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Three Rules for Rulers: CGP Grey has some advice

Russian Imperial Throne - CC0 Public Domain
The rules that rulers follow: that’s the subject of one of CGP Grey‘s best videos. Three Rules for Rulers comes complete with tips for all types of rulers – dictatorial and democratic.

Take a watch and enjoy:

The advice for rulers in this video are best not taken too literally. After all, money and force aren’t theĀ only motivating factors around. The three rules for rulers are also only one way of looking at a very complicated and nuanced topic. But CGP Grey’s three rules make a pretty good starting point for thinking about what’s necessary.

If you want to delve into the arguments further, the relevant book from the video is The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics. As a review pointed out, one weakness of the book – and hence the video too – is its emphasis on rulers as rational and self-interested, with fixed and predictable goals. That is a useful way of looking at how rulers behave. But it’s far from the whole story. It’s rather like economics before behavioural economics.

There’s a follow-up video, with more on how rulers rule, which you can watch here.

One response to “Three Rules for Rulers: CGP Grey has some advice”

  1. Interesting have been to some of the Tory work when my brother was Mayor last May have seen very close to doing what they are told perhaps the mayor making was simply too arranged for my likening
    I am sure I probably may
    Or may not be right.
    Its very difficult

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