The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
Like an updated Machiavellianism based on the latest research, it explains why democracies and autocracies are similar and only differ in coalition sizes.
The basic idea being that government leaders function to steal from the majority to enrich the coalition that keeps them in office.
Democracies have larger coalitions wheras autocracies have smaller ones. Generally the longer a group of people stay in power the more they tend towards an autocracy.
Governments also attempt to maximize the number of interchangeables, or people who are lower down the command chain, to make it easy to fire them and switch them for someone else if they don't do as they are told.
The coalition usually consists of some of the people closest to the leaders, and to an extent includes the police and the military.
If a leader fails to pay their coalition they are typically overthrown.
Definitely worth archiving for future generations as a warning to why big government is always abusive.
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