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完成了the dictator's handbook 全书的最后部分摘要。
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.
At the beginning and the end of an incumbent’s reign the danger of being purged is greatest and so, at these times, coalition members should be most receptive to reform.
What are the lessons for change? First, coalition member should beware of their susceptibility to purges. Remember that it ticks up when there is a new boss, a dying boss, or a bankrupt boss. At such times, the essential group should begin to press for its own expansion to create the incentive to develop public-spirited policies, democracy, and benefits for all. The time for outside intervention to facilitate democratic change or improved corporate responsibility is when a leader has just come to power or when a leader is near the end of his life.
If firms can be made to rely on a bigger coalition they are likely to do a better job of serving the interests of their owners.
When change does happen, it can come from two sources: internal political upheaval or external threat, and between these two, external threat is far less likely to succeed in making many better off at the expense of the few.
People who live with freedom are rarely impoverished and oppressed. Give people the right to say what they want; to write what they want; and to gather to share ideas about what they want, and you are bound to be looking at people whose persons and property are secure and whose lives are content. You are looking at people free to become rich and free to lose their shirts in trying. You are looking at people who are not only materially well off but spiritually and physically, too.
Behind the world of misery and oppression lie governments run by small cliques of essentials who are loyal to leaders who can make them rich. Behind the world of freedom and prosperity lie governments that depend on the backing of a substantial coalition of ordinary people drawn from a large pool of influential, who are in turn draw from a large pool of interchangables.
Yes, we want people to be free and prosperous, but we don’t want them to be free and prosperous enough to threaten our way of life, our interests, and our well-being—and that is as it should be. That too is a rule to rule by for democratic leaders.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” We humbly add that the reason the fault is in ourselves is because we, the people, care so much for ourselves and so little for the world’s underlings.
We have learned that just about all of political life revolves around the size of the selectorate, the influential, and the winning coalition. Expand them all, and the interchangeables no more quickly than the coalition, and everything changes for the better for the vast majority of people.They are liberated to work harder on their own behalf, to become better educated, healthier, wealthier, happier, and free. Their taxes are reduced and their opportunities in life expand dramatically.
Continue to read book "The 7 habits of highly effective people : powerful lessons in personal change " by Stephen R. Covey
This is one of the rare books that has influenced presidents, CEOs, educators, and individuals all over the world not only to improve their businesses and careers but to live with integrity, service, dignity, and success in all areas of life. It has had an undeniable impact for the past 25 years--and will no doubt continue to be influential for many more.
There is a lot of practical stuff in here, too. Challenges for you. Ways you can start to shift your thinking by taking an emotional inventory of your life and what you're doing/feeling every day. Just writing about it makes me want to go back and read it again. If you're here looking for a book that will help you harness that little spark inside of you that's saying, "You can be better" then this book is it. You're not an animal. Life doesn't condition you like a dog. This book is about the untouchable part of your human spirit that no one besides you controls. This book is about carrying sunny weather with you where ever you go, learning how much a proactive attitude benefits you, and really how sad and wasteful it is to walk through life allowing things to ruin your day. Things don't ruin your day. YOU ruin your day. You are always in control.