The End of Power Quotes

“We know that power is shifting from brawn to brains, from north to south and west to east, from old corporate behemoths to agile start-ups, from entrenched dictators to people in town squares and cyberspace.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“A world where players have enough power to block everyone else’s initiatives but no one has the power to impose its preferred course of action is a world where decisions are not taken, taken too late, or watered down to the point of ineffectiveness. Without”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Power is the ability to direct or privent the current or future actions of other groups and individuals.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“PROPENSITY OF THE YOUNG TO QUESTION AUTHORITY AND challenge power is now amplified by the More and Mobility revolutions. Not only are there more people than ever under thirty, but they have more—prepaid calling-cards, radios, TVs, cellphones, computers, and access to the Internet as well as to travel and communication possibilities with others like them at home and around the world. They are also more mobile than ever.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“He who is active in politics strives for power, either as a means in serving other ends, ideal or egoistic, or as ‘power for power’s sake,’ that is, in order to enjoy the prestige-feeling that power gives.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“When people are more numerous and living fuller lives, they become more difficult to regiment and control.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Today, we ask not what we can do for our country but what our country, employer, fast-food purveyor, or favorite airline can do for us.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Established politicians are also bumping into a new cast of characters within corridors of legislative power. In 2010 parliamentary elections in Brazil, for example, the candidate who won the most votes anywhere in the country (and the second-most-voted congressman in the country's history) was a clown - an actual clown who went by the name of Tiririca and wore his clown costume while he campaigned. His platform was as anti-politician as it gets. "I don't know what a representative in congress does," he told voters in YouTube video that attracted millions of voters, "but if you send me there I will tell you". He also explained that his goal was "to help needy people in this country, but especially my family".”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“enumeró las características fundamentales de las organizaciones burocráticas: puestos de trabajo específicos, con derechos, obligaciones, responsabilidades y límites a su autoridad, detallados y bien conocidos, así como un sistema claro de supervisión, subordinación y unidad de mando. Estas”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“Power is seeping away from autocrats and single-party systems whether they embrace reform or not. It is spreading from large and long-established political parties to small ones with narrow agendas or niche constituencies. Even within parties, party bosses who make decisions, pick candidates, and hammer out platforms behind closed doors are giving way to insurgents and outsiders—to new politicians who haven’t risen up in the party machine, who never bothered to kiss the ring. People entirely outside the party structure—charismatic individuals, some with wealthy backers from outside the political class, others simply catching a wave of support thanks to new messaging and mobilization tools that don’t require parties—are blazing a new path to political power. Whatever path they followed to get there, politicians in government are finding that their tenure is getting shorter and their power to shape policy is decaying. Politics was always the art of the compromise, but now politics is downright frustrating—sometimes it feels like the art of nothing at all. Gridlock is more common at every level of decision-making in the political system, in all areas of government, and in most countries. Coalitions collapse, elections take place more often, and “mandates” prove ever more elusive. Decentralization and devolution are creating new legislative and executive bodies. In turn, more politicians and elected or appointed officials are emerging from these stronger municipalities and regional assemblies, eating into the power of top politicians in national capitals. Even the judicial branch is contributing: judges are getting friskier and more likely to investigate political leaders, block or reverse their actions, or drag them into corruption inquiries that divert them from passing laws and making policy. Winning an election may still be one of life’s great thrills, but the afterglow is diminishing. Even being at the top of an authoritarian government is no longer as safe and powerful a perch as it once was. As Professor Minxin Pei, one of the world’s most respected experts on China, told me: “The members of the politburo now openly talk about the old good times when their predecessors at the top of the Chinese Communist Party did not have to worry about bloggers, hackers, transnational criminals, rogue provincial leaders or activists that stage 180,000 public protests each year. When challengers appeared, the old leaders had more power to deal with them. Today’s leaders are still very powerful but not as much as those of a few decades back and their powers are constantly declining.”3”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“The key is this: When people are more numerous and living fuller lives, they become more difficult to regiment and control.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“New information technologies are tools—and to have an impact, tools need users, who in turn need goals, direction, and motivation.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“power is easier to obtain and harder to use or even to keep.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Empujada por los cambios en la manera de adquirir, usar y retener el poder, la humanidad debe encontrar, y encontrará, nuevas fórmulas para gobernarse.”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“As the historian William McNeill observed, “Innumerable bureaucratic structures that had previously acted more or less independently of one another in a context of market relationships coalesced into what amounted to a single national firm for waging war”—a process that played out in every combatant nation.18”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Specifically it is about how power—the capacity to get others to do, or to stop doing, something—is undergoing a historic and world-changing transformation.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“But this raises the question of what happens when the mosaic of faith shatters into a thousand, a million jagged pieces. When the quest for common good devolves into bespoke kindness designed to advance a particular cause for a particular person. Or when citizens forsake all the news that’s fit to print for only the news they want to hear. All of these amount to a challenge to efforts at collective action. And from climate change to rising inequality, the enormous challenges that we face demand collective action and a new shared way of thinking about the accretion and use of power.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“The decay of power is changing the world.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“But cyber-war has yet to experience its analog to, say, 9/11—an event so massive in scale, damage, and visibility as to focus resources and galvanize public support.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Short-term travel has quadrupled: in 1980, the number of international tourist arrivals accounted for just 3.5 percent of the world’s population, compared to almost 14 percent in 2010.16 Every year, an estimated 320 million people fly to attend professional meetings, conventions, and international gatherings—and their numbers are steadily growing.17”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“This is not just an abstract point. What I mean is that power has a social function. Its role is not just to enforce domination or to create winners and losers: it also organizes communities, societies, marketplaces, and the world. Hobbes explained this well. Because the urge for power is primal, he argued, it follows that humans are inherently conflictual and competitive. Left to express that nature without the presence of power to inhibit and direct them, they would fight until there was nothing left to fight for. But if they obeyed a “common power,” they could put their efforts toward building society, not destroying it. “During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war,” Hobbes wrote, “and such a war as is of every man against every man.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“A world where players have enough power to block everyone else’s initiatives but no one has the power to impose its preferred course of action is a world where decisions are not taken, taken too late, or watered down to the point of ineffectiveness.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Because the urge for power is primal, he argued, it follows that humans are inherently conflictual and competitive. Left to express that nature without the presence of power to inhibit and direct them, they would fight until there was nothing left to fight for. But if they obeyed a “common power,” they could put their efforts toward building society, not destroying it. “During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war,” Hobbes wrote, “and such a war as is of every man against every man.”23”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“Charles Kenny, entre los años 2000 y 2010 la humanidad tuvo la «mejor década de todas».3”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“«revoluciones»: la revolución del más, la revolución de la movilidad y la revolución de la mentalidad.”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“La gente considera que los líderes de la sociedad son menos creíbles y dignos de confianza.”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“medios de comunicación o la proliferación de rivales— a la hora de utilizar ese poder.”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“—las que imponen el activismo ciudadano, los mercados financieros mundiales, el escrutinio de los”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“poder está sufriendo una transformación fundamental que no se ha reconocido ni comprendido lo suficiente.”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder

“nuestro gobierno era un gigante lento, torpe y débil. ¿Cómo explicarlo?”
― Moisés Naím, El fin del poder