The Dictator's Handbook Quotes

The world of politics is dictated by rules.

Paying supporters, not good governance or representing the general will, is the essence of ruling. Buying loyalty is particularly difficult

Leaders never hesitate to miscount or destroy ballots. Coming to office and staying in office are the most important things in politics. And candidates who aren’t willing to cheat are typically beaten by those who are. Since

Every type of politics could be addressed from the point of view of leaders trying to survive.

There is never a point in showing your hand before you have to; that is just a way to ensure giving the game away.

It’s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from which the people can feed themselves.

This is the essential lesson of politics: in the end ruling is the objective, not ruling well.

I, _______________________, certify that by signing below I agree to abide by the rules outlined in the REACH Handbook. I understand the rules, which have been properly explained to me by a REACH staff member. I further acknowledge that if I disregard the rules for any reason I will be subject to disciplinary action which may include in-house detention, additional counseling, and/or expulsion from the REACH program. What it really means: I, __________________, sign my freedom over to REACH staff. By signing this piece of paper, I certify that my life will be dictated by other people and I'll live a miserable existence while I'm in Colorado.

Democracies are not lucky. They do not attract civic-minded leaders by chance. Rather, they attract survival-oriented leaders who understand that, given their dependence on many essentials, they can only come to and stay in power if they figure out the right basket of public goods to provide.

There's nothing better than a rigged election, so long as you're the one rigging it.

The three most important characteristics of a coalition are: (1) Loyalty; (2) Loyalty; (3) Loyalty.

For autocrats, money spent on people—like infants and little children—who are years away from contributing to the economy is money wasted. Resources should instead be focused on those who help the ruler stay in power now, not those who might be valuable in the distant future.

My students tag tables, walls, and chairs because their greatest fear is that no one will ever remember them. They do not believe they can give impassioned speeches, rally people in protest, paint masterpieces. They think they will die, small and forgotten, and it dictates their every action.

How do tyrants hold on to power for so long? For that matter, why is the tenure of successful democratic leaders so brief? How can countries with such misguided and corrupt economic policies survive for so long? Why are countries that are prone to natural disasters so often unprepared when they happen? And how can lands rich with natural resources at the same time support populations stricken with poverty? Equally, we may well wonder: Why are Wall Street executives so politically tone-deaf that they dole out billions in bonuses while plunging the global economy into recession? Why is the leadership of a corporation, on whose shoulders so much responsibility rests, decided by so few people? Why are failed CEOs retained and paid handsomely even as their company’s shareholders lose their shirts? In

If circumstances dictate that your disposable income has to come from eating ramen alongside your vintage Cantillon gueuze, so be it.

It is better to have loyal incompetents than competent rivals. Sometimes of course, having competent advisors is unavoidable.

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 leader’s problem. Autocratic leaders borrow as much as they can, and democratic leaders are enthusiastic borrowers as well.

Companies maintain lively web sites 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.

Lee Kuan Yew ruled Singapore from 1959 until 1990, making him, we believe, the longest serving prime minister anywhere. His party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), dominated elections and that dominance was reinforced by the allocation of public housing, upon which most people in Singapore rely. Neighborhoods that fail to deliver PAP votes come election time found the provision and maintenance of housing cut off.18 In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe went one step further. In an operation called Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the Rubbish), he used bulldozers to demolish the houses and markets in neighborhoods that failed to support him in the 2005 election.

After all, our experience tends to confirm that on one end of the political spectrum we have autocrats and tyrants—horrible, selfish thugs who occasionally stray into psychopathology. On the other end, we have democrats—elected representatives, presidents, and prime ministers who are the benevolent guardians of freedom. Leaders from these two worlds, we assure ourselves, must be worlds apart! It’s a convenient fiction, but a fiction nonetheless.

Though private rewards can be provided directly out of the government’s treasury, the easiest way to compensate the police for their loyalty—including their willingness to oppress their fellow citizens—is to give them free rein to be corrupt. Pay them so little that they can’t help but realize it is not only acceptable but necessary for them to be corrupt. Then they will be doubly beholden to the regime: first, they will be grateful for the wealth the regime lets them accumulate; second, they will understand that if they waver in loyalty, they are at risk of losing their privileges and being prosecuted.

Taxation, especially in small-coalition settings, redistributes from those outside the coalition (the poor) to those inside the coalition (the rich). Small coalition systems amply demonstrate this principle, for these are places where people are rich precisely because they are in the winning coalition, and others are poor because they are not.

Autocrats can avoid the technical difficulties of gathering and redistributing wealth by authorizing their supporters to reward themselves directly. For many leaders, corruption is not something bad that needs to be eliminated. Rather it is an essential political tool. Leaders implicitly or sometimes even explicitly condone corruption. Effectively they license the right to extract bribes from the citizens. This avoids the administrative headache of organizing taxation and transferring the funds to supporters. Saddam Hussein’s sons were notorious for smuggling during the 1990s when Iraq was subject to sanctions. They made a fortune from the sanctions that were supposed to harm the regime.

When addressing politics, we must accustom ourselves to think and speak about the actions and interests of specific, named leaders rather than thinking and talking about fuzzy ideas like the national interest, the common good, and the general welfare. Once we think about what helps leaders come to and stay in power, we will also begin to see how to fix politics. Politics, like all of life, is about individuals, each motivated to do what is good for them, not what is good for others.

Hence, democracies escape Hobbes’s state of nature and autocracies generally don’t. Indeed, we can see just how dramatic the difference is in escaping the state of nature by looking at what happens when nature exercises its freedom to wreak havoc. We have in mind the consequences of natural disasters like earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, and drought. These certainly are not political events, but their consequences are the product of how rulers best allocate revenue and how people’s freedom to organize shape allocation decisions.

