantinople. law in the Byzantine Empire failed to be turned into a coherent body, guarded by an autonomous legal profession, the way it was in the West. The Russian Orthodox Church, which was the spiritual heir of the Byzantine church, from time to time, exhibited some political independence from the rulers in Moscow, but it also received great benefits from the states of patronage. Unlike the situation in Western Europe, where the Catholic Church could play one ruler off against another in a fragmented political landscape, the Russian church had nowhere else to go, but to Moscow, and often ended up as a pliant supporter of the state. The lack of an independent ecclesiastical authority guarding a body of church law meant that there was no institutional home for legally trained specialists with their own corporate sense of identity. ecclesiastical bureaucrats served as the administrative cadre for early Western European states. In Russia. The state apparatus was staffed by military men and patrimonial appointees, often one in the same person. Finally, the model of rulership available to many Russians was not the law govern the prince, but the purely predatory Mongol conqueror. Fourth, physical geography necessitated formation of a surf owning cartel, and tightly bound the interests of the entire elite nobles and Gentry to those of the monarchy in the absence of physical circumscription. An institution like serfdom could be maintained only if serf owners showed great self discipline in punishing and returning escaped serfs. The Tsar could bind the elite to the state by supporting ever tighter restrictions on serfs in Western Europe. By contrast, free cities were refuges were escaped serfs. could run to seek freedom from the Lord's and the memorial economy. The city served as the functional equivalent of the frontier eventually closed in Russia. In contrast to the Russian monarch and other rulers in Eastern Europe, Western European kings found Free Cities useful in their struggle against the great lords, and therefore protected them. Finally, certain ideas simply failed to penetrate in Russia to the extent they didn't land farther to the west. This began with the idea of the rule of law, but extended to the whole complex of ideas coming out of the Reformation and enlightenment. At virtually the same moment that the Danish down with your queen Sophie Magdalene was freeing the serfs in her own domains. Catherine the Great an erstwhile friend of Voltaire was imposing even tighter restrictions on the movement of serfs in Russia. Many enlightenment ideas were adopted by modernizing Russian monarchs like Peter the Great Of course, and in another three generations Tsar Alexander the second would free the serfs.

Answer 143

Why didn't England end up like hungry. Against the backdrop of these unsuccessful attempts to resist an absolute state, the English achievement seems all the more striking. There was far more solidarity among key social groups in England to protect their rights against the king than there was elsewhere. The English Parliament included representatives of all of the country's propertied classes, from the great nobles down to Yeoman farmers. Two groups were particular importance, the Gentry and the third estate. The former had not been recruited as class into State service as in Russia, and the latter were largely unwilling to trade their political rights for titles and individual privileges as in France, the French Spanish and Russian monarchy succeeded in undermining the cohesion of the various elites by selling access and titles to individuals within the elite. The Russian messed in the chest table, or table of noble rankings served a purpose very similar to that of French and Spanish venal offices in this regard. Well, English monarchs tried similar stratagems. Like the sale of offices, Parliament remained a cohesive institution, for the reasons presented in the previous chapter, a common commitment to local government, the common law and religion. But it is not sufficient to explain why the English parliament was strong enough to force the monarchy into a constitutional settlement. The Hungarian nobility represented in the diet was also very powerful and well organized. Like the English barons at Runnymede, the lesser Hungarian nobility forced their monarch into a constitutional compromise in the 13th century, the golden rule, and in subsequent years, kept the Central State on a very short leash. After the death of God in 1490, the noble estate reversed the centralizing reforms that the monarchy had put into place in the previous generation, and returned the power to themselves. But the Hungarian noble estate did not use their power to strengthen the country as a whole. Rather, they sought to lower taxes on themselves and guard their own narrow privileges at the expense of the country's ability to defend itself. In England, by contrast, the constitutional settlement coming out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1689, vastly strengthened the state, to the point that it became over the next century, the dominant power in Europe. So if the English parliament was strong enough to constrain a predatory monarch, we need to ask why that Parliament did not itself evolve into a rent seeking coalition and turn against itself, like the Hungarian diet. There are at least two reasons why accountable government in England did not degenerate into rapacious oligarchy. The first has to do with England's social structure, compared to that of hungry while the groups represented in the English Parliament were an oligarchy. They sat on top of a society that was much more mobile and open to non elites than was Hungary's. In Hungary, the Gentry had been absorbed into a narrow aristocracy. Whereas in England, they represented a large and cohesive social group, more powerful in certain ways than the aristocracy. England, unlike Hungary had a tradition of grassroots political participation in the form of the 100 and county courts and other institutions of local governance. English Lords were accustomed to sitting in assemblies on equal terms with their vassals and tenants to decide issues of common interest. Hungary Furthermore, had no equivalent of the English Yeomanry, relatively prosperous farmers who owned their own land and could participate in local political life. And cities in Hungary was strictly controlled by the noble estate, and did not generate a rich and powerful bourgeoisie the way that English ones did. Second, despite English traditions of individual liberty, the centralised English state was both powerful and well regarded through much of the society. It was one of the first states to develop a uniform system of justice, it protected property rights and it acquired substantial naval capabilities in it struggles with various continental powers. The English experiment with republican government after beheading of Charles the first in 1649, and the establishment of cromwells protectorate was not a happy one. The regicide itself seemed even to the supporters of Parliament and unjust and illegal act. The English Civil War witnessed the same sort of progressive radicalization experienced later during the French Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. The more extreme anti royalist groups like the Levellers and the diggers seem to want not just political accountability, but also a much broader social revolution, which frightened the property owning classes represented in Parliament, which starts with a great deal of relief that the monarchy was restored in 1660, with the exception of Charles the second, after the restoration, the issues of political accountability reappeared under the Catholic James the second, whose machinations again arouse suspicions and opposition from parliament, and ultimately led to the Glorious Revolution. But this time around, no one wanted to dismantle the monarchy or the state, they only wanted a king who would be accountable to them. They got one in William of Orange. ideas were again important. By the late 17th century thinkers like Hobbes and Locke had broken free of concepts of a feudal social order based on classes and estates, and argued in favor of a social contract between state and citizen. Hobbs argued in Leviathan that human beings are fundamentally equal, both in their passions and in their ability to inflict violence on one another, and that they have rights merely by virtue of the fact that they are human beings. Locke accepted these premises as well, and attach the notion that legitimate rule could arise from anything other than consent of the governed. One could overthrow a king, but only in the name of the principle of consent. rights. According to these early liberals, were abstract and universal, and could not be legitimately appropriated by powerful individuals. Hungary had to come to the Turks and the Austrians long before ideas like these could spread there. There is one simple lesson to be drawn from this comparison. Political liberty, that is the ability of societies to rule themselves does not depend only on the degree to which a society can mobilize opposition to centralized power, and impose constitutional constraints on the state. It must also have a state that is strong enough to act when action is required. Accountability does not run in just one direction from the state to the society. If the government cannot act cohesively if there is no broader sense of public purpose than one will not have laid the basis for true political liberty. In contrast to Hungary after the death of Mount yasunori, the English state after 1689 remained strong and cohesive with a parliament willing to tax itself and to make sacrifices in the prolonged foreign struggles of the 18th century. A political system that has all checks and balances is potentially no more successful than one with no checks. Because governments periodically need strong and decisive action. the stability of an accountable political system thus rests on a broad balance of power between the state and its underlying society.

Answer 144

One of the problems with Whig history is that it makes England story paradigmatic for the rise of constitutional democracy as such. There were However, other paths that states in Europe took to get to the same place where the English ended up. Since we began this long account of political development by raising the question of how Denmark got to be Denmark, a law abiding, democratic, prosperous and well governed polity. With some of the world's lowest levels of political corruption, we need to spend some time explaining this outcome. In the year 1500, it was not obvious that Denmark or any other country in Scandinavia would turn out differently from other late medieval societies in Europe. Some observers have tried to trace Denmark's present all the way back to the Vikings, who originally settled Scandinavia. But it is hard to see how this particular group of tribal marauders distinguished themselves fundamentally from the other Germanic barbarians that settled Europe after the end of the Roman Empire, other than the fact that they sailed in long boats rather than rode horses. The Danish monarchy a very ancient lineage was relatively weak in the 13th century, when the king was forced to sign a great charter, requiring consultation with a noble parliament and special privileges for the church. The Danish economy, as in the rest of Europe, was based on the manner the Denmark's location at the entrance of the Baltic, and its proximity to the cities of the Hanseatic League made international trade a relatively more important factor in its economic development. After the breakup of the comar Union, which briefly united much of Scandinavia in the mid 15th century Denmark remained a fairly important multinational power, controlling Norway, Iceland, the German speaking territories of Vic and Stein and provinces across the south and in what is now Western Sweden. If there is a single event that sent Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia off on a distinct development path, it was the Protestant Reformation. As in other parts of Europe, Martin Luther his ideas proved tremendously destabilizing, catalyzing long standing popular grievances against the Catholic Church. In Denmark, a brief Civil War led to a victory by the Protestant side, and the establishment of a Lutheran Danish national church in 1536. This outcome was driven as much by material as by moral factors. The Danish King saw an important opportunity to seize the church's considerable assets, which may have amounted to some 30% of the land in Denmark. A truly lasting political impact of the Reformation in Denmark came however, through its encouragement of peasant literacy. The Lutherans believed strongly in the need for ordinary people to have direct access to God through their ability to read the Bible. were failing that luthers lesser catechism. Beginning of the 16th century, the Lutheran church began to set up schools in every village in Denmark, were priests taught peasants the basics of reading and writing. The result was that by the 18th century, the peasantry in Denmark and in other parts of Scandinavia had emerged as a relatively well educated and increasingly well organized social class. social mobilization in contemporary societies usually takes place as a result of economic development. This was also the route taken in medieval England, where extension of property rights under the common law facilitated the transformation of the top layer of the English peasantry into politically active Yeoman farmers. In pre modern 16th century Denmark by contrast, it was religion that drove social mobilization. Literacy allowed peasants not only to improve their economic condition, it also helped them to communicate among themselves and organize as political agents. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between rural Scandinavia and Russia in the early 19th century, despite geographical proximity and similarities and climate. Unlike the English case, representative democracy did not emerge out of the survival of a feudal institution Parliament that was sufficiently well organized to resist the centralizing state. In Denmark and absolutist state, with an increasingly sophisticated bureaucracy had been established in 1660. Following defeat in a war with Sweden, the Danish diet was abolished, and there was no state based political structure to which the monarch had to go to receive permission to raise taxes. The critical political revolution came in the period from 1760 to 1792. When an enlightened Danish monarchy progressively abolished a form of serfdom known as the sovereigns band, first on the Royal domains, and then for all landowners, and restricted the right of landlords to impose degrading punishments on peasants like flogging on a wooden horse. peasants were not enfranchised, but they were given the right to own land and freely engage in commerce on an equal basis. The Danish monarchs are peasant freedom, as an opportunity to undermine the power of the noble landowners, who fiercely resisted his reforms. freeing the peasants would allow him to conscript them directly into the National Army. ideas were important as well. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had been published in 1776, arguing that land owning farmers would ultimately be far more productive than unfree serfs. But equally important was the fact that the peasantry itself was increasingly educated, mobilized and ready to take up the opportunities of economic freedom by moving into higher value added activities, like food processing. The second major event making possible modern Danish democracy was externally driven. Denmark remained a middle range multinational European power at the end of the 18th century. It lost Norway in 1814 as a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars. The spread of the ideas of the French Revolution in the early decades of the 19th century had complex political consequences, since they stimulated both class based demands for political participation on the part of the bourgeoisie and peasantry, as well as demands for national recognition on the part of Denmark sizable German speaking minority. The Prussians solved the problem by taking the predominantly German speaking duchies of Vic and hollstein away from the Danes in 1864. In a short but decisive war. Overnight, Denmark became a small, homogeneous, largely Danish speaking country, and realized that it would have to live within the confines of a much smaller state. This then forms the context for the story of the emergence of democracy in the late 1980s. And social democracy in the early 20th. A farmer based political movement inspired by the priest and educator NFS grundtvig, took shape at first in the guise of a religious revival movement that broke away from the official Lutheran Church and established schools throughout the country. After a constitutional monarchy took power in 1848, the farmers movement and the National liberals representing the bourgeoisie began pushing for direct political participation, which led to the granting of voting rights the following year. The emergence of the Danish welfare state in the 20th century is beyond the scope of this volume. But when it finally arrived, it was based not solely on an emerging working class, but also on the farmer class, whose mobilization was facilitated at key junctures not by economic growth, but by religion. The development of democracy and a modern market based economy was far less conflictual and violent in Denmark than it was in England, not to mention France, Spain and Germany. To get to modern Denmark, the Danes did indeed find a number of wars with neighbors, including Sweden and Prussia, and there were violent civil conflicts in the 17th and 19th centuries. But there was no prolonged Civil War, no enclosure movement, no absolute tyranny, no grinding poverty brought on by early industrialization, and the far weaker legacy of class conflict. ideas were critical to the Danish story, not just in terms of Lutheran and grundtvig in ideology, but also in the way that enlightenment views about rights and constitutionalism were accepted by a series of Danish monarchs in the 18th and 19th centuries. The story of the rise of Danish democracy is full of historical accidents and contingent circumstances that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. The Danes took a much different route to get to modern liberal democracy than the English but in the end, they arrived at a very similar place. Both countries developed a strong state rule of law and accountable government. It would appear then that there are a number of different routes for getting to Denmark.

Answer 145

ALWAYS Ask someone how you can help someone of figure out what they need before the meeting. Offer the carrot and the stick if you have to. Give them an choice to align with you and tell them what happens if they dont. Tell it as a story if possible. Make the best of all bad situations. If something bad happens used it as judo. Flip the situation to your advantage. When Tommy's brother was allegedly killed in Peaky Blinders he uses it as an opportunity and leans into it to make other things happen. Bad things may only seem bad in a particular context.

Answer 146

Migrants are human beings that are no better or worse than Americans. Migrates have just as much right to movement as corporations and international elites. the only law deserving our respect is an unprejudiced law, one that protects everyone everywhere. no exclusions, no exceptions. We should be working to improve places where people come from. We should not rely on more violents border policing to manage problems that we ourselves help to create.

Answer 147

Distractions lower cognitive function. When noise is high, people cant concentrate for a minute. Take advantage of it.

Answer 148

New doesn't change peoples minds, but it tells them what issues are important and what to focus on. Use the news cycles for vids, etc to talk about what is most important in the public mind at the time

Answer 149

Get someone to comply first before you ask a question. Are you adventurous? Then-We should do this 'adventure'.

Answer 150

Individuals with resources have few options for investing them things like factories scientific research or education that will produce long run economic growth. If they want to increase their wealth. It often makes much more sense to take a political route and engage in predation that is forcibly taking resources from someone else prediction can take two forms. Those with the power to course can take resources from other members of their own society through taxation or outright theft, or they can organize their society to attack and steal from neighboring societies. Organizing for predation through increased military or administrative capacity is thus, oftentimes a more efficient use of resources than investment in productive capacity Malthus himself recognized war as a factor restraining population, but the classic Malthusian model probably understates war significance as a means of limiting overpopulation. It interacts strongly with famine and disease as population control mechanisms. Since the latter usually follow conflict. But unlike feminine disease prediction is the one way of dealing with Malthusian pressures that is under a deliberate human control. As the archaeologist Steven LeBlanc points out the prevalence of warfare environments in prehistoric societies, can be explained by a perpetual problem of populations out running the economic carrying capacity of the local environment, most human beings in other words would rather fight than starve. Any technological events like a new crop, or harvesting tool would temporarily increase output per person. But this increased output would in time be offset by either population growth or degradation of the local environment, output per person would then decrease growing poverty, could be offset by one of four major mechanisms. People could start or physically smaller, they could die of disease. They could engage in internal prediction, or they could go to war with other communities, external prediction.

