Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: The Five Rules of Power Politics | Big Think

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: The Five Rules of Power Politics
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Democracy, says Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, is the worst form of government from the leader’s perspective.
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Bruce Bueno de Mesquita:
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Silver Professor of Politics at New York University. He is an expert on international conflict, foreign policy formation, and nation building. His current research focuses on the links between political institutions, economic growth, and political change. He is also investigating the causes and consequences of international conflict as well as national security policy forecasting and analysis.
Using a proprietary mathematical formula that takes into account the self-interests of and alliances among actors in key business and political questions (i.e. whether Iran will build nuclear weapons), de Mesquita predicts the future for businesses and organizations such as the CIA.
His most recent books include The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (PublicAffairs, 2011) and The Predictioneer's Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future (Random House, Inc., 2009)Additionally, he has authored more than one hundred articles and fourteen books on politics, as well as one published novel, The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Ohio State University Press, 2001).
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TRANSCRIPT:
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: Machiavelli was a very smart guy who, by the way, wrote The Prince in the hope of attracting employment. He failed to get the job. He was a little too nice, not quite tough enough.
So most people who are familiar with Machiavelli are familiar with the views he expressed in The Prince. Not so many people seem to have read his discourses where he thought that the best form of government is a more republican form of government, that is a democracy in our modern terms, and while I certainly agree that from the perspective of the folks on the street it’s far and away the best form of government, from the perspective of a leader, somebody who wants to hold onto power, it’s the worst form of government because it puts you at the greatest risk of losing power. So in The Dictator’s Handbook we go well beyond Machiavelli’s understanding to layout precisely what leads you to hold onto power and precisely what ties the hands of a democrat in trying to do the things that dictators also do.
Let’s start with what the five rules of politics are. First, you want to depend on as few people as possible to keep you in power. I'm going to come back to that because it ties very closely to the second.
Second, you want the pool of people you could call upon to fill the role of that small group, that pool, to be as large as possible. That way,the folks who are in the small group that keep you in power know that if they are wayward, if they begin to back somebody else or they’re not willing to do the things that you the leader ask them to do they know they’re easily replaced. Often, especially journalists make the mistake of looking at rigged election systems, such as Lennon introduced in the Soviet Union, and mistakenly believing that somehow because there are elections this confers legitimacy. That is a very silly idea because, after all, everybody already knows the outcome of the election before it happens, so how could it be legitimate? The function of having universal suffrage in a rigged system is exactly to signal the folks in the inner circle, the people you’re rewarding, that hey, you are easily replaced, you better do what I want.
Third rule, so you’ve got as small a group as possible drawn from as big a pool as possible. You want to tax the people as highly as you can because you want revenue to enrich yourself and to bribe your cronies. Taxing the people as highly as you can, there are two constraints. You don’t want to tax so much that people prefer taking siestas to doing work because the objective of the tax, of course, is to generate money for you. If the people aren’t working then they’re not going to generate money for the leader. And second, you don’t want to tax to the point that people calculate that you know things are so bad I might as well revolt, I can’t be worse off. So you want to tax as much as possible as long as people keep working and don’t revolt.
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/v...

[@ichabodcrane916]

5 Rules of Power Politics 1. Depend on as few people as possible. 2. Make the group of people that you can trust as large as possible (make officers expendable). 3. Tax people as highly as you can (not too high that they quit working or revolt) 4. Use minimal amount of that revenue to keep administration loyal. 5.* Be kind of "civic-minded" with leftover revenue?

[@Account.for.Comment]

1. Keep the essential cronies as few as possible. ( In a democracy, voter blocks) 2. Have as many interchangables as possible. (Easier replacements of discarded essentials) 3. Control the source of revenue (money, glory, ideals, political images, religious doctrine). In a democracy, often by taxes. In an autocracy by having more arms. 4. Paid the essentials enough but not enough to make them think that they can fight for the revenue source (Your role as leader). If the cronies think their payment is too little, they will want to replace you. Too much, they can replace you. 5. Don't give your revenue to anybody that is not part of the essentials. The essentials will think that their payment will get lower and will seek to replace you (rule 4). (All those debates of the health services, taxes, and public services are the results of trying to keep essential voter blocks.) If Caesar had not tried to take the wealth of his fellow senators, he would not be assasinated. These are summarised and explained in details from the book. "No person rules alone. All politicians are the same. All governance/management has a large amount of interchangeable people followed by a smaller amount of influentials followed by the winning coalition. Managing the interchangables, influentials and essentials are the art and science of politics. Autocracy and democracy are simplifications of the number of the essentials inside the winning coalition. Democratic countries are happier than autocratic countries because the politicans has to pay more people to stay in power. (Why Democracy is the best system despite general voters' ignorance)".

