The conclusion of this essay about the dictatorship of the small minority by Nassim Nicholas Taleb was written in August of 2016, and now appears prescient.
Alexander said that it was preferable to have an army of sheep led by a lion to an army of lions led by a sheep. Alexander (or no doubt he who produced this probably apocryphal saying) understood the value of the active, intolerant, and courageous minority. Hannibal terrorized Rome for a decade and a half with a tiny army of mercenaries, winning twenty-two battles against the Romans, battles in which he was outnumbered each time. He was inspired by a version of this maxim. At the battle of Cannae, he remarked to Gisco who complained that the Carthaginians were outnumbered by the Romans: "There is one thing that's more wonderful than their numbers ... in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.[6]"[i]Unus sed leo: only one but a lion.
This large payoff from stubborn courage is not just in the military. The entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people. So we close this chapter with a remark about the role of skin in the game in the condition of society. Society doesn't evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meeting, academic conferences, and polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere. And asymmetry is present in about everything.
It's important to realize: most "lions" get crushed by the majority -- but the minority of successful "lions" still have a huge effect on society.
