00:00:00
[ominous music plays]
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Do you want to rule?
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Do you see the problems in your
country and know how to fix them?
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If only you had the power to do so.
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Well. You've come to the right place.
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But, before we begin this
lesson in political power,
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ask yourself,
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why don't rulers see as clearly as you,
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instead acting in such selfish,
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self-destructive, short-sighted ways?
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Are they stupid?
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These most powerful people in the world?
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Or, is it something else?
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The throne looks omnipotent from afar,
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but it is not as it seems.
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Take the throne to act,
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and the throne acts upon you.
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Accept that or turn back now before we discuss,
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The Rules for Rulers.
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[upbeat music softly plays]
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No matter how bright the rays of any sun king,
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No. Man. Rules. Alone.
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A king can’t build roads alone,
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can’t enforce laws alone,
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can't defend the nation,
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or himself, alone.
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The power of a king is not to act,
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but to get others to act on his behalf,
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using the treasure in his vaults.
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A king needs an army, and someone to run it.
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Treasure and someone to collect it,
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Law and someone to enforce it.
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The individuals needed to make the
necessary things happen are the
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king's keys to power.
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All the changes you wish to make
are but thoughts in your head
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if the keys will not follow your commands.
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In a dictatorship, where might makes right,
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the number of keys to power is small,
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perhaps only a dozen generals,
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bureaucrats, and regional leaders.
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Sway them to your side and
the power to rule is yours,
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but never forget, displease them,
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and they will replace you.
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Now, all countries lie on a spectrum from those
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where the ruler needs few key supporters,
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to those where the ruler needs many.
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This foundation of power is
why countries are different.
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Yet many keys, or few, the rules are the same.
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First,
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get the key supporters on your side.
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With them, you have the power to act.
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You have everything.
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Without them,
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you have nothing.
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Now, in order to keep those keys to power,
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you must, second,
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control the treasure.
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You must make sure your treasure is raised
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and distributed to you,
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[for all your hard work]
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and to the keys needed to keep your position.
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This is your true work as a ruler,
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figuring out how best to raise
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and distribute resources,
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so as not to topple the house of cards upon which
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your throne sits.
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Now you, aspiring benevolent dictator,
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may want to help your citizens,
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but your control of the treasure
is what attracts rivals,
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so you must keep those keys loyal.
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But there’s only so much treasure in your vaults,
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so much wealth your kingdom produces.
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So beware.
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Every bit of treasure spent on citizens
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is treasure not spent on loyalty.
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Thus, doing the right thing,
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spending the wealth of the nation
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on the citizens of the nation,
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hands a tool of power acquisition to your rivals.
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Treasure poured into roads, and
universities, and hospitals,
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is treasure a rival can promise to key
supporters if only they switch sides.
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Benevolent dictators can spend
their take on the citizens,
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but the keys must get their rewards,
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for even if you have gathered the most loyal,
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angelic supporters,
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they have the same problem as you,
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just one level down.
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Being a key to power is a position of power.
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They too, must watch out for rivals from
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below or above,
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thus the treasure they get must also
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be spent to maintain their position.
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The loyal and dim may stay
by your side no matter what,
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but smart key supporters,
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will always watch the balance of power,
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ready to change allegiance,
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if you look to be the loser,
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in a shifting web of alliances.
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In countries where the keys are few,
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the rewards are great,
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and when violence rules,
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the most ruthless are attracted,
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and angels that build good works will lose
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to devils that don't.
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So buy all the loyalty you can, because loyalty,
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in dictatorial organizations
of all kinds, is everything.
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For the ruler, anyway.
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Thus, the dictatorship exposed.
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A king who needs his court to raise the treasure
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to keep the court loyal and
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keep raising the treasure.
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This is the self-sustaining core of power.
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All. Outside. Is. Secondary.
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Now a king with many key
supporters has real problems,
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not just their expense,
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but also their competing needs and
rivalries are difficult to balance.
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The more complicated the social
and financial web between them all,
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the more able a rival is to sway a critical mass.
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The more key supporters a ruler has on average,
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the shorter their reign.
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Which brings us to the third rule for rulers.
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Minimize key supporters.
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If a key in your court becomes unnecessary,
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his skills no longer required,
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you must kick him out.
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After a successful coup,
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the new dictator will purge
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some of those who helped him come to power,
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while working with the underlings
of the previous dictator,
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which, from the outside, seems a terrible idea.
