Why Powerful Rulers Lose Control: The Dialectic of Power

Regardless which specific political stance you have, sometimes you can all but wonder on the straight out stupid ideas that politicians propose. Totally useless megaprojects, welfare at the wrong place benefiting the wrong people or just total disregard for the people they rule a.k.a. “Let them eat cake”. In short, out of touch with any reality.

There is more to that than just ignorance, greed or lobbyism. The more potent a ruler becomes the more he will lose touch with reality. This mechanism is known as dialectics of power. The more powerful a ruler is, the more personal limitations force the ruler to detach from the ruled and their reality, leaving ample space for favoritism on the one hand, erroneous decisions based on a flawed perception of reality on the other. In this video, we will uncover the reasons for this loss of common sense.

I. The Good King

Imagine the most benevolent king ever, straight out of a fairytale. He cares for his people without ever thinking of his own benefit. When he sees the happy orphans at his world-class orphanage, his heart fills with joy and his eyes with tears out of pure bliss. Day-in, day-out he works on schemes to improve the wellbeing of his citizens. Luckily, he does this almost by himself because his realm contains just a small city and a few farming villages, netting a few thousand inhabitants.

Thus, the King is able to control every of his policies in person: He can go to the orphanage and assure himself that the orphans are well treated. He can check on the schools and make sure that no pupil is left behind. He can control the government budget to make sure that neither taxes are collected unfairly nor funds are wasted. Citizens always have the right to petition the king with their needs and he often spends time with them, going on fairs or just into the tavern every Saturday evening.

Sound’s nice, doesn’t it? However, some people want just more than a good life. Take, for example, a local merchant. He petitions the king with the creation of a monopoly on beer, arguing that this would improve the local supply of beer. The king, however, talks with the local tavern’s host and a few concerned citizens, who inform him that a beer monopoly would improve nothing but just lines the pocket of the merchant. Thus, the king declines the merchant’s petition.

On another occasion, the ambassador of a neighboring nation belittles the little kingdom for its lack of high class entertainment, being to provincial for fun. The general of the kingdom’s armies rallies his troops and asks the king to order the attack on the offending nation. The king, however, declines, since the war hardly could be won and there is no reason to kill people just over a verbal offense.

In short, the close connection of the king to his people allows him to make informed decisions in their interest; nobody is sending people to war he knows.

II. Losing touch with reality

In the aforementioned example, the king lives the same life as his subjects, he knows their perception and situation very well. The risk of him losing touch with reality is small, leaving aside the human factor, at which we will look in the last part.

However, most rulers need some kind to administration to rule over their realm, because the size and complexity of any nation nowadays, even the smallest ones, are far beyond the capabilities of a single human. It totally makes sense to employ trained experts to create an administration that can handle their specific tasks more efficient and better than any layman.

Next to this administration any ruler usually has a bunch of advisors that are well-versed in their field and thus capable of helping the ruler in his decisions. Finally, any ruler collects a host of people that want to lobby their interest to him.

These people create a bubble around the ruler. The ruler’s perception is formed and controlled by this bubble. His perception of reality is not only warped by special interest groups but by the experts themselves, who never see the full picture but the specifics of their field. An administrative expert for environmental protection will always lobby the hardest protections possible because it is his training and the scope of his work to protect the environment as much as possible. An adviser that focuses on economic development will always push for lax regulation and little taxes. His public finance peer, on the other hand, will push for more taxes or at least for closing loopholes. Adding in lobbyists and you have a bunch of contradicting interests and opinions.

The task of the ruler is to see the whole picture and to find the path that balances the worthy interests while dropping the unworthy. The greater the power that is invested in the ruler, the bigger the bubble. The ruler is a mere human, he cannot hear every voice, balance every interests. Instead, he trusts the advice of close confidantes, who create their own bubble around the ruler while having own advisers, putting layer after layer of bubbles between him and the outside world. Last but not least, the ruler cannot go and mingle with the common folk, too big is the risks of attacks. The limitations of human existence render the most powerful leader powerless, a ship in the stormy seas of politics. This is the dialectic of power.

Being powerless means being out of touch with reality. This connection is necessary, because every ruler can be toppled by the ruled. The ruled are many and the ruler is, in the end, one person with few allies. Making the wrong decision will quickly lead to the ruler losing his power. Even controlling the elements of the bubble can be hard if your intermediaries forget to relay your orders or interpret them in their own interest or use their position for their own advantage. Most modern nation leaders are all but special passengers on a ship that is called the state, barely influencing its course.

III. The Human Factor

On a final note, obviously most rulers aren’t good rulers in a sense that they have vast knowledge and experience to draw from and always decide with nothing than the common good on their mind. Ascending to the top usually means becoming part of and passing through the bubble itself, employing ruthless means. Being humans, they have their own desires to satisfy too.

The dangerous thing is that even the worst ruler wants to rule, thus needs to keep the ruled under control. This too requires a close touch with reality to determine what the ruled will accept or what will lead to a revolution. It’s noteworthy that dictators are often far more concerned with keeping the masses satisfied than leaders of so-called free nations. The latter might have more leeway, but in the end they inadvertently overstep and too be crushed.