Iron Law vs. Hero

There are 2 basic positions on having a leader.

Position 1 is perhaps best said by the beautiful movie Hero. 1st...I encourage everyone to watch it. Beautiful. 2nd...there's some hard political philosophy in there. Summary position by the King: I need to cause significant destruction, and conquer all of China, so that we will have peace, and prosperity can reign.

Position 2 is best exemplified by Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy (also noted today by Borepatch):

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

ALL organizations exist (sooner or later) PRIMARILY in order to benefit the organization, NOT to accomplish the organization's nominal goal. Coupled with the notion that ingroup benefit comes at the expense of outgroup cost...Organizations are all trying to screw the greater public and benefit the ingroup. This included governments.

All governments are trying to screw everyone that isn't part of the ruling class all the time.

To some extent, everyone has to pick a side. I think the evils of organizational sclerosis and (even worse) of government sclerosis, are the killer problem threatening to destroy growth, and condemn us all to the Malthusian hell that China suffered through for 2-3000 years.

EDIT: The Iron Law also helps explain this.