"The Rules for Rulers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

"The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (2022, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

Both publications cover the politics of most firms with stakeholders. =3

You should read "The Dictator's Handbook". Dictators may be driven to externally irrational behavior by what appear internally to be an entirely rational chain of decisions. And I mean rational in the Homo economus sense of the word.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

It's also one of the subjects in The Dictator's Handbook, an excellent layman's read on political economics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

If you want the hardcore game theory version, check out The Logic of Political Survival by the same authors: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita...

In light of the prior article about ICANN as an unaccountable private company (1), this is a good time to encourage everyone to read Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's The Dictator's Handbook (2). This is a classic setup for dictatorship by a small cabal (the board): a vast, unempowered populace, a clear source of money (increasing domain fees), and a fairly small elite that needs to be compromised, particularly relative to the size of the unempowered populace.

If governments and corporations haven't already started buying influence, I'd be shocked.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/icann-int...

(2) https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

> That's so wester/occidental... Who says that democracy is such a good news ?

"The Dictator's Handbook" [1] does a good job of explaining various political systems lays down and presents an argument for why people in democracies have more freedoms and are generally more prosperous.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

No need to call others' opinions ignorant when you have another one. Here's a good book dealing with foreign aids, among other things:

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

Read The Dictator's Handbook. Then come back and tell me if I'm rambling.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

> people think CGP Grey is a scholar on so many topics just because he sounds calm and confident

His "Rules for Rulers" video is an excellent summary of The Dictator's Handbook [1], itself a summary of well-regarded selectorate theory [2]. I have yet to watch a CPG Grey video which does not honestly separate fact from opinion, and ensure the former is well sourced.

His delivery is excellent. But that, alone, is not substitute for well-written and -researched material.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectorate_theory

It's definitely not one guy. This is a great read which helped me understand the perspective and situations dictators, and nation leaders in general, often face.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610391845/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_ISy...

Which "Dictator's Handbook"? There are two on Amazon.

[1] The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

[2] The Dictator's Handbook: A Practical Manual for the Aspiring Tyrant

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Practical-Manual-A...

The Dictator's Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610391845

Fascinatingly relevant right now.

By allowing their bureaucrats free rein to terrorize local businesses and extract mob-style protection payments, among other things. Excessive regulation. Basic, garden-variety corruption. Same stuff that goes on in every other autocratic country the world over.

Right now, Hong Kong is way too valuable as an economic engine, but the political dangers are more pressing to the CCCP. So the government will clamp down on freedoms as best they can until the citizens can't take it anymore, then keep beating the horse until it's dead.

You should read the book The Dictator's Handbook if you want to understand it better.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...