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A batch of the best highlights from what Jophin's read, .
Competent people, after all, are potential (and potentially competent) rivals. The three most important characteristics of a coalition are: (1) Loyalty; (2) Loyalty; (3) Loyalty. Successful leaders surround themselves with trusted friends and family, and rid themselves of any ambitious supporters. Carly Fiorina had a hard time achieving that objective and as a result she failed to last long.
The Dictator's Handbook
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith
Nature is a soil for society, the fold out of which it grew and the envelope it can never break out of, but just as a tree can be told from its soil, society can be differentiated from nature, because it has shot up from the ground and branched off in untold directions over the course of what we refer to as history.
The Progress of This Storm
Andreas Malm
it is important to recognize that, as Anderson points out, the terms “agent” and “subject” are both internally contradictory. “Agent” can signify an active initiator (as it has been used in critical theory) as well as an instrument acting on behalf of another body (e.g., the “agent” of a foreign power). Similarly, the word “subject” can signify forms of sovereignty (e.g., being a “subject” of history as opposed to being an object) as well as subordination (as in “subjection,” or being the king’s subject). __Perhaps what the internal contradictions of these terms highlight, as well as our ambiguous use of them, is that when we take action—when we negotiate structures through our own subjective positions—we are never operating as the fictive autonomous individual, nor are we operating in politically neutral terrain: we are instead always taking action amid ongoing historical processes and relations, and, ultimately, on behalf of some set of interests.__
A Marxist Education
Wayne Au
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