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Why abandon your fellow revolutionaries?
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Are the old dictator's supporters not a danger?
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But the keys necessary to gain power
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are not the same as those needed
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to keep it.
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Having someone on the payroll
who was vital in the past,
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but useless now, is the same
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as spending money on the citizens.
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Treasure wasted on the irrelevant.
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And by definition, a dictator
that pulls off a coup
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has promised greater treasure
to those switching sides.
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The size of the vault has not changed,
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so the treasure must be split among fewer.
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A dictator that sways the right
keys, takes control of the treasure,
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cuts unnecessary spending, kills unnecessary keys,
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will have a long and successful career.
00:06:01
Seeing the structure unveiled,
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you might be excited to get started
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and control a country to the
benefit of you and your cronies,
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or you might be exhausted,
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wishing to do good,
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but seeing the structural difficulties,
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now turn to democracy for salvation.
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So let us discuss
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Rulers as Representatives.
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[pensive music plays]
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You again might have grand dreams
of the utopia you wish to build,
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but, no man rules alone,
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and never more so than in democracy.
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Presidents and Prime ministers must negotiate with
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their senates and parliaments,
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and vice versa.
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And they all have their own
key supporters to manage.
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In a well-designed democracy,
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power is fractured among many,
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and is taken not with force but with words,
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meaning you must get thousands
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or millions of citizens to,
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if not like you on election day,
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at least like you better than the alternative.
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With so many voters and
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such fractured power it's impossible to,
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as a dictator would, follow
these rules and buy loyalty.
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Or is it?
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Of course not.
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Don't think of citizens as individuals
with their individual desires,
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but instead as divided into blocks:
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the elderly,
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or homeowners,
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or business owners,
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or the poor.
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Blocks you can reward as a group.
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Democracies have wildly
complicated tax codes, and laws,
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not as accident but as reward
for the blocks that get and keep
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the ruling representatives in power.
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Farming subsidies,
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for example, have nothing to do with
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the food a nation needs,
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but entirely with how key the
vote of the farming block is.
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Countries where farmers’
votes don't swing elections,
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don’t have farming subsidies.
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If a block doesn’t vote, such as younger citizens,
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then no need to divert rewards their way.
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Even if large in number,
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they are irrelevant to gaining power.
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Which, is good news for you.
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One less block to sway and the treasure
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you give your key blocks
has to come from somewhere.
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If you want long years in office,
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rule three is your friend in a democracy
just as much as a dictatorship.
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You can't eliminate those who don’t vote for you,
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but there is still much you can do.
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Once in power,
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make it easier for your key blocks to vote
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and harder for others.
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Establish voting systems that reduce
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the number of blocks you need to win,
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the more rivals you get,
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very handy indeed.
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Draw election borders to predetermine
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the results for you or your cronies,
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and have party pre-elections
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with Byzantine rules to determine
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who blocks even can vote for.
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Mix and match the above for
even better power perpetuation.
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When approval ratings couldn't be lower,
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yet re-election rates couldn't be higher,
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you'll know you've succeeded.
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Now, enough with thinking about the citizens.
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Even in a democracy there still are very
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influential individual key
supporters you need on your side
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because their money,
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or influence, or favors keeps you in power.
00:09:05
While you can’t just promise
to give them treasure directly,
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as a dictator would,
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you can create loopholes for their investments,
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pass laws that they’ve written,
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or print “Get out of Jail
Free” cards for their actions.
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Not a wheelbarrow of gold to the door,
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but contracts for their business.
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You as ruler do have roads to build,
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or computers to maintain,
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or buildings to reconstruct.
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No man rules alone, after all.
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Or you could take the moral path,
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and ignore the big keys.
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But you'll fight against those who didn't.
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Good luck with that.
00:09:38
Corruption is not some kind of petty crime,
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but rather a tool of power, in democracies
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and dictatorships,
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but more on that another time.
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So, accept the favors,
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sway the key blocks
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and you will get into power,
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ruling with actions that
look contradictory and stupid
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to those who don't understand the game.
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Privately helping a powerful industry you
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publicly denounced,
00:10:00
or passing laws that hurt
a block that voted for you.
00:10:03
But your job isn’t to have a consistent
understandable ruling policy,
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but to balance the interests of
your keys to power, big and small.
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That is how you stay in office.