Answer 151

The world changed very dramatically after approximately the year 1800. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Before then, economic growth in the form of continuously increasing productivity, based on technological change could not be taken for granted. Indeed, it barely existed at all. This is not to say that there weren't important increases in productivity taking place before 1800, agriculture, the use of irrigation, the metal plow the printing press, and long distance sailing ships all increased output per person. For example, the introduction of new varieties of corn tripled the productivity of agriculture in TLT welcome, Mexico, between the third and second millennium BC. The difference between then and now was that steady. year on year increases in productivity, and thus in GDP per person did not occur. We assume today that computers and the internet will be much improved in their five years down the road. And we are probably right. By contrast, agricultural techniques of China were not that much different in the form of Han Dynasty, shortly after the birth of Christ. Then they were in the late Shin dynasty. Prior to China's colonization in the 19th century incomes were rising gradually in the 800 year period between 1018 100. Suddenly accelerated thereafter. Chinese per capita income was largely flat over the same period. But when it began to increase after 1978. It took off at an even faster rate than Europe's. The reasons for the massive increase in post 1800 productivity have always been at the core of studies of growth. They have to do with changes in the intellectual environment that promoted the emergence of modern natural science. The application of science and technology to production. Development of techniques like double entry bookkeeping, and supportive micro economic institutions like patent law and copyright. That permitted and encouraged continuous innovation. But the understandable focus on developments of the last 200 or so years has obscured our ability to comprehend the nature of political economy in pre modern societies, the presumption that a high rate of continuous economic growth is possible, puts a premium on investment in the sorts of institutions and conditions that facilitate such growth, like political stability property rights, technology and scientific research. On the other hand, if we assume that there are only limited possibilities for productivity improvements that societies are thrown into a zero sum world in which prediction, or the taking of resources from someone else is often a far more plausible route to power and well this low productivity world was most notably analyzed by the English clergyman. Thomas Malthus whose essay on the principle of population was first published in 1798. When the author was only 32 Malthus himself one of eight children argued that well population grows at a geometrical rate, assuming a natural total fertility rate of 15 children per woman food production increased to only an arithmetic rate, meaning that food output per person tend to to decline mouthfuls except to the possibility that there would be increases in agricultural productivity, but he did not think that they would ever be sufficient to keep up with the rate of population growth in the long run. There were some virtuous checks and population growth like marital constraint. This in the world before widespread birth control. But in the end, the problem of human overpopulation will be solved only through the mechanisms of famine, disease and war Malthus's essay was published right on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, which led to the remarkable post 1800 increases in productivity noted above, particularly with regard to the unlocking of energy contained in fossil fuels like coal and oil. Worldwide energy availability increased six fold between 1820 and 1950. While population. Only doubled. With the emergence of the modern economic world. It has been common to disparage Malthusian economics as short sighted and unduly pessimistic about the prospects for technological change. But if Malthus's model did not work very well for the period 1800 to 2000. It is more plausible as a basis for understanding the political economy of the world. Prior to that period. As a historical description of pre 1800 economic life. The Malthusian model would have to be revised in certain important ways. destard bozrah for example has argued that population increase and high population densities, have been responsible, not for starvation, but on occasion for productivity enhancing technological innovation. Thus, for example the dense populations around river systems in Egypt Mesopotamia and China spawned intensive modes of agriculture, involving large scale irrigation, new higher yielding crops and other tools. Hence, population growth per se, is not necessarily a bad thing. Moreover, there is no direct correlation between levels of food availability and mortality, except in periods of extreme famine, disease has historically been far more important than hunger, as a chicken population populations can also respond to the declining availability of food, not by dying off, but by individuals becoming smaller in stature, and therefore requiring fewer calories. Something like this appears to have happened in North Korea, over the past generation in response to widespread famine. Finally, local environmental exhaustion needs to be added to overpopulation as a source of declining per capita food output, environmental damage is not something new in human societies. Though its present scales unprecedented past societies killed off megafauna eroded tough soils and changed local microclimates with these modifications the Malthusian model provides a good framework for understanding economic development, prior to the Industrial Revolution, global population has expanded dramatically over the past 10,000 years from perhaps 6 million individuals worldwide at the beginning of the Neolithic period to over 6 billion in 2001 1000 fold increase. But the bulk of that population increase took place in the 20th century. Indeed, much of that occurred in the last decades of that century, a great deal of economic growth prior to 1820 was extensive, but is the result of human beings, settling new lands draining swamps, clearing forests reclaiming land from the sea and so once new lands were settled and exploited up to the limit of available technology. Life assumed a zero sum character in which increasing resources for one person had to come at the expense of someone else. There were no continuous increases in per capita output. Absolute growth will be followed by stagnation and absolute decline, both for the world in the home and for local populations. Globally world population experienced massive decreases as a result of disease clumps after trying to play to the end of the Roman Empire was swept by barbarian invasions famine and plague. Another happened, as the Mongol invasions of Europe, the Middle East and China in the 13th century brought the plague to new parts of the world. Between 12 114 100, the population of Asia declined from around 258 million to 201 million between 1314 and 1400 Europe's population fell from 74 to 52 million. When technological advance comes this slowly. It has a two edged character in the short run, it improves living standards and benefits the innovators. but greater resources promote increases in population, which then reduce per capita output and leave human beings, on average, no better off than before the technological change occurred. This is why many historians have argued that the transition from hunter gatherer to agricultural societies left people worse off in many ways. Although the potential for food production was much greater human beings consumed and now a range of foods, which adversely affected their health. They expended a greater amount of effort to produce food, and they lived in densely populated areas, and with us more subject to disease and so on. Politics, in a Malthusian world life in a zero sum Malthusian world that has enormous implications for total development. It looks very different from development today in our fusion world.

Answer 152

Democracy in particular was not always conducive to political stability. Huntington's deftly definition of political order corresponds to our category of state building, and his book became well known for its argument that political order also received priority over democratization a development strategy that came to be known as the authoritarian transition. This was the path followed by Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia, which modernized economically under authoritarian rulers, and only later opened up their political systems to democratic contestation. The historical material presented in this volume confirms Huntington's basic insight that the different dimensions of development, need to be separated from one another. As we have seen, the Chinese developed a modern state in the Barbarian sense, more than two millennia ago. Without this being accompanied by either rule of law or democracy, not to speak of social individualism, or modern capitalism. European development moreover occurred in a manner very different from the account presented by Marx in favor. The roots of European maturity stretch much farther back in time than the Protestant Reformation. As we saw in chapter 16, the exit out of kinship based social organization has started already during the Dark Ages, with the conversion of dramatic barbarians to Christianity. The right of individuals, including women to freely buy and sell property was already well established in England in the 13th century. The modern legal order had its roots in the fight weighed by the Catholic Church against the Emperor in the late 11th century. And the first European bureaucratic organizations were created by the church to manage its own internal affairs. The Catholic Church, long vilified as an obstacle to modernization was in this longer term perspective, at least as important as the Reformation as the driving force behind key aspects of maternity. Thus the European path to monetization was not a spasmodic burst of change across all dimensions of development, but rather a series of piecemeal shifts over a period of nearly 1500 years. In this peculiar sequence individualism, on a social level could precede capitalism, rule of law could precede the formation of a modern state, and feudalism in the form of strong pockets of local resistance a central authority, could be the foundation of modern democracy, contrary to the Marxist view that feudalism was a universal stage of development proceeding the rise of the bourgeoisie. It was in fact an institution that was largely unique to Europe. It cannot be explained as the outgrowth of a general process of economic development. But we should not necessarily expect to see, non Western societies, following a similar sequence. We need them to disaggregate to the political, economic and social dimensions of development and understand how they relate to one another as separate phenomenon that periodically interact. We need to do this, not least because the nature of these relationships is very different now than it was under the historical conditions of a Malthusian world.

Answer 153

Political decay you argued occurred when economic and social modernization outran political development with a mobilization of new social groups that could not be accommodated within the existing political system. This he maintained was what was causing instability. Among the newly independent countries of the developing world, during the 1950s and 60s with their incessant coups revolutions and civil wars, the argument that political development follows its own logic and is not necessarily part of an integrated process of development needs to be seen, against the backdrop of classic modernization theory. This theory had its origins in 19th century thinkers like Karl Marx and memberikan Ferdinand toonies and Max waber, who sought to analyze the momentous change of security in European society as a result of industrialization, though there were significant differences among them, they tended to argue that modernization was a one piece. It included development of a capitalist market economy and the consequence large scale division of labor, the emergence of strong centralized bureaucratic states. The shift from tightly knit village communities to impersonal urban ones, and the transition from communal to individualistic social relationships. All of these elements come together in Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, where the rise of the bourgeoisie affects everything from labor conditions to global competition to the most intimate family relationships. Classic modernization theory tended to date these changes from approximately the time of the Protestant Reformation. in the early 16th century. They unfolded with incredible rapidity in the three centuries following modernization theory migrated to the United States in the years before World War Two, taking up residence in places like Harvard's department of comparative politics, the MIT Center for International Studies, and the Social Science Research Council's committee on comparative politics. The Harvard department, led by Weber's protege talcott Parsons hopes to create an integrated interdisciplinary social science that would combine economics, sociology, political science and anthropology modernization theorists placed a strong normative value on being modern, and in their view, the good things the majority tend to go together. Economic Development, changing social relationships, like the breakdown of extended kinship groups and the growth of individualism, higher and more inclusive levels of education normative shifts toward values like achievement and rationality secularization. The development of democratic political institutions were all seen as an interdependent whole economic development would fuel better education, which would lead to value change, which would promote modern politics, and so on the virtuous circle Huntington's global order and changing societies played an important role in killing off modernization theory, by arguing that the good things of modernity, did not necessarily go together.

Answer 154

In many respects the norms and institutions of the contemporary world have closed on violence as a means of resolving political deadlocks. No one expects or hoped the countries of sub Saharan Africa will go through the same centuries long process experienced by China and Europe, in order to generate strong conservative states. This means either that the burden of institutional innovation and reform will fall on other non violent mechanisms like the ones described before, or not societies will continue to experience, political decay. Fortunately the world described here in which the basic political institutions of the state, rule of law and accountability were forged is quite different from the contemporary world in a slightly more than two centuries since the American and French revolutions, the world has experienced both the Industrial Revolution and the advent of technologies that have vastly altered the degree of interconnectedness that exists among societies, the political, economic and social components of development, interact with one another quite differently now than they did before the year, 1806. What that interaction looks like is the subject of the final chapter of this book chapter 30 political development. Then and Now, how the conditions for political development have changed dramatically since the 18th century, the political, economic and social dimensions of development, and how they interacted in the Malthusian world, how these dimensions interact now anticipations of the contemporary world. The central insight of Samuel Huntington's 1968 book, political order in changing societies, was that political development had its own logic, which was related to but different from the logic of the economic and social dimensions of development.

Answer 155

Violence is classically seen as the problem that politics seeks to solve. But sometimes violence is the only way to displace entrenched stakeholders who are blocking institutional change. The fear of violent death is a stronger emotion than the desire for material gain, and is capable of motivating more far reaching changes in behavior. We already noted in chapter five that economic motives, like the desire to put in place a large irrigation system were highly implausible causes of pristine state formation incessant tribal warfare, or fear of conquest by better organized groups is by contrast, a very understandable reason why free and crowd tribesmen might agree to live in a centralized state. In Chinese history, patrimonialism stood in the way of the creation of modern state institutions, both during the rise of the state of chin. And during the sweet and Tang Dynasty. When they have made a comeback. In the first case incessant warfare led by aristocrats decimated their rent and open the way for non elite military recruitment. In the latter case, the rise of the Empress Wu the power early in the Tang Dynasty led to a general purge of traditional aristocratic families, and thus the empowerment of a broader elite. The two world wars performed a similar service for the Democratic Germany that emerged after 1945 by eliminating the aristocratic younger class would could no longer block institutional change. It is not clear that democratic societies can always solve this type of problem peacefully in the United States. In the period leading up to the Civil War, a minority of Americans in the south passionately sought to defend their peculiar institution of slavery. The existing institutional rules under the Constitution allowed them to do this, as long as the westward expansion of the country did not lead to the admission of enough free states to permit an override of their veto the conflict was ultimately one that could not be solved under the Constitution and necessitated a war that claimed more than 600,000 American lives.

Answer 156

Sometimes, new social actors are empowered by the rise of a new religious ideology, as in the case of Buddhism and Jainism in India, the peasantry and Scandinavia ceased being an inert mass of dispersed individuals after the Reformation. Due to the promotion of literacy and late access to the Bible. At other times it is the sheer force of leadership, and the ability to assemble winning Coalition's of out of power groups that need to change, as in the case of Gregory the seventh organization of the people probably during the investiture conflict. This is in effect the essence of politics. The ability of leaders to get their way through a combination of authority legitimacy intimidation negotiation charisma, ideas, and organization, the stability of dysfunctional equilibria suggests one reason why violence has played such an important role in institutional innovation and reform.

Answer 157

There is archaeological evidence of band level societies that had access to agricultural technology. And yet, did not make the shift from hunting and gathering for many generations. The reason for this would again appear to be the vested interests of existing stakeholders band level societies are egalitarian, and engaged in considerable food shares. Something that becomes impossible. Once agriculture and private property are exempted. The moment that one family settles down and starts throwing food. It would have to be shared among the other members of the band, destroying the incentive for investing in agriculture in the first place. The shift from one form of production to another would make the society as a whole, richer, due to the higher productivity of agriculture over hunting and gathering, but it would also require the exclusion of certain members of the band from the free enjoyment of surpluses. The archaeologist Steven LeBlanc suggests that the slowness of some forger societies to adopt agriculture was due precisely to their inability to solve this type of cooperation problem. The ability of societies to innovate institutionally thus depends on whether they can neutralize existing political stakeholders, holding iOS over reform. Sometimes economic change weakens the position of existing elites in favor of new ones who push for new institutions. The relative decline of returns to land and property when compared to commerce, or manufacturing in England, empower the bourgeoisie to make political games at the expense of the old aristocracy in the 17th century.

Answer 158

The two types of political decay, institutional rigidity and re patrimonialisation. Oftentimes come together as patrimonial officials with a large personal stake in the system system, seek to defend it against perform. And if the system breaks down altogether. It is often only patrimonial actors with their patronage networks that are left to pick up the pieces, violence, and the dysfunctional equilibrium. We can be much more precise about what institutions are slow to adjust to changes in the environment, beyond saying that there is a natural tendency towards the conservation of institutions, any institution or system of institutions, benefits, certain groups in a society, often at the expense of others. Even if on the poll the political system provides public service like domestic peace and property rights, those groups favored by the state may feel more secure in their persons and property. They may collect rents as a result of their favorite access to power, what they mean receive recognition and social status. Those elite groups have a stake in existing institutional arrangements and will defend the status quo, as long as they continue to remain cohesive, even when the society as a whole would benefit from an institutional change, such as raising the land tax in order to pay for defense against an external threat, well organized groups will be able to veto change, because for them, the net gain is negative. This kind of collective action failure is well understood by economists, the situation constitutes what Game Theorists call a stable equilibrium, since none of the players will individually gain from changing the underlying institutional arrangements. But the equilibrium is dysfunctional from the standpoint of the society as a whole. Mansur Olson has made the general argument that entrenched interest groups tend to accumulate in any society over time, which aggregate into rent seeking Coalition's in order to defend their narrow privileges. They are much better organized than the broad mass of people in a society, whose interests, often fail to be represented in the global system. The problem of a dysfunctional political equilibrium can be mitigated by democracy, which at least theoretically allows non elites to have a greater share in political power. But even then, there is usually a large disparity in the organizational capacity of elites and non leaves that prevents the ladder from acting decisively. We have seen numerous examples of rent seeking Coalition's that have prevented necessary institutional change, and therefore provoked political decay. The classic one from which the very term rent derives was unsealed regime in France, with a monarchy had grown strong over two centuries by co opting much of the French elite. This co-optation took the form of the actual purchase of small pieces of the state, which could then be handed down to the senators. When reformist ministers like more pure and to go south to change the system by abolishing penal office all together, the existing stakeholders were strong enough to block any action. The problem of being an office holding was solved only through violence in the course of the revolution. But the problem of dysfunctional equilibria goes much farther back in history than this.

