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The dictator's handbook 最后部分内容摘要如下
It is an understatement to say that making the world better is a difficult task. If it were not, then it would already have been improved. However, the inherent problem with change is that improving life for one group generally means making at least one other person worse off, and that 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.
We would focus on what is rather than what ought to be. We should never let the quest for perfection block the way to lesser improvement. 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. A fix is not a fix unless it can actually be done. What can be done must satisfy the needs of everyone required to implement change.
Appeals to ideological principles and rights are generally a cover, J. P. Morgan had it right: There is always some principled way to defend any position, especially one’s own interests. It is to be suspicious of people’s motives.
In devising fixes to the world’s ills, the essential first step is to understand what the protagonists want and how different policies and changes will affect their welfare. A reformer who takes what people say at face value will quickly find their reforms at a dead end.
Everyone has an interest in change, but interchangeables, influential, essentials and leaders don’t often agree on what changes they want. 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 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.
Leaders and their essentials share a preference for dependence upon a small coalition, at least so long as the coalition is very small.
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