00:10:14
Now with all this headache
of being a representative,
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you may wonder,
00:10:18
looking at rule three why
couldn’t you skip all this
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block-building, favor-trading nonsense,
00:10:23
and just bribe the army to take power?
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We must finally turn to
00:10:27
Taxes and Revolts.
00:10:29
[grim music plays]
00:10:30
You must understand rule two
and how the treasure is raised
00:10:34
and used to hold a country together.
00:10:37
If we graph the tax rate of countries versus
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the number of key supporters the ruler needs,
00:10:41
there’s a clear relationship.
00:10:43
More democracy, lower taxes.
00:10:46
If you're sitting comfortably in a
cushy democracy you may scoff at this,
00:10:50
but your fellow citizens who don’t earn enough,
00:10:53
don’t pay income taxes and
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get rebates,
00:10:56
bringing the average tax rate down.
00:10:59
In dictatorships, this doesn’t happen.
00:11:01
Dictatorships often forgo tax paperwork
00:11:04
in favor of just taking wealth directly.
00:11:06
It’s common for the dictator to force farmers
00:11:09
to sell their produce to him for little,
00:11:11
then turn around and sell it on the open market,
00:11:14
pocketing the difference at an
unthinkably high equivalent tax rate.
00:11:18
So, taxes in democracies are low
in comparison to dictatorships.
00:11:23
But why do representatives lower their take?
00:11:27
Well, cutting taxes is a crowd pleaser.
00:11:30
Dictators have no need to
please the crowds and thus
00:11:32
can take a large percentage
from their poor citizens
00:11:35
to pay key supporters.
00:11:36
But representatives in a democracy
can take a smaller percentage
00:11:41
from each to pay their key supporters,
00:11:44
because their educated, freer citizens
00:11:47
are more productive than peasants.
00:11:49
For rulers in a democracy,
00:11:51
the more productivity the better.
00:11:53
Which is why they build
universities, and hospitals,
00:11:57
and roads, and grant freedoms,
00:11:58
not just out of the goodness of their hearts
00:12:01
but because it increases citizen productiveness,
00:12:05
which increases treasure for the
ruler and their key supporters,
00:12:10
even when a lower percentage is taken.
00:12:13
Democracies are better places
to live than dictatorships,
00:12:16
not because representatives are better people,
00:12:19
but because their needs happen to be aligned
00:12:23
with a large portion of the population.
00:12:26
The things that make citizens more productive
00:12:28
also make their lives better.
00:12:30
Representatives want everyone productive,
00:12:34
so everyone gets highways.
00:12:36
The worst dictators are those whose incentives
00:12:38
are aligned with the fewest citizens,
00:12:41
those who have the fewest keys to power.
00:12:44
This explains why the worst
dictatorships have something in common.
00:12:48
Gold, or oil, or diamonds, or similar.
00:12:50
If the wealth of a nation is
mostly dug out of the ground,
00:12:55
it’s a terrible place to live because a gold mine
00:12:58
can run with dying slaves,
00:13:01
and still produce great treasure.
00:13:04
Oil is harder,
00:13:05
but luckily foreign companies
can extract and refine it
00:13:08
without any citizen involvement.
00:13:10
With citizens outside this cycle,
00:13:12
they can be ignored,
00:13:14
while the ruler is rewarded and the keys
00:13:16
to power kept loyal.
00:13:18
Thus, we live in a world where the best,
00:13:21
smartest democracies are stable,
00:13:23
the worst, richest dictatorships are stable,
00:13:26
and in between is a valley of revolution.
00:13:29
The resource-rich dictators build roads
00:13:31
only from their ports to their resources,
00:13:33
and from their palace to the airport,
00:13:35
and the people stay quiet
00:13:36
not because this is fine or even
00:13:39
because they’re scared,
00:13:40
but because the cold truth is
00:13:42
starving, disconnected, illiterates
00:13:45
don't make good revolutionaries.
00:13:48
Now, a middling dictator without resources must,
00:13:50
as mentioned before,
00:13:51
take a large amount of wealth directly
00:13:54
from his poor farmers and factory workers.
00:13:57
Thus, two roads won't do,
00:13:59
and so he must maintain some
minimums of life for the citizens.
00:14:04
But keeping the work-force somewhat connected
00:14:07
and somewhat educated and somewhat healthy
00:14:10
makes them more able to revolt.
