In the 1940s, the Swiss ethologist Rudolf Schenkel coined the term “alpha male” to describe the dominance of a single male in a colony of chimpanzees. Later the term was extended to describe dominant males and, less frequently, females in human groups. Chimpanzees happen to be our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. So, isn’t it possible that we too share their predilection for the rule of one?
The reason I am writing about the alpha male is because we have started to see again the rise of super-dominant men both in politics and business. I say again, because after a very long period of tyrants, kings, emperors, and dictators we had entered a period of more collective governance models. So, I wonder whether the reemergence of the rule of one comes from the yearning of the subjects, the conditions of the times, or the force of the Ones.
The twentieth century had no small supply of them. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Salazar, Sukarno, Marcos, and Mao, along with a collection of Latin American and African dictators, became masters of the fate of their people. This century, the rule of one has reemerged in Putin and Xi Jinping (as well as a few others of lesser import). There are interesting differences and commonalities. Rules of one that took the world to war have mostly come from the far right: think Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan; today it is Putin’s Russia. Most of them rule after they have seized the levers of state power. But some also manage to capture the loyalty of a large segment of their fellow citizens; think of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Putin, Xi Jinping.
In the United States political leaders have either willingly refrained from pursuing the rule of one – George Washington being the primary example – or the constitutional checks and balances have proved to be quite effective in curbing such ambitions among politicians. The striking exception is Donald Trump. His rule over the Republican Party comes from the force of his appeal to the base of the party which is strong enough to help him enforce his rule by destroying the electoral success of his rivals in the party. This is a cautionary note regarding the vulnerability of democracy to the appeal of the rule of one.
The rule of one has been though a lot more pervasive in the world of American business. The Gilded Age got its name from the riches and business power of business tycoons who made their fortunes in oil, steel, railroads and finance and were named robber barons. Their rule over the economy eventually waned after the passage of anti-trust legislation and under the political weight of the Progressive movement. Extremely high marginal tax rates, in excess of 90% in the war and post-war years, further arrested the growth of their wealth and along with it their political power.
In the post-war period, the baton of alpha business males was passed on to the CEOs of large conglomerates. What comes to mind includes, Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, General Electric’s Jack Welch, and Disney’s Michael Eisner. That was the era of managerialism and corporate “empire building.” No matter though how big their personalities were, the power of these executives was circumscribed by their corporate boards and the capital markets, especially the stock market, that passed judgment on their performance.
Now, though, we have a different type of rule of one in business. The new Ones are founders of firms over which they have uncontestable control that makes them practically unanswerable to their stakeholders. So, they can act on a personal whim with great latitude, very much so as in the era of the robber barons. Thanks to very bullish market conditions they have also amassed mythical amounts of wealth in the form of shareholdings.
Like the old robber barons, the riches of the new Ones come from a combination of innovative practices and technologies and anti-competitive tactics. Mostly unchecked by anti-trust legal challenges, they have been able to absorb any competitor that threatens their dominance in their markets. By effectively depriving consumers alternative outlets to shop they create ecosystems of captured clienteles. When we look at the rise of the earlier robber barons and the recent Ones, we see that it happens when business opportunities and technologies are in an inflection point. The Ones rise by capturing new markets and technology before society and the state have had the time to place any rules and standards.
Thus, the Ones are in a position to preemptively shape our future before we, as a society, have a chance to decide it. Their hold on markets and technology can have a decisive influence on speech and expression, on social and political discourse, surveillance rights, and the end uses of other transformative innovations. Here we are not talking only about the dominance of technocracy on our civic, social and personal lives. We are talking about who controls technocracy. The highly entrenched rule of one forecloses any collective deliberative process through boards, regulatory oversight, or social input. It’s like placing our faith in the sense of self-moderation and self-regulation of single individuals. *
What stands behind the power and the potential scope of the power of the Ones is the unfettered faith in the resilience of competitive markets and unrestrained exercise of private property rights that Francis Fukuyama criticizes in the book I cited in my last blogpost. What we seem to miss is that Adam Smith’s faith in free private markets and John Locke’s elevation of property rights can eventually crash against the unbound ambitions of entrepreneurs to whom competitive markets are unnecessary obstacles toward gaining business dominance and property rights are the ticket to self-aggrandizement.
In Russia and China, we saw the rise of business tycoons whom we call oligarchs. These oligarchs operate in a symbiotic relationship and at the pleasure of an authoritarian strongman or a single party. Western democracies are supposed to serve social contracts according to which the private interest is bound up by societal and national interests. Why are we then willing to place the future of our social contract in the hands of our own oligarchs?
*On this point, it is informative to know how Elon Musk, the most prominent example of the rule of one, thinks. According to The Economist, Mr. Musk “paints stewards of fair play – regulators and boards – as pettifogging enemies of progress.” And he refers to S.E.C. (the Securities and Exchange Commission) officials as “those bastards.”
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