[@anonimo5912]

Rule 0 is you can affect nothing without Power.

[@jfrd-pw4hk]

@@anonimo5912 can*

[@coscomosco4388]

​@@Account.for.CommentI was not able to find the boom

[@planksunit]

#CPGGrey

[@evanfitzpatrick5173]

A KZbin. He made a video Rules for Rulers about these rules.

[@tohopes]

The word 'democracy' is often used that way today, but the older definition is where all citizens (or possibly all citizens of a certain social class) vote together, and any majority of them can make whatever decision they want to make, at anyone's expense. In contrast, a limited republic doesn't let any majority of citizens make any decision they want to make. It puts legislators in offices with limited power and has checks and balances to make it hard for them to change fundamental things.

[@eggory]

Half of the United States want the country to be more like Europe, and half of them want it to be more like the United States used to be. That's a very wide gap in opinion, and the difficulties in reaching a mutually acceptable compromise are I think inherent to that problem. The solution is to reduce the influence of the federal government so that the states can stay out of each other's way and truly respect their differences, and let people vote with their feet.

[@Skippa1986]

Kinda of a late response but I felt like I had to. Political parties are a legitimate expression of a democracy, period. The only systems that work without them, or better yet, with just one, are dictatorships. Ironically, elections with no parties involved would not only be difficult but downright chaotic at best. By the way, in our current state the difficulty comes from structural problems related to institutional failings, conjectural issues, etc., not because parties are bad.

[@stefdiazdiaz7067]

I read the whole logic of political survival and I shall read it again.

[@veso5554]

This guy is awesome. He's a great writer too.

[@ihateyourusernames]

I really like that idea. Knowledge helps citizens make informed decisions. In this regard I feel that our age of information sharing has a lot of promise in helping populations participate more in civil affairs.

[@jfrd-pw4hk]

It's backfiring. People are more informed now but not with the right information. Social media is being weaponized into a turbo-charged propaganda machine to an unprecedented degree.

[@ihateyourusernames]

@@jfrd-pw4hk Agreed. Garbage in, garbage out. Let us strive to improve this.

[@drunkenhowler22]

@@ihateyourusernames Indeed, social media has become something of a new obstacle for human society. With the rise of individuals pushing against misinformation and people responding positively to it shows promise though. Even though I do wish it would speed up a bit, but sadly too many in power still benefit from the discourse it all generates.

[@ihateyourusernames]

@@drunkenhowler22 Evolution is a slow go, and challenges of the information era as just that. I feel that an eventually merge with tech will be a part of the next steps. A man once said that smartphones are just cybernetic devices with slow bandwidth to our brains. I would argue the trend had started the moment our species began writing on cave walls. We have been manipulating our environment to suit our survival and purposes for quite some time. Now we create virtual environments and manipulate information. Interesting times indeed.

[@drunkenhowler22]

@@ihateyourusernames Agreed. A thing I always keep in mind with these things is knowing everything is a work in progress. That were as much a part of history as everything else. It's didn't mean the end times then and it doesn't mean it now. Atleast hopefully.

[@Pyratheon]

Great video for planning my path to becoming God Emperor.

[@TheCountess666]

a representative democracy (republic) doesn't at all change the 51/49% balance. and if the people vote to decide who's in charge, its a form of democracy. that's a simple fact. you cant deny that.

[@RonaldAaronLopez]

I HAD NO IDEA 2-PUG SHAKUR WAS THAT WELL KNOWN!

[@yoyoyoy500]

I've read an article on cracked saying that lately it's been said that "The Prince" was Machiavelli's own like 16th century Stephan Colbert style political trolling.A lot of his other stuff is like regular non-bad/manipulative political tactics.Unfortunately not many ppl historically didn't seem to get that message."The ends justifies the means" which is supposedly from Machiavelli's actually translates more accurately from Italian as "One must consider the ends" actually.

[@Jivvi]

It has often confused me why some people talk about republics and democracy like the are exact opposites. While it is true they are not quite exacty the same, they are very similar, as you say, and can co-exist, which is made obvious by the fact that there are a number of countries whose official name begins with "The Democratic Republic of..."

[@Monochromicornicopia]

Our electoral college did that very well this past election. However badly you think Obama is doing, Romney would have made that look like spilled milk.

[@Uhmu]

I was talking in more general terms then just the US, but besides that, i don't think this kind of Muppet representative is very effective, if you want more direct democracy, have more referendums and then the people can decide. As i see it, a representative/parliamentarian should always vote by his conscious and best knowledge not what voters want. If the voters don't like how he votes, get someone else the next time.