Rule 1: Keep your winning coalition as small as possible. A small coalition allows a leader to rely on very few people to stay in power. Fewer essentials equals more control and contributes to more discretion over expenditures. Bravo for Kim Jong Il of North Korea. He is a contemporary master at ensuring dependence on a small coalition. Rule 2: Keep your nominal selectorate as large as possible. Maintain a large selectorate of interchangeables and you can easily replace any troublemakers in your coalition, influentials and essentials alike. After all, a large selectorate permits a big supply of substitute supporters to put the essentials on notice that they should be loyal and well behaved or else face being replaced. Bravo to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for introducing universal adult suffrage in Russia’s old rigged election system. Lenin mastered the art of creating a vast supply of interchangeables. Rule 3: Control the flow of revenue. It’s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from which the people can feed themselves. The most effective cash flow for leaders is one that makes lots of people poor and redistributes money to keep select people—their supporters—wealthy. Bravo to Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, estimated to be worth up to $4 billion even as he governs a country near the world’s bottom in per capita income.

It is really just as accurate to say that it has been the increasingly numerous and complex sensations associated with locomotion that has led to the development of the brain, as it is to state the case the other way around. As with all matter, usage dictates shape, specific function produces specific form. Thus as the animal kingdom has moved forward from jellyfish to worms to vertebrates, new behavior patterns have bodied forth new neural structures and circuits, just as surely as new neural mechanisms have opened up new modes of behavior. Once such a pattern has been established, the increasing sensory experience which arises from the assumption of a terrestrial existence is associated with further increases in the size and complexity of the brain, so that more complex behavior patterns are possible. Thus in man the assumption of the erect posture and the freeing of the upper limb from its supporting functions, with the consequent development of the hand as a potent new sensory organ, may well have played a significant part in the growth of the human nervous system to its present complexity.9 And note well: In this development, it has been the kind and the amount of sensory input which have been major factors in these profound changes in the structure and function of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Deep neuromuscular patterns most certainly are, and always have been, wide open to the influences of specific qualities and quantities of touch. In this context, it does not seem at all impossible that effective bodywork could foster new levels of awareness, new patterns of response, and even new neural conditions that would influence all future responses in an individual. The entire developmental history of the centralization and encephalization of the human nervous system is evidence of the potent organizing powers of touch.

the architecture that our services operate within dictates how we test and deploy our code. This

Anyone who thinks leaders do what they ought to do—that is, what is best for their nation of subjects—ought to become an academic rather than enter political life. In politics, coming to power is never about doing the right thing. It is always about doing what is expedient.

nouveau riche,

The Dictator’s Handbook, written by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and Alastair Smith,

Rule Number 3: Control the Revenue: It;s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from the people can feed themselves. The most effective cash flow for leaders is one that makes lots of people poor and redistributes money to keep select people - their supporters - wealthy.

how we design our organization dictates how work is performed, and, therefore, the outcomes we achieve. Throughout

Clients aren’t bosses. They can dictate terms, but you’re free to negotiate, push back, or fire them.

It’s the rare salesperson that has a written business plan, and even rarer to find one whose business plan is dictating what goes on his calendar.

Why is it that the Federal Reserve dictates our interest rate when it is not part of our government, but is an independent

Pretty much all of us are greedy, some for money, some for adulation, some for power, but all greedy nevertheless. Some few among us have the opportunity to act on our greed, while most of us are confined to pursuing our greed in minor ways

The choice between enhancing social welfare and enriching a privileged few is not a question of how benevolent a leader is. Honorable motives might seem important, but they are overwhelmed by the need to keep essential supporters happy, and the means of keeping them happy depends on how many need rewarding.

Democrats fight where they have policy concerns... war for democrats is just another way of achieving the goals for which foreign aid would otherwise be used. Foreign aid buys policy concessions, war imposes them... democrats would much prefer to impose a compliant dictator,... then take their chances on the policies adopted by a democrat who must answer to her own domestic constituents

A CEO’s energy levels dictate those of the team. You should find time to take vacations and truly be offline—otherwise you will lose energy, burn out, and potentially give up. This means once a year you should take a real one- to two-week vacation, and every quarter you should take a three-day weekend. If you are working every day, I strongly suggest that you start enforcing a personal no-work day at least once a week. Burning out will not help you or your company deal with all the stresses of scaling.

Bell presents a number of lessons for us about the rules to rule by. First, politics is about getting and keeping political power. It is not about the general welfare of “we the people.” Second, political survival is best assured by depending on few people to attain and retain office. That means dictators, dependent on a few cronies, are in a far better position to stay in office for decades, often dying in their sleep, than are democrats. Third, when the small group of cronies knows that there is a large pool of people waiting on the sidelines, hoping to replace them in the queue for gorging at the public trough, then the top leadership has great discretion over how revenue is spent and how much to tax. All that tax revenue and discretion opens the door to kleptocracy from many leaders, and public-spirited programs from a very few. And it means enhanced tenure in power. Fourth, dependence on a small coalition liberates leaders to tax at high rates, just as Bell’s leaders did. Taxing at high rates has a propensity to foment the threat of popular uprisings.

There are three ways for an incumbent leader to leave office, making room for a new leader. 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 incumbent’s coalition that is sufficiently attractive that they defect to the challenger’s cause. Third, the current political system can be overwhelmed from the outside, whether through military defeat by a foreign power or through revolution and rebellion, in which the masses rise up, depose the current leader, and destroy existing institutions.