Answer 159

Patrimonial inflation is a recurring phenomenon. Well impersonal bureaucratic system set up during the former Han dynasty was gradually eroded by aristocratic families who sought to secure privileged places for themselves and their lineages in the central government. These families continues to dominate the Chinese bureaucracy. During the sui and tong dynasties both the Egyptian Mamelukes and the Turkish janissaries undermined the personal slave recruitment system by demanding first to be allowed to have families, and then that their children be allowed to enter the military institution. In the case of the Mamelukes has happened in response to the receiving of the Mongol threat in the late 13th century, combined with repeated plagues and worsening terms of trade for the Ottomans. It was price inflation and severe budgetary pressures that led Sultan Selim the grim and Suleyman the magnificent to make similar concessions to the janissaries. The Catholic Church created modern bureaucracy by providing priests and bishops that have families, but the system broke down over time as ecclesiastical officers sought to rejoin the officiant to the Beneficent, and make that heritable property in France and Spain. This led to an overtly corrupt system of penal office, by which the public sector was privatized and made into heritable property.

Answer 160

The second form of political decay is re patrimonial is the thinking of family or friends with whom one has exchanged reciprocal favors is a natural form of sociability, and is a default manner of human direction. The most universal form of human political interaction is a patron client relationship in which a leader exchanges favors in return for support from group of followers in certain stages of political development. this constitute the only form of political organization has institutions evolved new rules were put in place to recruit on the basis of function or talent, the Mandarin examination system, The Deaf sherma in Turkey, The celibacy of the Catholic priesthood, or contemporary legislation outlawing nepotism and hiring. But there is constant pressure to remain patrimonial as the system. Individuals initially recruited into an institution on impersonal grounds. Nonetheless, often try to pass on their positions to their children or friends. When institutions come under stress leaders often find they have to get into these pressures in order to secure political primacy or meet fiscal needs. We have seen numerous examples of both forms of decay. In the first part of the 17th century, the Ming Dynasty in China faced increasing military pressure from well organized Manchu forces to the north regime survival depended on the government's ability to marshal resources rebuild the professional army, and on the northeastern frontier. None of these things happened due to the government's unwillingness or inability to raise sufficient tax revenues to cover the cost of self defense. At this point in the dynasty, the regime has fallen into a certain comfortable relationship with the elites, that would have had to shoulder up higher tax burden. And it was simply easier for disengaged emperors to let sleeping dogs lie.

Answer 161

Due to the biological proclivity just noted to invest rules and mental models with intrinsic significance. Indeed, institutions wouldn't be institutions that is stable value recurring patterns of behavior. If they were not further reinforced by strong social norms rituals and other kinds of psychological investments and the conservation of institutions, has a clear adaptive value. If people did not have a biological proclivity to conform to rules and patterns of behavior, the rules would have to be constantly renegotiated and enormous cost to the stability of the society. On the other hand, the fact that societies are so enormously conservative with regard to institutions, means that when the original conditions, leading to the creation or adoption of an institution change the institution fails to adjust quickly to meet the new circumstances. The disjunction in rates of change between institutions and the external environment, then accounts for political decay or de-institutionalization legacy investments in existing institutions, lead to failures, not simply in changing outmoded institutions, but also the variability to perceive that a failure is different. This phenomenon is described by social psychologists as cognitive dissonance which history is littered with examples. If one society is getting more powerful militarily or wealthier as a result of superiors members have a less competitive society have to correctly attribute those damages to the underlying institutions, if they have any hope of surviving social outcomes are inherently multi causal however, as it is always possible to come up with alternative explanations for social weakness or failure that are plausible, but wrong. Societies from Rome to China attributed military setbacks to inadequate observance of religious obligations. Instead of spending time reorganizing and re equipping the army. They devoted resources to increase rights and sacrifices. In more recent societies. It is easy to blame social failures on the machinations of various outsiders, whether Jews or American imperialism, rather than looking to indigenous institutions for the explanation.

Answer 162

Political decay is interesting dynamic process. Among institutions produces development. There is also a corresponding process of political decay, by which societies become less institutionalized. There are two processes by which political decay occurs institutions are created in the first place to meet the competitive challenges of a particular environment that environment can be a physical one involving land resources climate and geography, or it can be a social one involving rivals enemies competitors allies and the like. Institutions once formed tend to be preserved.

Answer 163

The formal division of authority among ministries will not correspond to the real distribution of power, leading to institutional equal here, implicit in this four point definition of institutionalization is the notion that institutions are rules will repeat patterns of behavior that survived the particular individuals who operate them at any one time. The Prophet Muhammad bound together the Medina tribes by force of his own charismatic personality during his lifetime. But he left behind no system for succession to the candidate. The young religion barely survived the power struggles of relationship in the generation following, and in many respects is still living with that failed early institutionalization in the form of a Sunni Shiite split regimes that later became successful in the Muslim world did so precisely because they set up institutions like the recruitment of military slaves, under the dev sherma employed by the Ottomans that were not dependent on the authority of individuals in China. The Emperor was virtually a prisoner of his own bureaucracy and its elaborate rules. While individual leaders can shrink institutions, more highly developed institutions, not only survive, poor individual leaders, but also have a system for training and recruiting new and better ones.

Answer 164

Modern organizations have other characteristics as well. Samuel Huntington lists four criteria for measuring the degree of development institutions that make up the state adaptability, rigidity, complexity simplicity, Autonomy, subordination and coherence disunity. That is, the more adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent and the tuition is, the more developed it will be, and adaptable organization can evaluate a changing external environment, and modify its own internal procedures. In response, adaptable institutions are the ones that survive since environments always change. The English system of common law, in which law is constantly being reinterpreted and extended by judges in response to new circumstances, is one prototype of an adaptable institution. Developed institutions are more complex because they are subject to a greater division of labor and specialization in a chiefdom, or early state. The ruler may be simultaneously, military general chief priest tax collector and Supreme Court Justice in a highly developed state, all these functions are performed by separate organizations with specific missions and the high degree of technical capacity to undertake. During the hard times. The Chinese bureaucracy ramified into countless specialized agencies and departments at national prefectural and local levels. While much less complex than a modern government it nonetheless represented an enormous shift away from earlier governments that will run as simple extensions of Imperial Household, the two final measures of institutionalization autonomy and coherence are as Huntington points out, closely related. Autonomy refers to the degree to which an institution has developed its own sense of corporate identity, which insulates it from other social forces in the account of the rule of law given in chapter 17 through 19. We saw the degree to which law, access to the strength of power, depends in good measure on the degree to which courts possess institutional autonomy. In this case autonomy means the ability to train hire promote and discipline members of the bar and judiciary, free from political interference. Autonomy is closely related to specialization, which is why it tends to characterize more developed institutions. An army that is allowed to control its own internal promotions, will tend to do better, other things being equal than when it was generals are appointed on political grounds, or purchase commissions coherence, on the other hand, is more of a systemic measure of the degree to which the rules and missions of different organizations within a political system are well defined and agreed upon an incoherent political system will have many organizations responsible for say collecting taxes or public safety, with no clear sense of who is really in charge. A state apparatus composed of many autonomous institutions, is more likely to be coherent than one with subordinate institutions and patrimonial societies, members of the leaders family or tribe will be given overlapping or ambiguous authority over different state functions. Or else, special positions of authority will be created for specific individuals, loyalty is more important than talent in organizing public administration, a practice that continues in many developing countries, and not a few developed ones as well.

Answer 165

I have been using, not only max Weber's definition of a state, and organization deploying a legitimate monopoly of violence over a defined territory, but also his criteria for a modern state state should be subject to a rational division of labor, based on technical specialization and expertise and impersonal both with regard to recruitment authority or impersonal modern states or difficult institutions to both establish and maintain. Since patrimonialism recruitment based on kinship or personal reciprocity, is the natural form of social relationship, to which human beings will revert in the absence of other norms and incentives.

Answer 166

In the West, the independence worn by a religious organization evolved over time into the independence of the judicial branch. The religious grounding of law was replaced by secular sources, and yet the structure of law remained as it was. Thus the rule of law itself was a kind of standard. The actual historical roots of different institutions, often seem to be the products of a long concatenation of historical accidents that one could never have predicted in advance. This might seem discouraging insofar as no contemporary society could ever be expected to pass through exactly the same sequence of events to arrive at a similar institution. But this ignores the role of a particular historical source that institution, matters less than the institution's functionality. Once discovered it can be imitated and used by other societies in completely unanticipated ways institutions in this book I have been using Samuel Huntington his definition of institutions as stable value recurring patterns of behavior. And with regard to the institution called the state.

Answer 167

Features of organisms evolved for one reason but then proved to have adaptive benefits for completely different reasons at a later point in time. We have seen many equivalents of Stanford's in political evolution. The idea of the corporation, A permanently lived institution, with an identity separate from the individuals who made it up arose initially as a religious organization, and not for commercial purposes. The Catholic Church upheld the right of women to inherit property, not because it wanted female empowerment, something quite anachronistic in the seventh century, but because it had its eye on valuable real estate held by powerful clans and saw this as a way of getting it away from them. It was doubtful that any church leaders at the time could foresee the impact, this would have on kin relationships as a whole. And finally, the whole idea of governments being limited by independent judiciaries was not present in the minds of those engaged in the investiture conflict, which was a moral and political struggle over the independence of the Catholic Church.

Answer 168

Cultural traits, whether norms customs laws beliefs or values can at least in theory, be altered on the fly within the space of a single generation, as in the spread of Islam and the seventh century, or literacy among the Danish peasantry in the 16th. On the other hand, human beings tend to invest in institutions and mental models they arise from with intrinsic value, which leads to the conservation of institutions over time, a biological organism by contrast doesn't worship or reify its own genes. If they do not permit the creature to survive and reproduce the principle of selection ruthlessly eliminates that institutional evolution, can therefore be both faster and slower than biological evolution. In contrast to biological evolution institutions can spread through imitation, some societies with weaker institutions are either conquered or eliminated by stronger ones, but in other cases they can adopt the institutions of their competitors in a process known as defensive modernization. During Japan's Tokugawa Shogunate from the 17th to the 19th century, the feudal lords who ran the country knew about the existence of firearms from their early contacts with the Portuguese and other travelers, they engaged in what amounted to a long term arms control arrangement. However, by which they agreed not to introduce firearms among themselves because they did not want to give up their traditional form of sword and archery based warfare. But when Commodore Matthew Perry showed up with his black ships and Tokyo Bay in 1853. The ruling elite realized that they would have to end this comfortable arrangement and acquire the same types of military technology possessed by the Americans. If they were not to end up a Western colony like China. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan introduced, not just firearms, but also a new form of government, a centralized bureaucracy, a new educational system, and a host of other institutions borrowed from Europe and the United States biological evolution is both specific and general specific evolution occurs as species adapt to very particular environments and differentiate, as in the case of Darwin's famous finches. But general evolution also occurs as certain successful categories of organisms proliferate across local environments. There were thus large general transitions from single celled to multicellular organisms from asexual to sexual reproduction from dinosaurs to mammals and the like. So too in political development as behaviorally modern humans left Africa some 50,000 years ago, and spread over the world, they adapted to the different local environments they encountered and developed different languages cultures and institutions. At the same time, certain societies hit upon forms of social organization that provided large advantages. And thus, there were also general transitions from band to tribal to state level societies. Among state level societies, those that could organize themselves more effectively defeated, or absorbed less effective ones, and thus proliferated their own form of social organization, hence there was both differentiation and convergence among political institutions. Competition is critical to the process of political development, just as it is in biological evolution. If competition did not exist. There would be no selection pressure on institutions, and therefore no incentives for institutional innovation borrowing, or reform. One of the most important competitive pressures, leading to institutional innovation has been violence and war. The transition from band to tribal level societies was made possible by greater economic productivity. But it was directly motivated by the superior ability of tribal societies to mobilize manpower. In chapter five I discussed various theories of pristine state formation, including economic self interest irrigation population density. Physical Geography religious authority and violence. Although all these factors play a role. The difficult transition from a free tribal society to a despotic state level society seems far more plausibly motivated by the need for physical self preservation than by economic interest alone. And when we looked at the historical record of state formation in China, India, the Middle East and Europe. Violence once again played a central role in incentivizing not just state formation, but also the creation of the specific institutions, we associate with modern states. Certain kinds of cooperative problems, cannot be solved, except through resort to violence.

Answer 169

Those variants that are better adapted to their specific environments have greater reproductive success, and therefore propagate themselves at the expense of those less well adapted in a very long historical perspective, political development has followed the same general pattern. The forms of political organization employed by different groups of human beings have varied. And those forms that were more successful meaning those that could generate greater military and economic power displaced those that were less successful at this high level of abstraction. It is hard to see how political development could have proceeded in any other way. What is more important, however, is to understand the ways political evolution differs from its biological counterpart, of which there are at least three. First, in political evolution, the units of selection are rules, and they're embodiments as institutions, rather than genes as in biological evolution. Although human biology facilitates the formulation and following of rules. It does not determine their content. And that content can vary enormously rules are the basis for institutions that confer advantages on those societies employing them, and are selected through the interaction of human agents over less advantageous ones. Second, in human societies variation among institutions can be planned and deliberate, as opposed to random hyack argue strongly against the idea that human societies self consciously designed institutions, something he traces to the hubris of post Cartesian rationalism. He argues that most information in societies is local in nature, and therefore cannot be comprehended by centralized human agents, the weakness of high x argument is that human beings successfully design institutions all the time at all levels of society. p does not like top down centralized social engineering on the part of states, but he is willing to accept bottom up decentralized institutional innovation. That is no less subject to Human Design. While large scale design may work less frequently than smaller scale projects, it still does periodically work. Human beings can rarely plan for unintended consequences and missing information, but the fact that they can plan, means that the variants and institutional forms they create is more likely to produce adaptive solutions than simple randomness, high accuracy is correct however that institutional evolution is not dependent on the ability of human beings to design successful institutions, random variation and the principle of selection by themselves can produce an adaptive evolutionary outcome. The third way political development differs from biological evolution is that the selected characteristics institutions in one case genes and the other are transmitted, culturally, rather than genetically. This represents both an advantage and a disadvantage with respect to the adaptability of the system.

Answer 170

The rise of modern democracy gives all people the opportunity of ruling themselves on the basis of the mutual recognition of the dignity and rights of their fellow humans, it thus seeks to restore in the context of large and complex societies, something of what was lost in the original transition to the state. The story of the emergence of accountable government cannot be told, without reference to the spread of these ideas, we saw in the case of the English parliament, how its solidarity depended critically unbelief in the rights of Englishman, and how the Glorious Revolution was shaped by a broader lucky and concept of universal natural rights. These were the ideas that would go on to animate the American Revolution. If the historical reasons I present for the rise of accountability seem at times rooted in the material interests of the actors in these struggles, they must in turn be seen against the backdrop of ideas that defined who the actors were and what their scope for collective action was the general mechanism of political development, political systems evolve in a manner roughly comparable to biological evolution Darwin's theory of evolution is based on two very simple principles variation, and selection variation among organisms occurs due to random genetic combinations.

Answer 171

Economists sometimes speak of political actors investing in legitimacy, as if legitimacy were a simple factor of production like land or machines. But legitimacy has to be understood in its own terms. That is, in terms of the ideas people hold about God, justice, man, society, wealth, virtue and the like. One of the most important changes in values and ideology that defined the modern world. The idea of the equality of recognition appeared just at the end of the period covered in this volume. The idea of human equality has deep roots writers from Hegel to talk field to nature, have traced modern ideas of equality to the biblical idea of man made in the image of God, the expansion of the charmed circle of human beings accorded equal dignity was very slow. However, and only after the 17th century came eventually to include the lower social classes, women, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, and the like. The passage from banned, and tribal level societies to state level ones represented in some sense, a huge setback for human freedom states were wealthier and more powerful than their kin based predecessors, but that wealth and power led to a huge amount of stratification that left some masters, and many others slaves Hegel would say that the recognition offered a ruler in such an unequal society was defective and ultimately unsatisfying even to the rulers, because it was offered by people who themselves lacked dignity.