[@SatanistSin]

More choices are good, but how is it any different then two parties that are filled with people that were voted for. If more people run for the same thing at once, you get a whole lot of people that didn't vote for the winner. How is that fair?

[@AutodidacticPhd]

This talk becomes much more interesting if you start viewing the politicians in a "democracy" as the group he referred to as the supporting coalition and the financial leaders as the real power politics in the system... all the power, none of the exposure.

[@rogernevez5187]

Excelent video! I'm buying his book now. Does anyone know if there is a similar book but of workplace environment?

[@arnoldibalboa2736]

48 laws of power by Robert greene

[@rogernevez5187]

Also in my wishlist: The 50th Law and Mastery by Robert Greene

[@eliaschevette]

Greene's books are on the same theme but is inferior to the dictator's handbook. Greene's is all fluff nice stories but not real meat or structure. Bueno de Mesquita really lays down what power is and how some keep it.

[@CountBifford]

Roger Nevez This guy's book focuses mostly on heads of state but there are a few corporate CEOs such as Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard.

[@CountBifford]

Greene's books are more versatile. They are about influence in general and can be used by anyone, from athletes, to celebrities, to merchants, to generals, and even slaves. Mesquita's book focuses squarely on the leader of a state or corporation. It focuses on the leaders of money-making organizations because it's all about how the leader distributes wealth to the satisfaction of his power base. It's not very useful for the rest of us.

[@intestinomedicino]

This should go on top of the 48 laws of power.

[@faIc0n]

thank you, this was very informative

[@RinguPingu]

Exactly what was the fifth rule? It mostly seemed like he just described what you could do with your money, rather than laying down any concrete rule. I'm writing a presentation based on these rules, so I'd be grateful if someone explained this to me!

[@amoszweig]

hello Prof. DeMesquita and Prof. Smith How would you evaluate the original athenian form of democracy: government by revolving random council? for every political question, roughly 10 people are chosen from the whole population at random, and they then have to debate until they reach a unilateral agreement on the course of action. it seems to me, that corruption would be straight out the window, because one would have to bribe the entire population, and also in the random councils egoistic decisions would be very unlikely, because such a decision could just be repudiated by a next random council.

[@FairVoyeur]

This is just relationships on a bigger scale. I think Clueless covered this a long time ago.

[@momshieb8136]

So in short, if you want to stay in power.. you should know how to balance things.

[@8701F]

you have a point.. but give them something to vote for..

[@samala51]

muy interesante

[@cheshirepat30]

The Dictators Handbook was what got me interested in power politics! I clicked on this not remembering that he was one of the authors!

[@doublestrokeroll]

People should also view Manufacturing Consent to see how control works in "democratic" societies.

[@SatanistSin]

The 5 rules of politics: 1. Lie (I'll come back to this cause it ties in closely to the second one) 2. Say what people want to hear 3. Step on everyone on the way up. 4. Remember, people are stupid. Preverbal keys to dangle are always a good thing to have. 5. Always have a scapegoat. This way you can take credit for everything, and when people don't like something you point the balm somewhere els.

[@marktforce]

Political parties are not the problem, people are. As illustrated by Douglas Adams "Any man that can make himself president by no account should be allowed to do the job" .

[@Captain0Newman]

power has always been important to people. The people who didn't value power died out a long time ago...

[@heyheyheysniper]

They're called Representatives in the States. How much do they actually represent the population of their region? Who knows. My professor said if she would become one, would hold large amounts of polls to gather the ideas of the people she represented and would vote accordingly. She would act merely as a conduit of opinion from the population.

[@MyNameKeys]

What about the hippies? They don't even value electrical power!

[@got2kittys]

The U.S., is a republic, not a democracy. Democracies have a few fatal flaws. Not the least, is a life of less than 20 years on average.

[@iGeeeked]

You got it. Sad, but true.

[@Uhmu]

The would be a horrible leader; yes you have to consider what the public thinks, but the problem is that public opinions are more often then not conflicting and a representative has a staff, so most of the time she would be more informed of the issues then the average voter. A good leader keeps an eye on the public mood, tries to figure out, what actually are the best options for the voters and then explain it to them. Blindly following the public wind can do a lot of damage to the public.

[@purv989]

@AustinSamIam The sad thing is that we DO have a democracy, and a republic. A democracy says 51 percent of you get to choose the fate of the 49 percent. And we have a very stupid majority.