00:14:13
Now understand, the romantic image of
00:14:15
the people storming the gates
00:14:16
and overthrowing their
dictator is mostly a fantasy.
00:14:19
If you run a middling dictatorship,
00:14:21
the people only storm the palace
00:14:23
when the army lets them,
00:14:25
to remove you,
00:14:27
because you lost control over your keys
00:14:30
and are being replaced.
00:14:31
This is why after popular revolts
in middling dictatorships,
00:14:36
the new ruler is often the
same as the old, if not worse.
00:14:39
The people didn't replace the king,
00:14:41
the court replaced the king,
00:14:44
using the peoples' protest
they let happen to do it.
00:14:48
The very things a benevolent dictator
wants to build to cross this valley,
00:14:52
take treasure away from the keys to power,
00:14:55
and make the citizens more able to revolt,
00:14:58
often ending in a stronger ruler less likely
00:15:02
to build bridges and more loyal to his keys.
00:15:04
On the other side, the best
democracies are stable,
00:15:07
not just because the large number
of keys and their competing desires
00:15:11
makes dictatorial revolt
near-impossible to organize,
00:15:14
but also because the revolt would destroy
00:15:16
the very wealth it intended to capture,
00:15:19
the high productivity of the citizens.
00:15:22
Plus, those helping the
would-be dictator in a democracy
00:15:26
know he plans to cull key
supporters once in power.
00:15:30
That’s what’s a coup is.
00:15:32
So potential key supporters
must weigh the probability
00:15:35
of surviving the cull and getting the rewards,
00:15:38
versus the risk of being on the
00:15:40
outside of a dictatorship they helped create.
00:15:43
In a stable democracy, that’s a terrible gamble.
00:15:46
Maybe you'll be incredibly wealthy,
00:15:48
but probably you'll be dead
00:15:50
and have made the lives of
everyone you know worse.
00:15:53
The math says no.
00:15:54
Being on the right side of a
coup in a dictatorship means
00:15:58
having the resources to get you and
your family what the peasants lack:
00:16:02
health care,
00:16:02
education,
00:16:03
quality of life.
00:16:04
This is what make the
competition for power so fierce.
00:16:08
But in a democracy most already
have these things, so why risk it?
00:16:12
So, the more the wealth of a nation comes from
00:16:14
the productive citizens of the nation,
00:16:16
the more the power gets spread out,
00:16:18
and the more the ruler must maintain
00:16:21
the quality of life for those citizens.
00:16:23
The less,
00:16:24
the less.
00:16:25
Now if a stable democracy becomes very poor,
00:16:29
or if a resource
00:16:31
that dwarfs the productivity
of the citizens is found,
00:16:33
the odds of this gamble change,
00:16:36
and make it more possible for
a small group to seize power.
00:16:40
Because if the current
quality of life is terrible,
00:16:43
or the wealth not dependent on the citizens,
00:16:46
coups are worth the risk.
00:16:49
When democracies fall,
00:16:50
these are usually the reasons.
00:16:52
[somber music plays]
00:16:55
These rules for rulers explain not only why
00:16:58
some men are monsters
00:16:59
and others are merciful,
00:17:00
but everything about politics.
00:17:03
From war, to foreign aid,
00:17:04
to political dynasties, to corruption.
00:17:07
All of which, we can talk about at another time.
00:17:10
But for now, you aspiring ruler,
00:17:12
may be disgusted by the world of politics,
00:17:15
and have decided to avoid it entirely,
00:17:17
but you cannot, for rulers come in many forms.
00:17:20
Yes, kings, presidents and prime ministers,
00:17:22
but also deans, dons, mayors, chairs, chiefs.
00:17:26
These rules apply to all
and explain their actions.
00:17:30
From the CEO of the largest
global corporate conglomerate,
00:17:33
who must keep his board happy,
00:17:35
to the chair of the smallest
00:17:37
home owner’s association,
00:17:38
managing votes and spending membership fees.
00:17:41
You cannot escape structures of power.
00:17:44
You can only turn a blind
eye to understanding them,
00:17:48
and if you ever want the change you dream about,
00:17:51
there is a zeroth rule you cannot ignore.
00:17:54
Without power
00:17:55
you
00:17:56
can affect nothing.
00:17:58
You may not like these rules, but surely,
00:18:00
better you on the throne than someone else.
00:18:03
And who knows, maybe,
00:18:06
you’ll be different. [somber music, slowly fades]
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