Answer 172

The Catholic Church played a major role for example in the shaping of two major European institutions. It was critical and undermining the structure of property rights of kin groups among the Barbarian Germanic tribes that took over the Roman Empire from the sixth century on, which in turn was crucial in weakening tribalism per se. Europe therefore made an exit out of kinship based social organization through social, rather than political means in sharp contrast to China, India and the Middle East. Then in the 11th century, the Catholic Church declared its independence from secular authority, organizing itself as a modern hierarchy, and then promulgating a transnational European rule of law. While comparable independent religious institutions existed in India, the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. None succeeded, to the extent of the Western church in institutionalizing an independent legal order. Without the investiture conflict and its consequences. The rule of law would never have become so deeply rooted in the West. In none of these cases do religious values, simply trump material interests. The Catholic Church, just like the Brahmin class in India, where the class of oola in Muslim societies constituted a social group, with its own material interests. The changes in inheritance laws mandated by Gregory the first appeared to have been undertaken not for doctrinal, but for self interested reasons as a means of diverting land, away from their kin group owners toward the church itself. Nonetheless, the church was not simply another political actor like the warlords dominating Europe at the time. It could not readily convert its resources into military power. Nor could it engage in predation without the help of secular authorities. On the other hand, it had legitimacy, that it could confer on the secular political actors, which they could not achieve on their own.

Answer 173

Many people, observing religious conflict in the contemporary world have become hostile to religion as such, and regarded as a source of violence and intolerance. In a world of overlapping and plural religious environments. This can clearly be the case. But they failed to put religion in its broader historical context where it was a critical factor in permitting broad social cooperation that transcended kin and friends as a source of social relationships. Moreover, secular ideologies like Marxism leninism, or nationalism, that have displaced religious beliefs in many contemporary societies, can be and have been no less destructive due to the passionate beliefs that they engender mental models and rules are intimately intertwined. Since the models often suggest clear rules for societies to follow religions are more than theories. They are prescriptive moral codes that seek to enforce rules on their followers. They like the rules they enjoy and are invested with considerable emotional meaning, and therefore are believed for intrinsic reasons and not simply because they are accurate or useful. While religious beliefs cannot be verified, they are also difficult to falsify. All of this reinforces the fundamental conservatism of human societies, because mental models of reality. Once adopted are hard to change in the light of new evidence that they are not working, the universality of some form of religious belief among virtually all known human societies suggests that it is somehow rooted in human nature. Like language and rule following the content of religious belief is conventional and varies from society to society. But the faculty for creating religious doctrines is innate nothing of what I say here about the political impact of religion rests However, on whether or not there is a religion gene. Even if it were a learned behavior, it would still have a large effect on political behavior thinkers like Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim seeing the utilitarian role that religious beliefs play in binding communities together, whether the community as a whole or a particular social class, believe that religion was therefore somehow deliberately created for that purpose. As we have seen, religious views evolve along with political and economic orders. Moving from shamanism and magic to ancestor worship to poly and monotheistic religions, with highly developed doctrines, religious beliefs must obviously be related in some manner to the material conditions of existence of the groups that maintain them. Suicide cults or its sex forbidding reproduction among their members like the shakers tend not to survive for very long. It is therefore very tempting to see religion as somehow the product of those material conditions and wholly explicable, in terms of them. This would however be an enormous mistake. Religion can never be explained, simply by reference to prior material conditions. We saw this most clearly with regard to the contrast between China and India. Up until the end of the first millennium BC, both societies were similar in terms of social structure based on magnetic lineages and the kinds of political forms thereby produced. But thereafter Indian society took a sharp detour. That could be explained only by the rise of harmonic religion, these specific metaphysical propositions that underlie that religion are highly complex and sophisticated. And it is a fool's errand to try to relate them in any detail to the specific economic and environmental conditions existing in northern India at that particular time. I have traced many other instances where religious ideas played an independent role in shaping political outcomes.

Answer 174

People in all human societies create mental models of reality. These mental models attribute causality to various factors. Oftentimes, invisible ones and their function is to make the world more legible predictable and easy to manipulate in earlier societies these invisible forces were spirits demons God's or nature. Today they are abstractions like gravity radiation economic self interest, social classes and the like, all religious beliefs constitute a mental model of reality in which observable events are attributed to or caused by non or dimly observable forces, since at least the time of David Hume, we have understood that it is not possible to verify causality through empirical data alone. With the rise of modern natural science, However, we have moved toward theories of causation that can at least be falsified through either controlled experiments or statistical analysis with better ways of testing causal theories, human beings can more effectively manipulate their environment using fertilizer and irrigation, for example, rather than the blood of sacrificial victims to increase crop yields. But every known human society has generated some type of causal model of reality, suggesting that this is a natural, rather than an acquired faculty shared mental models, most particularly those that take the form of religion are critical in facilitating large scale collective action collective action based merely on rational self interest is wholly inadequate in explaining the degree of social cooperation and altruism that actually exists in the world, religious belief helps to motivate people to do things, they would not do, if they were interested only in resources or material well being. As we saw in the case of the rise of Islam in seventh century Arabia. The sharing of belief and culture improves cooperation, by providing common goals and facilitating the cooperative solution of shared problems.

Answer 175

A great deal of human politics revolves around struggles for recognition, this was true, not just that would be Chinese dynasts seeking the mandate of heaven, but also of humble peasant rebels, seeking justice under banners like the yellow or red turbans are the French born a rouge Arab tribes were able to settle their differences and conquer much of North Africa and the Middle East, because they sought recognition for their religion, Islam, much as European warriors conquered the New World, under the banner of Christianity. In more recent times, the rise of modern democracy is incomprehensible. Apart from the demand for equal recognition that lies at its core. In England, there was a progressive shift in the nature of demands for recognition from the rights of the tribe or village to the rights of Englishman to locks rights of man. It is important to resist the temptation to reduce human motivation to an economic desire for resources, violence in human history has often been perpetrated by people seeking not material wealth, but recognition conflicts are carried on long beyond the point when they make economic sense recognition is sometimes related to material wealth. But at other times it comes at the expense of material wealth. And it is an unhelpful oversimplification to regard it as just another type of utility ideas as cause it is impossible to develop any meaningful theory of political development, without treating ideas as fundamental causes of why societies differ, and follow distinct development paths in social science terms, they are independent variables or in turtle terminology, they are turtles far down the stack that do not necessarily stand on the backs of turtles related to the economy, or physical environment.

Answer 176

From the first moment of their existence, Human beings have perpetrated acts of violence against other human beings, as did their primate ancestors Pacha rousselle, the propensity for violence is not a learned behavior that arose only at a certain point in human history. At the same time, social institutions have always existed, to control and channel violence. Indeed, one of the most important functions of political institutions is precisely to control and aggregate the level at which violence appears. Human beings by nature desire, not just material resources, but also recognition recognition is the acknowledgement of another human beings dignity, or worth, or what is otherwise understood to be status struggles for recognition or status, often have a very different character from struggles over resources. Since status is relative. Rather than absolute or what the economist Robert Frank calls a positional good. In other words, one can have high status, Only if everyone else has lower status. Unlike cooperative games where the gains from free trade, which are positive sum and allow both players to win struggles over relative status or zero sum, in which a gain for one player is necessarily a loss for another.

Answer 177

The ability to make and obey rules is an economizing behavior in the sense that it greatly reduces the transaction costs of social interaction and permits, efficient, collective action. The human instinct to follow rules is often based in the emotions, rather than in reason however emotions like guilt, shame pride anger embarrassment and admiration, are not learned behaviors in the lucky and sense of being somehow acquired after birth through interaction with the empirical world outside the individual. Rather they come naturally to small children, who then organize their behavior around genetically grounded yet culturally transmitted rules, our capacity for rulemaking and following is thus very much like our capacity for language. While the content of the rules is conventional and varies from society to society. The deep structure of the rules and the ability to acquire them are natural, the propensity of human beings to endow rules with intrinsic value helps to explain the enormous conservatism of societies rules may evolve as useful adaptations to a particular set of environmental conditions. But societies cling to them long after those conditions have changed, and the rules have become irrelevant or even dysfunctional. The mamluks refused to adopt firearms long after their usefulness had been demonstrated by the Europeans, because of their emotional investment in a certain form of cavalry warfare. This led directly to their defeat by the Ottomans, who were far more willing to adapt. There is thus a general principle of the conservation of institutions across different human societies.

Answer 178

These are the forms of cooperation that always reemerge because they are natural to human beings. What I have labeled patrimonial ism is political recruitment, based on either of these two principles. Thus when bureaucratic offices were filled with the kinsmen of rulers at the end of the Han dynasty in China. When the janissaries wanted their sons to enter the core, or when offices were sold as heritable property in unseal regime France, a natural patrimonial principle was simply reasserting itself. Human beings have an innate propensity for creating and following norms or rules. Since institutions are essentially rules that limit individual freedom of choice. One can equivalently say that human beings have a natural inclination to create institutions rules can be rationally derived by individuals calculating how to maximize their own self interest, which requires that they enter into social contracts with other individuals. Human beings are born with a suite of cognitive faculties that allow them to solve Prisoner's Dilemma type problems of social cooperation. They can remember past behavior as a guide to future cooperation, they pass on information about trustworthiness through gossip and other forms of information sharing. They have acute perceptual faculties for detecting lies and untrustworthy behavior, through vocal and visual cues. And they have common modes for sharing information through language and nonverbal forms of communication.

Answer 179

One of the reasons I began this volume with an account of the state of nature and human biology, is that it is an obvious starting point. A grown shield Kreuter base turtle, on which subsequent turtles can be placed the biological foundations of politics. Human beings are not completely free to socially construct their own behavior. They have a shared biological nature that nature is remarkably uniform throughout the world. Given the fact that most contemporary humans outside of Africa descended from a single relatively small group of individuals, some 50,000 years ago, the shared nature does not determine political behavior, but it both frames and limits the nature of institutions that are possible. It also means that human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures, the shared nature can be described in the following propositions, human beings, never existed in a pre social state. The idea that human beings at one time existed as isolated individuals who interacted either through anarchic violence hubs, or in Pacific ignorance of one another, Rousseau is not correct. Human beings as well as their primate ancestors, always lived in kin based social groups of varying sizes. Indeed they lived in the social units for a sufficiently long period of time that the cognitive and emotional faculties needed to promote social cooperation evolved, and became hardwired in their genetic endowments. This means that a rational choice model of collective action in which individuals calculate that they will be better off by cooperating with one another, vastly understates the degree of social cooperation that exists in human societies and misunderstands the motives that underlie it natural human sociability is built around two principles kin selection and reciprocal altruism. The principle of kin selection, or inclusive fitness steps that human beings will act altruistically toward genetic relatives or individuals believed to be genetic relatives in rough proportion to their shared genes. The principle of reciprocal altruism says that human beings will tend to develop relationships of mutual benefit or mutual harm, as they interact with other individuals over time. reciprocal altruism, unlike kin selection does not depend on genetic relatedness. It does, however depend on repeated direct personal interaction, and the trust relationships generated out of such interactions. These forms of social cooperation, are the default ways human beings interact in the absence of incentives to adhere to other more impersonal institutions.

Answer 180

The biological foundations of politics mechanisms by which political order evolves. What politics is and how it differs from economics, a definition of institutions sources of political decay. The state rule of law, accountability, and how they are related, how the conditions for a political development have changed over time, this book provides an account of political development from pre human times up to the eve of the French and American Revolutions. The moment when fully modern politics emerged from that point on, a number of policies appeared that encompassed all three important categories of political institutions, the state, rule of law and accountable government. Some readers may conclude that my account of political development is historically deterministic, that is by describing the complex and context specific origins of institutions. I am arguing that comparable institutions can emerge in the present. Only under similar conditions. And that countries are locked into a single path of development by their unique historical pasts. This is definitely not the case. institutions that confer advantages to their societies are routinely copied and improved by others. There are both learning and institutional convergence across societies over time. Moreover, the historical story in this volume ends just on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, which changed enormously the conditions under which political development occurred. Both of these points will be elaborated in the concluding chapter. The second volume of the series will then describe and analyze how political development has taken place in the post Malthusian world. Given the enormous conservatism of human societies with regard to institutions societies do not get to sweep the decks clear in every generation, new institutions are more typically layered on top of existing ones, which survive for extraordinarily long periods of time, the segment Terry lineages for example, are one of the most ancient forms of social organization, and yet they continue to exist in many parts of the modern world. It is impossible to understand the possibilities for change in the present, without appreciating this legacy. And the way that it often limits choices available to political actors in the present. Moreover, understanding the complex historical circumstances under which institutions were originally created can help us see why they're transferring invitation are difficult, even under modern circumstances. Oftentimes, a political institution comes into being as a result of non political reasons and economists would say these factors are exogenous to the political system. We have already seen several examples of this private property to take one case emerged, not only for economic reasons, but also because lineages needed a place to bury their ancestors and appease the souls of the dead. Similarly, the sanctity of the rule of law was historically dependent on the religious origins of law. The state itself came into being in China and Europe as the result of the desperate incentives created by unremitting warfare. Something that the contemporary international system seeks to suppress trying to recreate these institutions without the help of these exogenous factors is therefore often an uphill struggle. I will summarize some of the themes that have run through the historical accounts of institutional development given in this book, and try to distill from them, the outlines of a theory of political development and political decay. This may not amount to a genuine predictive theory. Since outcomes are the result of so many interlocking factors. There is Moreover the turtle problem. The turtle one chooses as an explanatory factor is always resting on another turtle farther down.

Answer 181

"Generosity is its own form of power"

Answer 182

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Answer 183

― Bill Clinton

Answer 184

When you got my son into college were you anticipating a moment like this? "I don't follow" "Do you want to vp for yourself? "I would serve at the pleasure of the president if that's what he asked..." "You proposed this.." "I did not say that"

Answer 185

Your ego is a distraction. Don't let your ego get in the way of your goals. Outwardly take insults and taunts in order to get revenge later. Let people think you control them instead of the other way around. Only Cersei gets pissed and runs her mouth. Allow other people to 'draw their own conclusions' by giving them enough information to do what you want. They will think it was their idea. Let people 'make the choice'. Let people feel like they are in charge and let them take credit. Drive a wedge between enemies when possible (Jon and Sansa)

Answer 186

Phillip II would take Athenian land while saying he wanted to negotiate. He would then abandon some of the land while appearing sorry. Use negotiation to conceal weakness. If you are strong use it as a way to get resources you can give back later.

Answer 187

Get the land around your enemy if you cannot advance on him directly. Capture his allies before offering to negotiate or attacking him.

Answer 188

Age | The average age at the beginning of the 116th Congress was 57.6 years for Representatives and 62.9 years for Senators.

Answer 189

Strong pressure from outside An executive who is leading/not blocking reform Reform champions In the government Strong political pressure from below.

Answer 190

Combinations of choice and circumstance contribute to success. You didn't make good choice, you had good choices to make. In 2009 it would have been the perfect time to fix the climate crisis. The banks and auto industries were on their knees. In moments of business crisis its the best time to reform the system. Attack climate change as an inequality issue. The corporations get subsidies while the average citizen pays for everything. The best allies offer something you can't get on your own. Get them to fight your battles for you and do your dirty work. These allies are temporary tools and there is no love lost when you dump them. Allies aren't your friends per se. They are stepping stones towards a goal. Stir up mistrust in enemies. Cast doubt on their allies motives. Spread rumors. Make them turn to you when you when they need help.

Answer 191

Putin, elected in 1999 used corruption to shore up his power. The main pillars were media, law, oligarchy and rigged elections. Navalny , a young lawyer, used investigations into government corruption spreading info online. Organized protests and gained a following. He then ran for mayor of moscow. He was blocked by the media but used crowdsourcing to spread the word. Russia rigged the the election and when he tried to run for president, he was almost killed in prison.