[@ihateyourusernames]

Political parties are the problem. When you slap a 'brand' on an ideology it makes it difficult for people to chose sides. How about region-based representation? How about leaders that actually represent the interests of the people who vote for them?

[@mindbloq]

I would like to remind you that democracy and a republic are not diametrically opposed. Democratic describes any political system in which the people have a say in the government. A republic is a system of government in which the people elect representatives to serve in the government. Therefore, a republic is democratic.

[@Bitte0rca]

Apathy is a much larger problem than Christianity. I don't think Christians account for the majority in America anymore, but they do vote more. One could argue it's people who agree with you, but don't vote that are the real problem.

[@Jarl_Bharbo]

This would make an entertaining game, by Rockstar.

[@YoshiMario69]

The problem is and will always be, for US the citizens, that we have no say in what they do with OUR fucking money.

[@RodrigoLimaBatista]

I would love to know what most people on BigThink think about the Resource Based Economy X Capitalism X Socialism X others economic ideas to improve the world with a new system.

[@HeathWatts]

Taxes benefit the majority and make civilization possible. The Founding Fathers wanted everything in the trough and the super rich continue to get everything in the trough. If you're rich, you benefit from the system, if you are among the 99% you are allowed to survive, if you produce capital for the 1%. You have a business degree, so you've been fully inculcated with the myth that if you work hard enough, you will become super rich and benefit from the Founding Fathers' ideas. That's unlikely.

[@Bitte0rca]

Truth. Its sort of a chicken or egg scenario though. Politicians say what will get them the most votes, and that's the sort of thing logical people hate. No easy solution, but we could start by voting against the worst of them i suppose. No one is perfect, but some people are much less perfect than others. Rational discussions in public forums are a hell of a start! Thank God for internet! ;)

[@SatanistSin]

You're mistaken, it would be cheeper. The politician only needs to spend money on his/her campaign. A campaign against one person means you need more then half the votes, a campaign against three people means you need more then just one third. The more people in the race the less votes you need to win, which means less campaign coast. The corrupters don't buy everyone they just need to back the winner. Plus /watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[@Bitte0rca]

The census report doesn't take into account people who say they are catholics, but don't practice what they preach by any means. You know, like only going to church at christmas and Easter. I'm not sure about this one, but you might- is there a box for spiritual but not religious? or like, agnostic? And the evangelicals feel very strongly about anything that the bible says is wrong, so they are obligated by their god to stand up and speak out against it.

[@HiAdrian]

Very good, thanks.

[@TheCountess666]

not all republic's are democracies and not all democratises are republics. but the American republic is a democracy. that's just a fact. the people vote for their leaders, so its a democracy. the fudge factor of the electoral collage doesn't change that. France btw is also a republic.

[@LetsWatchAlan]

you can't replace the sovereign with regional based leaders to represent smaller community like views. there needs to be compromise to achieve a greater good and guarantee the stability of state power and good governance, we live in a world much more global than ever before and we are slowly approaching a need for world governance, as you described, the present model of politics is not perfect. ,.

[@mvenom101]

i have no idea why i am up at 11 o clock watching videos on the 5 key rules of dictatorial rule....

[@LordHypnos4]

more parties would be good because it would be much harder and much more costly to corrupt politicians. Plus look at the elections now, you have a choice between someone who is completely for big business and banks, and someone who is a little less for big business and banks

[@aluisious]

Being a politician sounds like a pain in the ass.

[@Aizacc84]

Your comment reminds me of this quote. The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. "Albert Einstein"

[@zohebalikhan7404]

Aizacc84 I think you're paraphrasing Edmund Burke: 'Evil triumphs when good men do nothing".

[@zEDo1]

it's not when it is 51% vs 49% it is when it is 50% + 1 vote so it can be 50.0000001% vs 49.9999999%

[@Erick726]

How about just refusing to bail them out at tax payer expense when they screw up.

[@AnonRanGER01]

You realize your metaphor just confirms my argument, don't you?

[@heyheyheysniper]

I consider a representative (rep) not to be a leader. They r there 2 voice n represent the opinions of the people they represent. Excluding the exception of ppl helpin other ppl in other states ex: disaster assistance and of the sorts, I want some1 who can represent me and be on the platforms I stand 4. The rep should be alil more informed of the circumstances of its populace besides looking at raw statistics. I agree w/ u. Tht's why their terms are 2 yrs. The pop amount changes n also opinions

[@rsimpson69]

Democracy's not so great for the subjects, either. They get the blame for what is done to them, politically.

