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To: Paul C. Jesup
Sun Tzu's Art of War is a great handbook for fighting a war, but if you try to apply away from the battlefield, towards the inner workings of government all you will end up with is a Macivellian tyranny.

The key to applying the type of generalized rules that Sun Tzu laid out is knowing when they apply and when they don't. Once having identified that, one then has to apply a proper response. The application of Sun Tzu in the business place does not result in tyranny, but rather the mis-application, IMHO.

As for Machiavelli, he never advocated tyranny, but was simply one of the most astute observers of human nature that has ever put pen to paper since Aristotle.

Machiavelli

83 posted on 01/03/2006 10:08:52 AM PST by PsyOp (The commonwealth is theirs who hold the arms.... - Aristotle.)
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To: PsyOp
The key to applying the type of generalized rules that Sun Tzu laid out is knowing when they apply and when they don't. Once having identified that, one then has to apply a proper response. The application of Sun Tzu in the business place does not result in tyranny, but rather the mis-application, IMHO.

The Art of War does not take into account of personal freedoms of the masses/people since such concepts did not did not exist back then.

As for Machiavelli, he never advocated tyranny, but was simply one of the most astute observers of human nature that has ever put pen to paper since Aristotle.

Machiavelli wrote the book "The Prince", which was basically a handguide to the justifications of a tyrant.

90 posted on 01/03/2006 1:38:21 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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