Answer 192

The map is not the territory. Try not to draw conclusions based on passed situations.

Answer 193

Think of the situation of the conflict as terrain. If the situation is in your favor you can take bolder and stronger action. If it is not you should be sneakier and use stealth. One size doesn't fit all. Intenty, emotion and force vary based on situations

Answer 194

No approach is right for every situation.

Answer 195

See them how they are and not how you wish you were. Avoid pride and ego on you'll prepare for an enemy that doesn't exist. Know you and your opponents strengths and weaknesses

Answer 196

Conceal your intent at all times Make people think you a weak where you are strong. Make a decision map of all possible choices and likely reaction.

Answer 197

It is better to make the enemy pay than pay ourselves. Always get opponent to pay when possible . Be the type of leader people want to follow. Be the source that others rely on instead of relying on others. Be a strong commanding leader over friendly. Minimize reliance on others.

Answer 198

Tommy Shelby made war against the Lees(gypsies) for no reason other than to fight against Billy Kimber (The big bad). He needed to get a reason to align with kimbers men to get close to him and dispatch him.

Answer 199

No platform for fascist stops nazis from organizing. Promoting genocide and questing peoples humanity is off the table. Slippery slope presupposes all politics is the same. Whars next after banning facism? Historically all fascist groups disban after eradicating nazis. They dont just go on to another group Nazis play the victim because it is a movement built on fear. Make it not worth it for new recruits If we don't spot them, when they are small, do we stop them when they are medium size or when they are in government? Appeasement doesn't work. Don't attack on-site. Say " the next time I see you: You fight them with fist so you don't have to

Answer 200

Free speech protects citizens from government not citizens from others. You have the right to talk an be shut up. Government limits cigarettes advertising because cigarettes kill. Nudity harms common good. What about Fascism? They don't need to be banned by the government because the government doesn't have that right. Other citizens should take on the mantle. America has free speech when it support popular view. Brutally suppressed occupy Wallstreet, blm and Vietnam War. Suppressed reporting on abu grave torture. Cointelpro, mcarthyism. MLK? Panthers?

Answer 201

Fascist get in power legally and not through revolution. They often imitate popular left movements like skinheads and appealing to the poor. Hilter's party only had 54 members when he joined. Only 1.3% of Germans were Nazis when he became Chancellor. They appeal to right politicians industrialist and allowed poor.

Answer 202

Wedge formations Pick fights with crowd. Occupy stage before event Snuck in on fake tickets and start fights with ticket numbers Burned nazi merch with acid Diverse tactics - fuck with keynote speaker (cutting their hair, laxatives on their lunch) Have people dressed normally block trains Have people in anti fa clothes chant Need a legit arm to fight right politics Fascism appeals to masculine call of renewed vigor. They don't argue rationally so its not always productive to debate the facts

Answer 203

We live the game of chess. Before I robbed banks, I was a small time local pimp. And I played the game the same as I played chess. The Queen is the most powerful piece on the board, just as a bottom bitches the most important when a pimp stable. I stopped him and asked, how does that apply to pimping. Well, the main purpose of your botamo was to protect the pimp at all times, and make sure that the other holes are in pocket. She sets the blueprint boys household in chess, the Queen moves around and opens up the board. So the other pieces can operate better. She sets the stage for how you're going to play the game and takes the opponent's pieces to clear the way for checkmate down the road. She's your bitch and you depend on her as much as a pimp depends on his bottom pitch, the bonds are like the holes that are there to make your table look good. They proved themselves, they can graduate to be a big bitch, a queen. It's the same in the pimp game got those bitches that are just down with you and can be taken by another pimp at any time, just like pawns in chess, we play a sacrifice ponds all the time, sometimes to trap our opponents. That's why our opponents usually try to wipe out those ponds first. It's the same in the pimp game pimp goes that you're weak holes first. And if he can get them and make you look weak to your bottom bitch. Then he goes after her. That night is like a dirty pimp that snakes a pimp for his whole, it moves sneakily can trap you when you least expected. Gotta watch the night like you watch it nigga in the streets. You have dirty pimps that would knock on your hotel room door then turn around and try to knock your home, they move in all types of ways, you got to watch him. Most good chess players know that you got to keep an eye on your knight. The bishop is low down and loves to lie in the corner and catch you slipping on your rook, most of the time protects your king. Same in the game youngin. You got those pimps out there that never come around the pimps, but they're always laying to knock a pimp boys bitch is usually the one that gives a pimp that phone call saying, I've got to the bitch. Now the rook is like a pimp kicking it buddy, it's usually the last piece that gets taken off the board before the checkmate or the pieces that checkmate the other side jumped in and asked, but how does this apply to us as humans, young man. What you got to understand is that we humans play chess every day.

Answer 204

I know that Barack Obama is a clever human chess player, and has outwitted those around him to get to the top. But if it wasn't for the media constantly programming the public with his image and message, he would not have had a chance. Obama understood this, and he used him to his advantage by getting in the media, every chance he could until we became a media sensation. Once the media reached your subconscious mind getting you to think of the idea of a black president was not impossible anymore. This example of repetition by the media, forcing the public to accept an individual that previously would have never had a chance to lead the Western world is the essence of the power of psychology, and good human chess, all excellent human chess players are master psychologists and know how to get in your mind to make you believe, or do what they want you to do learn this,

Answer 205

Play a sucker to catch a sucker. My dad said. Damn man. Thank you, good bet $5, the sucker agreed for the next four games he beat my dad. I was saying to myself, perhaps is crazy doesn't know what he's doing. Boy, was I wrong. He was plotting and the next move my dad did was so classic that it changed my outlook on everything in life from that point on, pulled out a bank roll that look like mostly $1 bills, maybe 220s and some fives and said, I'll bet all my money. I gotta go. The fan light skinned dude pulled out about $300 and said that it all depends how much you got, I don't know, we got a bed. My dad asked him. Yeah, bed. We counted when I'm done beating your ass, the dude said he shot and made every ball except to. Now it was Pop's turn and he didn't miss a shot. The dude knew he was deceived and it was a trick all along. He was set up to think he could win, and this was going to be as big payoff. He snapped slick as motherfuck, what you got. pops was slick as fuck what the guy didn't know was that 10 of the dollar bills had hundreds glued to the other side. If my dad had lost, he would pick them up and count them as single dollar bills. If he won, he would flip them on the hundred side. The only way for the sucker to know is if he flipped the bill over to see the game. Once he picked up the hundred side he asked. I've got a stack here, which you got the doodle replied in a meat voice, no God me and gave Pop's his money. We got in the lack, and he asked me if I saw the confusion on that niggas face. I said, Yeah, he was mad. My dad smiled, looked at me and said, See, you've got to build them up confuse them and make them think they got the best game when the time is right.

Answer 206

Hired a lawyer with ties to Em's lawyer. He got the tape to Em through the lawyer connection without saying he necessarily wanted to sign with him. He said G-unit a million times before the the video for wangsta actually came out. He was able to sell clothing doing that.

Answer 207

Dame was talking shit about Jay-z but Jay didn't respond publicly. Jay-Z masterminded a plot to sell Rockafella records to def jam. Dame was CEO and the time , he then got the company back for free as part of the deal and became CEO. He put Cristal in videos to endorse it and sell millions. He bought the nets to Brooklyn. He bought real estate around the stadium in Brooklyn to make tons of money. He checkmated the game to by marrying Beyoncé, the queen.

Answer 208

Hilary was the golden child but Obama planned his moves out to the end. Obama got Opera on his side to campaign for him a give him money. He then went to Mark Zuckerberg to get small donations from people on Facebook. He won Iowa first in order to get his name in the press, then after getting the nomination went overseas to meet with heads of state, hyping his legend up even more. Obama spent most of the millions he had less to make it look like he was giving a state of the union address. He let CEO's take pictures with him at the white house in order to get the economy going. He made Hillary his secretary of state so she wouldn't run against him in his second term. He talked to the pope about normalizing relationships with cuba and didnt say anything about it until the deal was done. Opera started by saying she was a victim of abuse to get people to fall in love with her. She started working with Dr.Phil to get CEO status. He bought men on board. She became the voice of middle class women. She then bought on Dr.Oz to win white me over. She proved she could turn any book into a best seller.

Answer 209

Never let sex be the motivation for what you do. Use sex to get what you want. Get limo drivers, high end bartenders, etc to let you know when famous people are in town. When famous rappers, etc are in town, buy the bar for 15 minutes to get a shoutout. It may cost 500$ but it may be worth it to get buzz. Have a bottle of water at the bar in order to get less drunk. Use women to connect with people you couldn't connect with otherwise. Send them into shows to meet celebrities and introduce me a their cousin.

Answer 210

Use psychological warfare. Win first by getting in your opponents mind with your appearance and mannerisms. Make them think you are strong or weak. Lore your opponent out with false pretenses. Get them to come to your home turf with false promises of money, women etc. Lose a small amount to then shift the game to what you are good at for the big win. master the art of disappearing. Dont saturate people with your presence. Disappear to give people time to miss you. After you do something big, go a way for a while like a music artist. Come back with a vengeance.. Never let sex be the motivation for what you do. Use sex to get what you want.

Answer 211

Build your name. The queen is the bottom bitch. Pawns come and go. Opponents attack your People love pac and 50 because they are bold Always look your best and shine. The first impression has to be the best. If you want to be treated like a king. Act and dress like one When people show you who you are, believe them. Only Show weakness when you can exploit it. Use people but dont mis-sue them.

Answer 212

Look at what people do, not what they say. Worship Athens, not Aries. She's the godess of strategic warfare. Winning without bloodshed is the goal. Turn violence and brutality against the worshipers of aries.

Answer 213

Talkative men are idiots. Let people brag about themselves while you set up a trap . The key to learning about people is quiet observation. Let them reveal themselves.

Answer 214

``` Look as if you're toned and fit find a role model dress for the job you want find a role model read the culture and stay nimble. ``` Start meetings with a story when possible. Relate it to your passion (like movies, then ask what they think)

Answer 215

``` Device checking Failure to establish eye contact Crying (if you are a woman) Boredom, foot tapping, doodling over reliance on notes, powerpoints and props high pitched-shrill Rambling, repetitiveness ```

Answer 216

Ability to have a mini ted talk and speak "off the top of your head". No notes. Share a piece of failure to spark empathy. Use silence a weapon Keep your voice low (obvious control)

Answer 217

Sugar coat strength with humor Signal stature and status Share stories of roots and passion - but don't overshare figure out your non-negotiables

Answer 218

Sexual impropriety lying/ covering up bullying Racial insensitivity/Sexism

Answer 219

1. Confidence, Poise, and grace under fire 2. Decisiveness and showing teeth 3. Integrity and speaking truth the power 4. Emotional Intelligence - Empathy builds trust 5. Reputation and standing/Pedigree 6. A measured Vision- Data and evidence 7. Signal that you know your stuff (5 questions deep) This is the place you see bias revealed

Answer 220

A reputation takes a lifetime to build. But seconds to destroy

Answer 221

Ask for a base price then a percent that vest over time

Answer 222

Talk about what they get first, then what you get. Them walk them through how it will help them in the long run. Afterwards talk about what will happen if they dont do it.

Answer 223

If someone threaten you, try and make a deal. the worst thing you can do is get angry too. Think of what it is they want and how you can help them get it (or trick them into thinking you will, as the case my be)

Answer 224

More intelligent people make us feel insecure and unhappy, and we’d rather avoid them. Plus, they threaten our own success within the organization. That’s why human resources don’t hire the smartest people they can find, but those who make them feel good and safe. And the bigger the hiring committee, the more average and “safe” the candidate will be. Says Reid: This is the epitome of misguided consensus hiring. What are the chances 25 people could ever agree on a truly transformative candidate? In practice, large group hiring always favors the most likeable candidate or the candidate least likely to create discomfort or change. And he ends: Groups don’t make good choices. Groups for collaboration— yes, groups for decision making—no.

Answer 225

There is a huge difference between executing and advancing. When you execute well, you are helping the company meet its objective, but not necessarily your own. When you focus on career advancement, you help yourself meet your objective, but not necessarily the company’s objectives. The two sometimes overlap, but they are far from being the same. Says the author: I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your company doesn’t really care about your advancement

Answer 226

Companies want you to focus on execution because that’s their job, that’s what they are there for. Companies exist to deliver shareholder value, and it’s fair like that. If you invest your money in companies, you want them to behave like they behave. It’s not companies that are misguided, it’s the workers who focus on execution instead of focusing on career advancement who are misguided. Beating the competition, gaining market-share, or even delivering shareholder value is not necessarily in your interest -unless you own a sizable chunk of the stocks-.

Answer 227

While the company takes care of its shareholders, you should take care of your own shareholders. And your shareholders are different than the company’s shareholders. Says the author: Your number one concern should be your shareholders: you, your spouse, your kids, your pets. These are the people who have invested in you, not the bankers and venture capitalists and high-volume traders on Wall Street.

Answer 228

You know the idea of the rising tide, lifting all boats, right? Well, I have already expressed my opinion on that with this meme in the “corporate lies” article: huge yacht and small boat Maybe you all win together. But the share of the spoils is what matters The author uses another argument, and it’s the “chasing bear argument”. When you’re rising because the company improves, you’re rising proportionally, but you’re not winning because everyone else is rising at the same pace. He says that most opportunities present themselves during times of crisis and turmoil. The bear argument is that you don’t need to outrun the bear and win against the company’s competitors. You only need to outrun your true competitor: your colleague vying for the same promotion.

Answer 229

The are three different types of good workers who still fail to advance: The go-to guy: the technically skilled guy who works hard to solve any problem. It seems like a great strategy, it gives you some power and protects you against layoffs, but if you’re not careful, you get stuck doing back-end work while the exec gets the rewards The passion player: has an idea or strategy, and they pester everyone to get it funded and prioritized. But those who win are analysts who get on the side of any winning idea, not this or that specific one -even if it’s yours- The task master: he holds people accountable and pushed everyone hard to succeed. But mediocre people, who are the majority, resist tasks masters. The task master will become isolated, and make lots of enemies. The only exceptions are environments that welcome hardball management and creative conflict

Answer 230

Social chair: organize social events, which served them well for popularity in high-school and college, but have no real values at work Gossip guy: they complain about management, form cliques with those at their own same level, and associate with other complaining, “go-nowhere losers” No-change agents: they crave continuity and hate change. They complain about the new processes, the new management… As if complaining was any likely to bring them back

Answer 231

The Jack of All Trades: good enough to play different roles, but not super-focused on anything to remain stuck. He wins the biggest in periods of turmoil and uncertainty Mr. Big Picture: he has no good ideas of himself, so he cultivates an image of objectivity and impartiality. He does not get attached to anything, he relates all projects to the grand strategic vision, and never executes himself (he’s got go-to guys for that). He acquires power by conveying objectivity and rationality, which are both highly valued in business The Precision Passive Aggressive: they create an image of superiority. They don’t drive people hard, but create an image of being supportive. They seek to mentor and help, but only to look good

Answer 232

Don’t be passionate about your ideas: Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg are exceptions. Be the professionally-sounding guy who assesses the pros and cons instead Embrace change: and embrace the new management, too Learn to promote your projects: before they launch show how it aligns with your influencers’ goals, get the critical people on board so they won’t shoot you down, and promote it while it’s running, then promote the results Focus on skills and networking, less on results Avoid gossiping with the herd Find big problems to solve Avoid being a pushy manager if some results will make lots of enemies

Answer 233

Let people know you’re learning, or you’re not getting the biggest bang for the buck: The last point to make with respect to the learning calendar is that you need to tell people you’re doing it. Learning and not telling people about it is pointless for you career strategy. Sure, it’s great to broaden your skill set but if nobody knows, you’ll just be the smartest low-level manager in your company. “You’ll just be the smartest low-level manager in your company”, LOL, that was a good one. I agree that learning for learning’s sake is not useful unless you can apply it in practical ways.