[@AnonRanGER01]

But English NOT being the first language doesn't confirm the opposite. Either way, I find it pretentious of Benny to simply claim "English isn't your first language, therefore you're not American, therefore you probably live in a non-democratic country, therefore you can't participate in the discussion". Pretty obvious trolling.

[@TigerghostPictures]

Well aren't bankers donating money to both campaigns? =p

[@Eizara]

Seems like bribery is the key to staying in power...which legalized bribery is exactly what is wrong with American politics today. Think about it. Pretty much any of the corruption and bad policies you can think of extend from starting off as bribery.

[@FaganRoberts]

Correct. Well said. Republic = Rule of law.

[@WBenny74]

actually, you and millions of people vote on a problem/decision/representative to allow for the consensus of the mojority to be taken, allowing for gorvernment to allow the majority of the people happy. democracy is true. you have a choice, you have power

[@AhmedMohsen83]

Update of the "The prince " book " !!

[@konjovi2]

So, what are the five rules of governance again?

[@iGeeeked]

Amen.

[@b22chris]

i think he's talking about america

[@axrs550]

i found democracy in a dictionary!!! thats it.

[@carlosgarciahernandez7201]

This sounds like capitalism to me

[@vikingjarl1]

Obviously the system

[@richardalvarado-ik9br]

Trump Admin & Latin American Banana Republic CIA backed governments.

[@RichardMinkley]

why does this remind me of the system of university/higher education.

[@UnpredictableSB]

Top comment works for Bungie.

[@goatnicholson]

I wonder who this guy will be voting for...

[@mrs.albertcamus7930]

Machiavelli taught about asserting and maintaining power, by any means necessary but advocate for democracy while he himself was nothing like what he wrote. He was a coward with great ideas. Power would go with an authoritarian government

[@TerrelleCheers1]

I see you are a divergent independent thinker 😉. Just using a little rhetoric that's all lol. But no seriously I really like your choice of study and interests in politics..very intriguing to me. You seem to have ego-depth and a positively perceptive attitude about the world. I never was any good at civics or government lol, maybe you can help me learn a thing or two..😅

[@thatsmygorilla]

Dodge Duck Dip Dive and Dodge

[@Akoalawithshades]

Depends on where you live.

[@Account.for.Comment]

Sunzi stated victory came from the way, the weather, where you are, who you with and lastly, what you do.

[@JustLilGecko]

This is why the American political system is terrible, compared to... say, the Danish or Norwegian multi-party-system.

[@iGeeeked]

The 8 dislikes were clearly idiots. They probably couldn't comprehend a word he said... How could you dislike this??? It's pure truth.

[@FreezingPT]

that was beautiful

[@Grantslayer7]

So many commenters on this video never seem to have heard of Majority Rule. Go back to high school.

[@squishycommander]

Kay

[@minimcewen]

The problem with politics is people. Let's all be sheep it's easier that way. A cacophony of ultramaroons.

[@TheFlyingGreenMonkey]

SHIFTY EYES!!!

[@Thezuule1]

-Benjamin Franklin

[@pottansnest]

What a long name

[@brianclark4796]

this guy is sin-a-cal!

[@NatRoberts]

Cynical

[@jrme4216]

cynicism is when you know too much

[@ichabodcrane916]

the world is sin-a-full!

[@SatanistSin]

Trying to get elected counts as politics, there fore the rules count there too. :-P

[@Bitte0rca]

Precisely the point I was trying to make. Thanks for sharing!

[@silentdoctorable]

How about, imprison all the bankers on Wall Street? =D

[@SOCRATES012]

Anarchy

[@WBenny74]

you can feel free to decline facts. i just stated the actual deffiniton, apperently you think websters dictionary is a lie. YOU LIE!!!

[@SuicidelG]

Wtf does he keep saying democrats for... does he mean people in the democratic system or the political party?

[@raymondsoto9045]

SuicidelG He meant those who rule through a democratic system.

[@jorenvanderark3567]

SuicidelG essentialy there are 3 systems defined by how many essential supporters ther are and with how many people these essentials positions could be filled (influentials) 1. monarchy (few essentials, few influentials) 2. autocracy (few essentials, many influentials) 3. democracy (many essentials, many influentials)

[@WBenny74]

english isnt your first language, which means your probably not american, which means you probably dont live in a democratic nation (because english isnt your first) so where do you come off saying what you said? conversation won

[@sulljoh1]

Humans aren't this rational

[@rsimpson69]

Collectivism is the problem... the readiness of folks like you to assign rights to imaginary groups instead of real individuals.

[@GamerRateBot]

I think he means democrats, with a little d, so not the party

[@samala51]

noice

[@DASBIGUN]

HAHAHAHA...true dat.