Answer 234

Focus on networking and skills, less on results: results disappear you walk out of a company. Your network and skills will remain Seek high reward/high risk assignments: being reliable year over year with good but non-visible work rarely gets you into the boardroom. Big wins do. Losses also seem less relevant when you have a few big wins on your risks Seek big projects: you don’t have to necessarily lead them, which is also a risk. Just being in there will get you lots of visibility and networking opportunities Crises and transformation projects are great opportunities Only mentor if those higher-ups will know about it

Answer 235

Corporations, after all, are comprised of people, and people care about personal security over everything else—just ask Maslow. People are also not logical by nature; they’re instinctive. They opt for self-preservation over and above any notion of corporate allegiance. This is why companies execute completely in spite of themselves. They make bad decision after bad decision at a micro level, and then launch big changes and programs to simultaneously excuse and correct them. Although this reality can be disturbing, it has major implications on your strategy for career success. We all have examples of half-witted executives who reap all the trimmings of success with seemingly no perceivable talent or passion. We tell ourselves it’s unfair or that it’s an aberration, or that one day our hard work will pay off. But that’s the wrong way to look at the phenomenon. Instead of dismissing the Incompetent Executive, and blindly continuing with the same formula that got us to where we are, we need to look a little deeper at their behaviors. We need to steal their secrets for our own career playbooks. When your company first started, it probably wasn’t full of Incompetent Executives. More than likely, it was started by a few very smart, savvy, and energetic professionals with a great vision. So then, why now, when you look around, do you see so many executives who seem to have magically risen to the top without much in the way of expertise or enthusiasm? It starts with the way companies hire and manage people through the corporate hierarchy. After all, if companies didn’t hire and promote Incompetent Executives, this phenomenon wouldn’t exist. At the risk of oversimplifying, the basic human need for self-preservation is the catalyst for a set of illogical human resource practices that create an entry point and incubator for Incompetent Executives. Let me walk you through a few of our most important and flawed hiring principles. “Fit With the Team” When it comes to hiring, “fit” is a farcical rationale that benefits Incompetent Executives at the expense of Smart-but-Stationary Managers. If you see an Incompetent Executive in your company, it’s highly likely they were hired or promoted because they were a good fit. This is a common line of misguided thinking we use to make hiring people we like on a personal level seem like sound business logic. Every day, we see companies hire and fire for fit. We read stories about Google and Facebook, and half pipes and graffiti artists, and we use these images of cultural harmony to justify suboptimal hiring choices.

Answer 236

Consensus hiring can kill a company, but it’s great if you’re an Incompetent Executive. I don’t know exactly when it began, but these days you can’t bring anyone on board without four or five additional people interviewing the candidate and ultimately signing off. It is always easy to find a reason why one more person should have input into a hiring decision. Some companies, who oversubscribe to dotcom human resources best practices, go to extremes in support of consensus hiring. A friend of mine recently had to interview in front of a 25-person panel to get a check-in job at WestJet Airlines. This is the epitome of misguided consensus hiring. What are the chances 25 people could ever agree on a truly transformative candidate? In practice, large group hiring always favors the most likeable candidate or the candidate least likely to create discomfort or change. Somewhere along the way, we’ve distorted much of the great thinking by Patrick Lencioni and other organizational behavior leaders who espouse the value of maintaining controls over who comes into the company. We tell ourselves that having more people comfortable with a candidate means they are more likely to be a positive addition to the culture. But this is flawed logic. In practice, hiring by consensus accomplishes precisely the opposite of what it’s attempting to emulate.

Answer 237

Experience is a word we too often misuse to justify hiring weak talent to protect us when they inevitably fail. We fall back on experience because identifying real talent in people is too hard. In practice, however, the most experienced candidate is almost never the best candidate. In fact, one of the most common characteristics I see in Incompetent Executives is over-qualification. Too much experience should be a hiring red flag, but in most cases it serves as a trap for hiring committees and managers. Most Incompetent Executives have a lot of experience, but not the good kind, I can assure you. It’s the kind of experience companies mistakenly over-value, over and over again.

Answer 238

“Promoting from within” is a policy disguised as employee loyalty but is really about cost and conflict avoidance. It is most widespread at the executive level where recruitment costs and scrutiny are highest. It is very common to see companies promote an internal employee without conducting a serious external candidate search when vacancies exist. I would go so far as to say it’s the predominant behavior in practice. If you’ve ever interviewed for a job but couldn’t shake the feeling they already had an internal candidate selected, you’ll know what I’m talking about. On the one hand, “promote from within” can have some clear benefits for staff morale and motivation. It’s good for the company to demonstrate feasible career mobility for employees. On the other hand, much of the time when we opt for internal promotion without a serious external search, we favor the Incompetent Executive once again. Though the “promote from within” policy masquerades as beneficial for employees, the question is, Which employees does it actually benefit? In my experience “promote from within” only perpetuates the very same hiring mistakes that cause incompetent people to get into the organization in the first place. “Consensus,” “experience,” and “fit” are all equally misapplied in the promotion scenario as well. The result is the Incompetent Executive gets promoted, and the Smart-but-Stationary Manager gets left behind.

Answer 239

“Hit the ground running” is fundamentally flawed as a rationale for promotion. It takes a ridiculously short-term perspective on staffing. Ridiculous or not, we’ve all heard this line a thousand times, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve probably said it a few times, too. Against any logic I can muster, “hit the ground running” seemingly values the first 30 to 90 days over the balance of an entire career. How many times have you heard managers justify promoting an inferior candidate based on how fast the person can “hit the ground running”? I’ve probably heard it three times in the last six months. We fool ourselves into thinking some magic is going to happen in the first 90 days. But have you ever seen that happen in practice? In reality, a candidate cannot create meaningful change within 90 days unless he or she is reckless and the change is negative. “Hit the ground running” favors familiarity over effectiveness. But when has familiarity ever led to growth or evolution? The most familiar candidates are too often part of the problem in the first place. But as much as it baffles the mind, this is a ubiquitous practice that favors the Incompetent Executive once again. Rather than diligently search for the most talented candidate, we promote someone we’re comfortable with. And so the Incompetent Executive moves up another rung on the corporate ladder.

Answer 240

Corporations have a natural predisposition to promote top individual contributors into management positions. This is the reason you can never figure out how the airhead from your high school is running your global sales organization. This practice is very common in sales and engineering, and I’ve seen it cripple more than one company. For some reason, we always feel pressure to promote great individual stars. You know who they are: the coding wizard who knows every inch of your technology and spent most of last year living in his mom’s basement, the smooth-talking sales guy who crushes his quota every quarter and has bedded most of the strippers on the Eastern seaboard. Inevitably, we promote these people into management roles against our better judgment. We relegate them from valuable contributors into incapable managers. In some misguided sense of obligation, we “reward” great individual performers with management responsibilities—much of the time against their own wishes.

Answer 241

We must believe deep down inside that if a great individual contributor is leading a team, some amount of his or her mojo is bound to trickle down to the staff. But inevitably we see trickle-down mojo proven to be inherently flawed. Great individual contributors very often make poor managers. The personal mojo they possess rarely trickles down through the team. This is a case where the dynamics of a corporation actually work to transform competent contributors into Incompetent Executives.

Answer 242

Your number-one goal when you are at work should be to advance your career. Too many of us take a passive approach to career management. We mistakenly assume the company will eventually recognize and reward our hard work and talent. And so we spend our time working on the wrong priorities based on this false assumption. As we’ve seen, corporations in practice don’t favor a career strategy that relies on merit alone. We need to change our priorities so we can actively advance our careers. For many years I fell victim to this career-management trap. I focused on all the wrong things. For me, the number-one priority in the first part of my career was to deliver results. I was rarely late. I delivered projects with quality and I never strayed from my quarterly objectives. Performance was my raison d’être and I would focus as much as 90 percent of my time on this aspect of my career. A distant second on the priority list was mastering my craft. I probably allocated 5 percent of my time to this. For me, that craft was marketing, and if I had a spare moment here and there, I’d spend it learning to be a better marketer. But I almost never ventured outside of my core area of expertise. My final 5 percent was spent relationship-building, which I focused at my own level of the corporate hierarchy, building a network of peers. In hindsight I know these were largely the wrong priorities. At best they were out of balance with one another.

Answer 243

Many managers don’t view their colleagues and peers as competitors, but that is exactly what they are in the game of career advancement. There are a finite number of promotions available and many possible candidates. Very often we have to wait several years for one opportunity to move up the ladder, so we need a winning strategy to make sure we beat out the competition. Winning, as we’ve discussed, is not determined in practice by talent or work ethic. At the very least, these virtues cannot advance your career on their own. The winners come in all shapes and sizes, and achieve victory using a wide variety of techniques. In fact, only half of the successful executives I’ve worked with are competent when measured in conventional terms. The other half get there a different way.

Answer 244

Our first profile is the Go-to Guy, or Go-to Girl as the case may be. Many readers will find themselves in this group. It’s a very tempting role to play because it comes with perks along the way and disguises itself as an active career strategy. I can assure you it is not. Go-to Guys can always be counted on to come through in a jam. They will work tirelessly through a problem, roll up their sleeves, and solve the issue of the day. They’re rocks. These individuals are a fundamental part of the corporate engine and every executive has at least one on his or her team. The weaker the boss is at execution, the more he or she relies on a Go-to Guy. At first glance, you might think being a Go-to Guy would be good for your career. Whether it is or it isn’t depends on where you’re setting the bar. If you’re looking for job security, then by all means be a Go-to Guy. Latch yourself onto an executive and solve small problems for the rest of your career. If you’re lucky enough to attach yourself to the right manager, you might even move up the corporate ladder—eventually. This is a career strategy akin to those little fish that attach themselves to sharks. However, if you’ve set the bar higher and you want to become successful in your own right, being a Go-to Guy is a dead end. First off, as a Go-to Guy, your career success and failure is far too dependent on the success and failure of the executive you serve. These roles often masquerade as mentorships. You’re the right hand to the boss. You tell yourself it will pay off one day when he or she moves up the corporate ladder. And though that can occasionally happen, it’s certainly not an active career management strategy you can control. And heaven forbid you attach yourself to the wrong manager; you can literally waste three to five years riding alongside the wrong fish. Secondly, in this role, you will never change the prevailing go-to dynamics even if you do advance your career. Yes, you may slowly creep up the ladder behind your boss. But that’s it. The Go-to Guy is given lots of opportunity to contribute but almost no opportunity for leadership—certainly no visible leadership, which is the only kind that counts. Your current role is a long audition for your desired role. It’s about perceptions. If you never have the opportunity to lead, you never position yourself as a potential leader in the minds of the people who will ultimately influence your upward mobility. Finally, being a Go-to Guy can limit lateral movement as well, which is often a precursor to upward advancement. At one point in my own career, after having served loyally as the Go-to Guy for an executive, I learned that it had been suggested I take on more responsibility in another department. My mentor, who couldn’t bear the possibility of losing his loyal servant, shut down the idea. He said I was too valuable where I was and probably not ready yet for my own team. If you’re a Go-to Guy, you can bet your boss is also not actively looking for opportunities for you to move to other parts of the organization. I actually caught myself recently thinking this way about one of my best employees. As ugly as it sounds, it’s just human nature. None of us are immune. The trap of the Go-to Guy role is that it actually feels quite good.

Answer 245

The second Smart-but-Stationary profile is the Passion Player. The Passion Player has become more common as we’ve started to collectively idolize the iconic entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. In my opinion, this can be one of the most dangerous roles to play in your career. Many of us imagine ourselves as the next transformative innovator, so we play the role in our day-to-day jobs in hopes one day we’ll be recognized for our vision and strategy. Very early in my career, I played this role and never understood why everyone thought I was a jerk and why I never got ahead. Although it’s not as common as the Go-to Guy, it’s twice as deadly to your career. Unlike the Go-to Guy approach, which can lead to career stagnation, the Passion Player strategy can lead to career disintegration. Though I’ve long since abandoned the passion strategy, I see it in my partner and we work together to keep it in check. Let me describe the Passion Player for you with a hope you don’t see many of these characteristics in yourself, because they can be detrimental to your career. The Passion Player always has an idea, or strategy, or vision for the company and will climb up the tallest mountain to shout it out for the world to hear. Think Jerry Maguire. They spend their lives debating their idea with others. They drag people to meetings, argue about the rightness or wrongness of their idea, and search out budget and support and alignment for their idea. And they gripe and complain to coworkers about why nobody gets it. Getting emotionally attached to your own ideas and projects is not a winning game plan. With very few exceptions, the most successful people in corporations are the analysts, not the passionates. The managers who win in the end are able to debate both sides of every idea regardless of who generated it, and then support all outcomes equally. They cultivate an image of objectivity rather than passion, which in my experience is much more useful in your career. The temptation is to fall into the trap of caring about who is right at the expense of what is right—and to be more precise, what is right for your career. I’ve seen many passionate managers fight to the death for an idea. Only after paying the price did they wonder if it was really worth it. The Incompetent Executive, I can assure you, does not care about any one idea. But she’s on the winning side of every decision. The biggest reason the Passion Player’s strategy is a mistake is that it’s just too risky. Your upside with this strategy is that you might think up some truly great ideas, and people will value them enough to both excuse your behavior and promote you. But that so rarely happens in practice. On the flip side, your emotional attachment and dogged evangelism of an idea will almost certainly cause disruption. They will alienate you from the people who ultimately influence your success. The Passion Player strategy is a classic negative expected value proposition. Your career is a game and you can play it any way you want. Just because something worked for Jobs doesn’t mean it’s the best strategy for you. The Passion Player strategy, while tempting, is more likely to leave you in the unemployment line than the executive suite.

Answer 246

Though the Task Master’s strategy may play well in the fashion business, it absolutely does not work in your typical company for several reasons. Reason number one is that most corporations are comprised primarily of mediocre talents. Your own experience will confirm this. And because people are motivated by their own self-preservation, the mediocre ones, when they form the majority, create a culture that fights against the very things Task Masters stand for. When the nonperformers outnumber the performers, things like holding people accountable and driving people to results become counter-culture. This means Task Masters are always fighting against the grain, making it extremely difficult to get ahead. My partner was once placed on a performance-improvement plan for creating conflict at work, even though her actual performance was documented as exemplary. I’ve actually seen this happen a couple of times in companies, and most of the time the conflict in question is entirely professional. But in the modern corporate environment “holding people accountable” can often become “creating conflict.” “Driving people to results” can morph into “difficult to work with.” There is a very low tolerance for healthy conflict in most companies, despite what they might want to believe. It’s truly a sad reality of the modern corporation, one many of us underestimate. Knowing this means that if you’re a Task Master or have Task Master tendencies, you have to change your game unless you find yourself in one of the few industries where hardball management is condoned.

Answer 247

The first Incompetent Executive profile we’ll examine is the Jack of All Trades. You will find one in every company. The Jack of All Trades is not to be confused with her Smart-but-Stationary cousin, the Go-to Guy. There are important differences between them. Recognizing them might make the difference between a promotion and a permanent vacation for you. The Jack of All Trades is a generalist. Just good enough at everything to seem valuable, but not good enough at anything to be locked into a position. She is a magnet for promotions and impervious to layoffs. There is always a job for a Jack of All Trades, and the worse things get for a company, the more value she appears to have. The Jack of All Trades thrives in periods of change and uncertainty. When the game gets messy, and the opportunities for advancement are ripe, the Jack of All Trades is at her best. She has just enough skill to make a superficial contribution to almost any role, which means the Jack of All Trades can capitalize on virtually every opportunity that arises. When everyone else is gossiping and griping about how the change will affect them, the Jack of All Trades is stepping up to the plate. Granted, there is very little substance behind her work, but it doesn’t matter. In my experience, it’s 90 percent about attitude and 10 percent about ability when organizational change is afoot. I’ve had the good fortune of working with several Jack of All Trades in my career. In fact, I spent a couple of years early in my career with the king—the “Jack of Spades,” if you will. He is literally indestructible and yet to my mind has no particular management strengths whatsoever. As this manager gets moved around the organization to fill gaps and take on projects, he tends to make a quick positive impact, enough so the initial impression of his contribution is always positive. But then, once he’s exceeded his depth, he proceeds to stop adding value altogether and, worse, he starts breaking things. But before real disaster hits, there is always some other job that needs his special attention. During the time I worked with this person, he literally ran marketing, IT, engineering, and support separately within a three-year period. Every time there was a vacancy, he was ready to step up to the plate. Then just as he was about to falter, the next opportunity presented itself. It’s like career magic. If you’re asking yourself, How do I become a Jack of All Trades? it’s all about developing a basic knowledge of everything, making your knowledge known with some well-placed criticisms when the timing is right, and being ready to pounce when opportunities present themselves. One very positive quality exhibited by nearly every Jack of All Trades I’ve known is self-confidence. They are always seeking new opportunities and chances for a big win. They’re the business equivalent to a pinch hitter coming out in the bottom of the ninth inning. They truly believe they’re going to hit a homerun, even if they have no reason to. Unfortunately, being a true Jack of All Trades is more an art form than a science, and takes many years and lonely nights with Google and Wikipedia to fine-tune.

Answer 248

Our next Incompetent Executive is Mr. Big Picture. These managers live above the execution layer of the company in both mind and spirit. This is in stark contrast to the Task Master we saw earlier. It is the Incompetent Executive profile I’m personally drawn to the most and have incorporated into my game plan in a major way. Mr. Big Picture gets ahead in the company, not through expertise, but rather by conveying the underused and very powerful image of objectivity. Mr. Big Picture ignores process and analytical minutia. He never gets emotionally involved with any project or idea; he’s above that. This is the guy who starts and ends every discussion by relating the topic at hand back to the highest-level corporate objectives. And it doesn’t matter how low level the subject is. You’ll also never see him present an idea too passionately. He always comes equipped with options for consideration. You might be thinking that this approach doesn’t sound incompetent in the least; it just sounds like good business practice. Yes and no. Yes, it’s a great business practice to adopt, although few people do it effectively. But the difference in this case is that Mr. Big Picture creates the illusion of objectivity to protect himself from the poor quality of his own work and ideas. This strategy is so powerful it literally provides insurance against ineptitude. It goes like this: Mr. Big Picture has limited talent and he rarely has good ideas, but he knows it. Being the savvy fellow that he is, he has cultivated an image of objectivity, which means he always presents a variety of strategic alternatives. In presenting choices and by putting forth analysis on all sides, he is routinely commended for what looks to be thoughtful work. But in reality it’s just camouflage for the fact that he actually has no idea what the right answer is. Rather than make a call or stake a claim, Mr. Big Picture provides a decision-making framework for everyone else. It’s a great way to handle difficult executive-level presentations and something I’ve incorporated into my personal playbook. Why bother assuming risk when you can win by simply moderating others to make the call for you? Then, when the idea succeeds, you are recognized for leading it. And if it fails, you are recognized for having provided all options objectively. It’s a perpetual win-win for the Incompetent Executive. And it has no dependency whatsoever on talent or hard work. In addition to his image of objectivity, you’ll hear Mr. Big Picture referring to “the company” a lot more than most. It’s an excellent way to avoid conflict and to deflect responsibility or ownership for a position. If an approach or idea is met with criticism, Mr. Big Picture doesn’t defend directly but rather will say something like: “As we know, the company is pushing for margins of 60 percent this year, which leaves us with several options. Option A has the benefit of control by lowering costs whereas Option B has the benefit of growth by expanding revenues. Both options are valid paths for us to take, and I can see pros and cons to both sides.” This is very much counter to how the Passion Player would respond, which would be more like: “I don’t know how to make you understand that revenue expansion is the key to our success. I’ve worked through the numbers and haven’t slept for a week. We must execute this strategy or we’ll lose to the competition.” The Passion Player personalizes everything and communicates in absolutes and ultimatums; it’s a far inferior strategy to Mr. Big Picture’s objective approach if career advancement is the driving objective.

Answer 249

Never Be Passionate About Your Ideas: Many of us have dreams of being transformative figures, and we are drawn to icons like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg for their passion and perseverance. But for every Jobs there are hundreds of bodies lined up along the road that tried and failed to execute a passion-based strategy. In my experience a reputation for objectivity is much more useful than a reputation for passion. The only surefire way to do that is to commit to providing very objective alternatives in every scenario rather than to drive at any one agenda or idea. As great as your ideas may seem to you, “you” are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is “what.” Focus on helping your company evaluate ideas objectively and avoid passionate pursuits.

Answer 250

Embrace the Changes: Everyone Else Hates Because human beings are naturally opposed to change, the greatest moments for career advancement come in times of uncertainty and disruption. During these periods, like in an acquisition or management shakeup, the opportunities are at their greatest and your competition is at its worst. While your competitors are rebelling to change and worrying what the future may hold, you need to be executing your advancement strategy. It’s critical to have a change playbook ready so you can capitalize on these moments when they present themselves.

Answer 251

Learn to Promote Your Projects: It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming your work speaks for itself, especially when you’re busy. As managers, we often prioritize the work and deprioritize internal promotion during crunch time. This is a recipe for career disaster. It makes the false assumption that people in your organization, especially those outside your department, define success the same way you do. We know that corporations are driven by human priorities. Demonstrating to influencers in your company how your work will benefit them is much more important than the work itself. Strategically architecting an environment for success by promoting your projects before, during, and after launch is the real key to success. Doing so effectively can often make up for inferior work and act as an insurance policy for project failures.

Answer 252

Avoid the Farce of Results Orientation: Despite what your manager tells you or what the career blogs may say, a myopic focus on results can be a prison sentence for your career. We know from studying Incompetent Executives that it’s much more productive to broaden your skill set than it is to fixate on short-term objectives. The challenge we face as managers is the burden of separating our own personal objectives (i.e., career advancement) from the company’s objective (i.e., achieving performance results). Your career is much better served in the long run by expanding your expertise than by reliably delivering results for the organization. It should go without saying this is a matter of degrees. You need to do the minimum amount of results delivery to stay in the game long enough for your advancement strategy to pay off. Abandoning results altogether is equally unwise.

Answer 253

Don’t Be a Part of the Herd: It’s very comforting and often therapeutic to gripe and gossip with peers at work. We are naturally drawn to this behavior especially in times of change and uncertainty. You should never do it. We also tend to network with people at our own level or below in the company because it’s comfortable and easy. It’s a waste of time. To actually get ahead in a corporation you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Gravitating to the herd has the opposite effect. Next time you feel tempted to gossip or gripe with your fellow peers, don’t do it. Instead, create a tactical influencer plan and execute it.

Answer 254

Find Big Problems to Solve: As it pertains to career advancement, small wins and reliable performance do not put a winning score on the board. It can take as many as five small victories to equal one big win. Managers who play a game based on reliability tend to become known only for their mistakes. Mistakes, unlike small wins, reverberate across the company and garner lots of attention. It makes much more sense to pursue a big-win strategy even at the expense of making more small mistakes. Big wins are memorable, they build attention outside your department, and they often don’t need to come at a high risk to you personally.

Answer 255

Don’t Hold People Accountable: Holding people accountable is another modern career principle we’ve allowed to spiral out of control. Whereas it makes perfect sense why the corporate entity benefits from employees and managers holding each other accountable, it makes almost no sense for your own career advancement. In my experience, there is much more to be gained by being seen as a mentor than as a task master. In practice people gravitate to, hire, and promote individuals they like to be around, not people who demand accountability. What’s more, acts of mentorship build an image of leadership and make people want to work with and for you. Acts of discipline build a tactical image that runs counter to the leadership image that will ultimately get you promoted.

Answer 256

Seniority. This person is more senior in the organization than I am. Risk. This person can terminate my employment or influence my termination. Power. This person can promote me or influence my future promotion. Exposure. This person tends to be very vocal in the company and is listened to by many people. Fear. This person has a tendency to be critical or negative and can be hard to work with. Validation. Public support from this person would be good for my career. Future. This person has proven to be going places and is likely to get promoted soon. For each of these seven criteria we should assign a score between 1 and 5 to rank the degree of influence they have. Then we can total them up and see who to give priority to in our plan. Now that we’ve made a list of criteria we can put it into a simple table and start filtering our potential influencers through it.

Answer 257

Extreme ownership means taking responsibility for everything in your world. The buck stops with you – always. Check your ego and lead with humility. Make simple plans and communicate them clearly. Get comfortable making decisions with incomplete information. Lead and support your superiors.

Answer 258

Without a team, there can be no leadership. The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it. These leadership principles are simple, but not easy.

Answer 259

The leader must own everything in his or her world. It’s the leader’s fault when subordinates aren’t doing what they should. Total responsibility for failure is a difficult thing to accept. It requires extraordinary humility and courage. Extreme ownership requires leaders to look at an organization’s problems through the objective lens of reality, without emotional attachments to agendas or plans. Effective leaders do not take credit for his or her team’s successes but bestows that honor upon his subordinate leaders and team members. It is the direct responsibility of a leader to get people to listen, support, and execute plans. You can’t make people do things. You have to lead them. Extreme ownership is asking yourself, “How can I best get my team to most effectively execute the plan in order to accomplish the mission?” Every mistake, every failure or shortfall – own it. Pointing fingers and blaming others is easy and contagious. You create the culture. What you do as the leader will be emulated by your subordinates. If something isn’t going your way, start with what you are going to do differently.

Answer 260

It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. If substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable, poor performance becomes the new standard. Leaders must push the standards in a way that encourages and enables the team to utilize extreme ownership. Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mindset into the team. High standards start with the individual and then spreads outward to each member of the team. Leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win. A negative attitude is infectious. An attitude of victimization prevents you from looking inwardly at where you have the ability to improve. The “Tortured Genius” is someone who accepts zero responsibility for mistakes, makes excuses, and blames everyone else for their failings. There are only two types of leaders: effective and ineffective.

Answer 261

You must be a true believer in the mission in order to convince and inspire others to follow. If a leaders does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. Always operate with the understanding that you are part of something greater than yourself and your own personal interests. A resolute belief in the mission is critical for any team or organization to win and achieve big results. Every leader must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals. If frontline leaders and troops understand why, they can move forward, fully believing in what they’re doing. Goals must always be in alignment. Start with why. It is the responsibility of the subordinate leader to reach out and ask if they do not understand.

Answer 262

Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. When personal agendas become more important than the team and the overarching mission’s success, performance suffers and failure ensues. Extreme ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Ego can prevent a leader from conducting an honest, realistic assessment of his or her own performance and the performance of the team. Our ego doesn’t like to accept blame.

Answer 263

Cover and move = teamwork Departments and groups within the team must break down silos, depend on each other and understand who depends on them. Each member of the team is critical to success, though the main effort and supporting efforts must be clearly identified. Identify supporting player in other departments and make them a part of your team.

Answer 264

Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. When plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. When things go wrong (as they inevitably will), complexity compounds issues. Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. If your team doesn’t get it, you have not kept things simple and you have failed. You must brief to ensure the lowest common denominator on the team understands. Teams can’t intelligently adapt to changing circumstances without a baseline understanding of the original plan.

Answer 265

Relax. Look around. Make a call. If you try to do everything at once, you will fail. Leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute one at a time. You will be more effective under pressure if you plan for contingencies. Map out your response to anticipated challenges before they happen. It is particular important for leaders at the top of the organization to step back and maintain the strategic picture. It’s important to communicate up and down the chain of command when priorities change. Teams must be careful to avoid target fixation on a single issue. Maintain the ability to rapidly adapt to a constantly changing environment.

Answer 266

We are generally not capable of managing more than 6-10 people. Junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on key tasks necessary to accomplish the mission in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Every tactical-level team leader must understand not just what to do but why they are doing it. Junior leaders must know what is within their decision-making authority. They must also pass critical information up the chain so senior leadership can make informed strategic decisions. Be proactive rather than reactive. Junior leaders must have implicit trust that their senior leaders will back their decisions. Leaders must be free to move to where they are needed most, which changes throughout the course of an operation. Leaders exist at all levels.

Answer 267

Leaders must identify clear directives for the team. A broad and ambiguous mission results in lack of focus, ineffective execution, and mission creep. Every mission must clearly state the purpose and the expected outcome. Delegate the planning process down the chain as much as possible to key subordinate leaders. Giving the frontline troops ownership of even a small piece of the plan gives them buy-in. Once the detailed plan has been developed, it must be communicated to the entire team in a simple, clear, and concise format. The briefing should encourage discussion, questions, and clarification. The test for a successful brief is simple: Do the team and the supporting elements understand it? The plan must mitigate identified risks where possible. Don’t get caught up worrying about risks that cannot be mitigated. Focus on those that you have some control over. The best teams make time to analyze and debrief after execution. Address what went right, what went wrong, and how you can adapt your tactics to make your team even more effective in the future. Your planning process should be standardized. It needs to be repeatable and guide users with a checklist.

Answer 268

Leading Down Senior leaders need to explain to junior leaders and troops executing the mission how their role contributes to big picture success. Frontline workers need to be able to connect the dots between what they do every day and how that impacts the company’s strategic goals. Doing this requires regular face-to-face conversations with directs and observing the frontline workers in action.

Answer 269

Examine what you can do to better convey critical information up the chain of command. Subordinate leaders cannot use authority. Instead they must use influence, experience, knowledge, communication, and maintain the highest professionalism. You must accept that your boss must allocate limited assets and make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. You may not be the priority right now. One of the most important jobs of any leader is to support your own boss. Talk positively about those in authority above you. A public display of discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. You may not always agree with the decision. But at the end of the day, once a decision has been made, you must execute the plan as if it were your own

Answer 270

Take responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike. If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this. Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

Answer 271

Leaders cannot be paralyzed by fear. You must make the best decision that you can based on the immediate information available. There is no 100% right solution. The picture is never complete. Intelligence gathering and research are important, but they must be employed with realistic expectations and must not impede sift decision making that is often the difference between victory and defeat. Leaders must be prepared to make an educated guess based on previous experience, knowledge of how the enemy operates, likely outcomes, and whatever intelligence is available in the immediate moment.

Answer 272

A good leader must be: Confident but not cocky; Courageous but not foolhardy; competitive but a gracious loser; attentive to details but not obsessed by them; strong but have endurance; a leader and follower; humble not passive; aggressive not overbearing; quiet not silent; calm but not robotic; logical but not devoid of emotions; close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.

Answer 273

What does game theory predict the prisoners will do if they’re interrogated simultaneously but separately? Once again, this is a game with two players, each with two potential strategies. They can either confess or deny. Payoffs in this game are measured in terms of prison sentences, where a longer sentence is worse from the standpoint of an individual prisoner. If Tony thinks Uncle Junior is going to confess, his best response is to confess, too: He’ll spend five years in prison if he confesses but 20 years if he denies. If Tony thinks Uncle Junior is going to deny, his best response is still to confess—now, he’ll spend just one year in prison if he denies, but he’ll get off completely free if he confesses. * No matter what Uncle Junior is going to do, Tony is better off if he confesses. This is his dominant strategy. And because Uncle Junior’s payoffs look just like Tony’s, Uncle Junior’s dominant strategy is also to confess. * In games where both players have a dominant strategy, finding the Nash equilibrium is easy. It’s simply where both players play their dominant strategy—that is, when both Tony and Uncle Junior confess to armed robbery. • What makes the prisoner’s dilemma so frustratingly counterintuitive is that both players would obviously be better off if both played deny rather than confess. In that case, they’d both go to prison for just one year rather than five. But we’re not likely to end up at that better outcome, because it’s always in each individual player’s best interest to confess.

Answer 274

• In order for doping to be both players’ dominant strategy in this game, both have to believe that increasing their chances of winning the Mr. Olympia title by 50% is worth risking their life. That might sound farfetched, but Robert Goldman’s research shows the typical power athlete from his practice is willing to die to win. • If Hans thinks Franz will stay clean, and assuming he’s willing to die to win, his best response is to dope, increasing his chances of winning from 50% to 100%. If he thinks Franz will dope, his best response is still to dope, increasing his chances of winning from 0% to 50%. • The same logic applies to Franz, so both have a dominant strategy to dope.** The Nash equilibrium is for both to dope, in which case they are equally likely to win the Mr. Olympia title—just as they would have been if both had stayed clean—but both also may suffer the potentially deadly side effects from doping. This leaves both worse off than if they’d stayed clean. • The outcome of the prisoner’s dilemma game doesn’t always have to be so relentlessly depressing. When the same two players play the game together again and again, it’s possible they’ll learn to cooperate.

Answer 275

REPEATED GAME * This game is more interesting, but just as frustrating, if you play it twice. Imagine your opponent tells you that if you cooperate in the first of two rounds, she’ll reward you in the second round by cooperating, earning you both $3 per round. * But there’s a serious problem here: Because you’re only playing two rounds, in the second round, you have a strong incentive to defect no matter what you did in the first round. Here, you start by thinking about what makes sense in the last round and then work your way back to the first round. This is called backward induction. * In the second—and last—round, you both have an incentive to defect regardless of what happened in the first round. You can’t credibly promise to cooperate in the second round in exchange for the other player’s cooperation in the first. You could say that’s what you’d do, but it wouldn’t be wise for the other player to believe you, given what you both know about the incentives you face in the second round. * Since the other player knows you’re likely to defect in the second round, she has no incentive to cooperate in the first round. Naturally, you respond by defecting in the second round, but she knew you were going to anyway. * The outcome of the repeated game is the same outcome from the one-time game, but twice. From a theoretical standpoint, nothing would change if you played the game 20 times or even 200 times. In each case, both players have an incentive to defect in the last round.

Answer 276

* As it happens, an infinitely repeated game can have an outcome completely different from a finitely repeated game. The problem with the finitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma is the last round, where everyone has a strong incentive to defect. But if the game goes on forever, there’s no last round, so there’s always an incentive to cooperate in the current round. * The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod is the classic book on achieving the cooperative outcome in repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. One example the book gives is World War I trench warfare. * Imagine you’re a soldier, crouching in a trench, peering across no-man’s-land at an enemy soldier crouching in his own trench. You can think of this as a game with two players—your unit and his—and two potential strategies: You can shoot to kill, or you can shoot to miss. * If you both shoot to kill, both units endure heavy casualties but neither gains or loses ground—a stalemate. If you both shoot to miss, no one suffers casualties and no one gains or loses ground—a stalemate, but one without casualties. * But if your unit shoots to miss and your enemy’s shoots to kill, you suffer casualties and lose ground. Likewise, if your unit shoots to kill and your enemy’s shoots to miss, he suffers casualties and loses ground. * How did peace break out at points all along the 500-mile front? To understand, think of this as a repeated prisoner’s dilemma game. * Cooperation starts small. For example, you don’t shell their food trucks because if you do, they’ll shell yours, and you, too, will go hungry. Next, you don’t shoot anyone during mealtimes, or bad weather, or on holidays. You could shoot them, but then they’d shoot back. Before long, you’re never shooting anyone outside of major offensives ordered by headquarters, and when you do shoot, you shoot to miss. * This is an example of what Axelrod called tit for tat. In the first round, you cooperate. In every subsequent round, you do whatever your opponent did the round before. It’s a simple strategy, but it’s incredibly effective at establishing and maintaining cooperation in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma. Eventually, the Allied generals insisted on seeing the corpses that would result from raiding the German trenches. Small but relentless Allied raids, followed by the retaliation you’d expect from Germans playing tit for tat, caused cooperation to break down and fighting to resume.

Answer 277

Since there is no definitive final round there is no time to defect.

Answer 278

* Imagine that at the very last second, you decide to keep driving straight, while your opponent simultaneously decides to swerve. You look tough, so you’ll have a payoff of 1 util. Your opponent looks weak, so he’ll have a payoff of −1 util. And the opposite is true if your opponent decides to keep driving while you decide to swerve. * If you both swerve—assuming you don’t crash into each other in the process—it’s a draw. Neither of you looks tougher than the other, and neither looks weaker, so you’ll both earn a payoff of 0. * If you both drive straight as fast as you can go, it’s fair to assume you’d both be horribly injured—perhaps even killed—in the crash. Figuring out the payoff in this situation requires a value judgment: Is it worse to suffer a horrible, life-threatening injury or to look weak? * Opinions will vary, but for the sake of the game, let’s say suffering a life-threatening injury is worse than looking weak. Both you and your opponent will receive −10 utils in this situation.

Answer 279

• Payoffs in this game will account for the gains from winning, the cost of being seriously injured while losing a fight, and the cost associated with a dove yielding to a hawk. We can use the following numerical values: ʶ V is the gain from winning, which will be 40. ʶ C is the cost of losing, which will be −80. ʶ Y is the cost of yielding, which will be 0. * Imagine you’re one of the animals playing this game. If you and your opponent both play hawk, you’ll both fight until you’ve either won or been injured by your opponent. Assuming you’re equally matched, each of you has a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. Since we can’t be sure what will happen, we need to calculate your expected payoff: the probability—or the fraction of time—some events occurs times the payoff a player receives if that event occurs. * You and your opponent are equally matched, meaning that if the two of you were to play this game again and again, we’d expect you to win half of your encounters and lose the other half. So your expected payoff from any one encounter is the probability you win times your payoff if you win, plus the probability you lose times your payoff if you lose: --- * Finally, if you both play dove, we assume you split the gain from winning. Both you and your opponent earn a payoff of 20 (half of 40). * You can now use best‑response analysis to find this game’s pure‑strategy Nash equilibria. If you think your opponent will play hawk, your best response is to play dove. And if you think your opponent will play dove, your best response is to play hawk. The same is true from your opponent’s perspective. * Like the original game of chicken, this game has two pure‑strategy Nash equilibria, with another mixed‑strategy Nash equilibrium lurking in the background. This shows that we don’t expect the population to be made up entirely of hawks or entirely of doves; instead, we expect there to be some mix of the two.

Answer 280

Solution If both Apple and Samsung adopt the Powercast standard, each phone maker earns a relatively high payoff. Suppose each firm’s profits increase by $30 billion. The same is true if both Apple and Samsung choose theWattUp standard. But if one of the phone makers chooses Powercast and the other chooses WattUp, each phone maker earns a relatively low payoff of $10 billion. * Apple and Samsung both have the best response of choosing whichever standard the other chooses. This earns each a payoff of $30 billion rather than the $10 billion each would receive if they chose different standards. * Unlike in the prisoner’s dilemma, neither player in this game has a dominant strategy. There’s no one strategy that offers a better payoff no matter what the other player chooses. * Like in the game of chicken, best-response analysis shows that this game has two pure-strategy Nash equilibria. But unlike in the game of chicken, these equilibria involve both players making the same choice, not the opposite choice. This is called a game of pure coordination. It doesn’t matter which standard Apple and Samsung coordinate on, so long as they coordinate.

Answer 281

• If the two aren’t allowed to communicate, it would seem that one of these outcomes is likely to be a focal point, or a solution people are naturally drawn to without communication: the one where both choose Powercast and earn a payoff of $50 billion each. There will, however, be exceptions.* If one more change is made to the game, settling on the lower-payoff Nash equilibrium outcome actually becomes the norm.

Answer 282

Real Life Application * The earliest study to look at this game was by John Van Huyck and others. They found that the first time people play this game, most are generous. Most people have enough faith in their fellow participants that they’re willing to make a large contribution to the group fund. * But it’s the minimum contribution that determines everyone’s payoff. The minimum contribution in the first round is typically only about two units. This means the people who were willing to take a chance and make the maximum contribution end up losing money. * Not surprisingly, most people contribute less and less each round, until by the 10th round, the majority of people make the smallest possible contribution. * In a sense, this outcome is frustrating in the same way the prisoner’s dilemma is frustrating. Everyone could enjoy a better payoff if everyone would play seven instead of one. But in another sense, this outcome is even more frustrating than the prisoner’s dilemma. Unlike in the prisoner’s dilemma game, the outcome where everyone enjoys a better payoff is a Nash equilibrium outcome. If we could only get there, no one would have an incentive to move away from it.

Answer 283

* You can use best-response analysis to figure out what you should do given what you think your opponent is going to do. If he’s going to prepare to stop the pass, you’d gain two yards if you pass but six yards if you run, so your best response is to run. If he’s going to prepare to stop the run, you’d gain seven yards if you pass and only one if you run, so your best response is to pass. * Whatever you think your opponent is going to prepare for, you want to do the opposite. And he wants to be ready to stop whatever he thinks you’re going to do. * In every other game discussed so far, there was at least one pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. Here, for the first time, that’s not the case. That doesn’t mean there’s no equilibrium.* Instead, the Nash equilibrium in this game will involve mixed strategies. Both you and your opponent need to be unpredictable. You’ll also need to be deliberate about the way you randomize, or your opponent can take advantage of you.

Answer 284

EQUILIBRIUM PATH OF PLAY • The game’s equilibrium is described in terms of strategies, not payoffs. In sequential-move games like this one, a player’s strategy tells you what that player would do at every decision node she might conceivably find herself at. You should think of a strategy as a comprehensive set of instructions detailing what a player would do in any possible state of the world. * In this game, Congress only has one decision node—the initial decision node—so it has only four potential strategies: pass A, pass B, pass A and B, or do nothing. * But the president’s strategy doesn’t just tell us what he’ll do when Congress passes the bill including both A and B. It also tells us what he’ll do if Congress passes only A and if it passes only B. * Since this game is solved using backward induction, you can’t know what Congress will do at the initial decision node until you determine what the president will do at each of his three decision nodes. * If the president were playing a different strategy—for example, signing every bill that comes across his desk—Congress would behave differently. In this case, it would pass a bill containing only A, its favorite provision. * With all of this in mind, the equilibrium strategies for this game are for Congress to pass the combination of A and B and the president to veto A, sign B, and sign the combination of A and B.

Answer 285

Lemons and Plums * In another example of asymmetric information, imagine a world with just two types of used cars: lemons and plums. The plums might look a little tired, but they’re reliable and will always get you where you need to go. Lemons look just like plums, but they’re less reliable and will occasionally break down. * Let’s say another player owns a used car he’s interested in selling, and you’re interested in buying a used car if the price is right. If you both know whether the car is a lemon or a plum, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a price you can agree on. If it’s a lemon, anything between $100 and $200 could work, and if it’s a plum, anything between $1,000 and$1,100 could work. * But what if he knows if it’s a lemon or a plum, and you don’t? There’s not much to be gained from asking him what kind of car it is, because he has an incentive to tell you it’s a plum no matter what. * You could offer him $1,050—a fair price for a plum. If it is a plum, he’d be willing to sell it to you at that price. But if it’s a lemon, he’d be thrilled to sell it at that price: It’s 10 times the minimum he’d be willing to accept.

Answer 286

* Another example of a game of asymmetric information comes from dueling. This example is based on a paper by Christopher Kingston and Robert Wright titled “The Deadliest of Games: The Institution of Dueling.” They argue that dueling wasn’t as much about preserving your honor as it was about preserving your creditworthiness, which allowed you to borrow from and lend to other honorable members of society. * In their paper, Kingston and Wright develop a mathematical model with an infinite number of players who play an infinitely repeated game. In each round, two players are randomly matched and assigned the role of either borrower or lender. * One player can lend the other a fixed amount of money to finance a risky project. It’s risky because the project fails with some small probability, leaving both players with nothing. The project succeeds the rest of the time, generating profits the players can share. * This is a game of asymmetric information because while the borrower knows whether the project failed, all the lender knows is whether he’s been paid back as promised. If the borrower doesn’t pay him back, it could be because the project failed, or it could be that he simply kept all of the borrower’s money. This information makes it harder to sustain cooperation unless there’s a way to compel the borrower to pay the lender anytime a project is successful. * The way to compel a borrower in this game is through a duel. A lender who hasn’t been repaid has the option of challenging the borrower to a duel, and indeed, a lender in this situation loses his honor if he doesn’t challenge the borrower to a duel. On the other hand, a borrower who doesn’t accept this challenge loses his honor. A dishonored player is seen as uncreditworthy, so he cannot borrow. And he can no longer issue challenges, so he shouldn’t lend. • Given these assumptions, the authors find the following equilibrium: ʶ Honorable lenders will only lend to honorable borrowers and will challenge anyone who doesn’t repay them to a duel. ʶ Honorable borrowers will repay loans when they can and will always accept challenges from honorable lenders. ʶ Dishonorable players will never make or repay loans and will never issue or accept challenges. * From the borrower’s perspective, if the project fails, he doesn’t lose any of his own money, but he has to accept your challenge if he wants to preserve his honor. Again, that’s a costly proposition. * In the more likely event that his project succeeds, he pays you back the money you invested and a share of the profits, keeping the rest of the profits for himself. * Additionally, this honorable behavior buys both of you continued access to the credit market. So long as a person has always behaved honorably in the past, he can continue to borrow and lend. But if you lose your honor, you lose access to the credit market permanently. Because this is an infinitely repeated game, this means you miss out on an unending stream of future investment opportunities. The important lesson to take away from this example is that dueling, though it initially seems like utter madness, was an effective way to solve the problem of asymmetric information. Fortunately, for those interested in borrowing or lending today, there are better ways to deal with asymmetric information. Applying for a mortgage may not be fun, but at least there’s no chance of having to risk your life in a duel.

Answer 287

* Contrast this with the incentives you face in the more familiar first‑price sealed‑bid auction. Remember, in this auction, you win if you submit the highest bid, in which case you pay a price equal to what you bid. * To see why this auction isn’t demand revealing, you can draw a graph. Your expected payoff is on the vertical axis. This is equal to your probability of winning times your payoff if you do win. And your bid is on the horizontal axis. This allows you to show your expected payoff as a function of your bid. * The first bid you’ll consider is $0, the lowest bid you can submit. If you truly value your dream car at $50,000, what would your payoff be if you win the auction with a $0 bid? This means the first‑price auction is not demand revealing. It will always be in your best interest to submit a bid that’s less than your true value. Since your bid determines the price you pay if you win the auction, this time you have a strategic incentive to understate what you’re truly willing to pay in the hope of getting a better deal.

Answer 288

* Life is full of auctions. Recognizing what kind of auction you’re participating in—and the incentives that auction presents you and other bidders with—has important implications for how you should bid. * For example, think about making an offer on a house. On one side of the transaction you have the seller, who is probably currently living in the house. The bidders are potential buyers making offers on the house. It’s possible you’re the only bidder, or you might find yourself bidding against several other potential buyers—you don’t necessarily know. This is most similar to the first‑ price auction because it isn’t demand revealing. And because your offer determines the price you pay if your offer is accepted, you have an incentive to understate what you’d truly be willing to pay for the house.

Answer 289

* There are many countries whose commercial ships travel the Gulf of Aden, and there are several countries whose gunboats helped patrol it. For this example, you can focus on the United States and Great Britain. * You can assume that because Great Britain is closer to the Gulf of Aden, more of the products it produces and consumes travel through the gulf. This means it derives twice the benefit the US does from the protection gunboats provide. * And because the United States has spent so much more over the years on defense, you can also assume US gunboats are more technologically sophisticated and, therefore, more effective at providing protection. * You can then use Great Britain’s best‑response rule to find the number of gunboats it should deploy to the Gulf of Aden when the United States sends three. That’s 1 + 3 = 4. * This is a Nash equilibrium because, given the amount of effort Great Britain puts in, the United States can do no better than to deploy three gunboats. And given the amount of effort the United States puts in, Great Britain can do no better than to deploy four gunboats. * This same kind of analysis can be applied to any situation where two parties have to decide how much effort to devote to a joint project, such as roommates deciding how much time to spend cleaning their apartment, or countries deciding how much money to spend on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Leadership & Warfare Flashcards

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