Despise the Free Lunch. This is Greene’s recommendation in his fortieth law in The 48 Laws of Power.
What? Hey! That’s not fair! Free is good! Free is great! Say all of us.
“What is free is dangerous,” he says. He says free things usually involve a trick or some hidden obligation. Even if there is no hidden charge, you could end up saddled with gratitude or guilt. He suggests that instead of cutting corners, you pay full price. He suggests that you be lavish with your money and keep it circulating.
I think he definitely has a point, but modern times have definitely changed the dynamic of free stuff. Online, people are used to getting stuff for free. In fact, it has become a thorn in the side of business that people now expect a certain amount of stuff for free. And it has also become a business strategy: give away something (usually information) for free and people will see that your product is a good one. They’ll then buy the supplementary product. It works for millions of online retailers, and it often doesn’t include any hidden obligations.
What it does do is plant that brand in your head, impress you with that brand’s particular quality, and maybe, just maybe, create a little brand loyalty. Is this a price that you pay? Is there anything wrong with this? Not necessarily, no. So modern times have created a way for free stuff to be just plain free. Largely because it’s so easy to disseminate information online.
But there are still plenty of situations where “you’ve won a free trip!” is nothing but a sign of a scam in the making. So, the advice, generally speaking, does hold. Now, Greene’s exhortation to be lavish with your money is interesting. It’s a good theory, but if I sit down right now and buy a thousand bucks worth of stuff on Ebay, I guarantee that is not going to bring me anything except a bunch of stuff. It’s not going to bring me wealth and it’s not going to impress people. So, is it really wise to be lavish instead of frugal?
To be honest, I didn’t tell you his entire statement, which is, “Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.” Oh! So if you’re generous in front of others, then it will lead to power? Exactly. If you’re generous TO others, it will also lead to power. Generosity is a social phenomenon. Except for chat rooms, and then only in a limited way, the internet is cut off from society. Buying stuff online to use alone in my home will not contribute to my power or raise my esteem in the eyes of others. In the same way, if I were to jet to New York tonight, stay long enough to buy myself twenty lavish five-star dinners, then come home, it would not contribute to my power (only my waistline), because I didn’t involve anyone I know. But when you are seen being generous, when you involve others in your spending, when you are observed living with a carefree attitude to money, like a wealthy person does, it does raise your esteem in the eyes of others, and contributes to your power.
Law 39 in Greene’s 48 Laws of Power is “Stir up Waters to Catch Fish.” It refers to emotional waters. If you can get people in an emotionally volatile state, it’ll be counterproductive for them, but something you can take advantage of. Make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, and you gain an advantage. Or make your enemies (or customers) feel greedy, vain, worried, or paranoid, and you can exploit that emotional weakness as well.
Law #37 in Greene’s the 48 Laws of Power states that you should create compelling spectacles. Now, the examples he gives are somewhat archaic, for instance—a Dr. Weisleder, from Berlin, who claimed to cure patients by exposing them to the rays of the moon. It was quite a ceremony, quite a spectacle indeed. Of course, it was bunk, but he had a huge following just because it appealed to peoples’ emotions. Would that work today? Well, to be honest it probably would. There are still all kinds of medical charlatans out there, claiming that all kinds of esoteric approaches work. And there isn’t exactly any way to disprove them or prove them, so that keeps it delightfully vague. That’s the key to the whole spectacle idea. People want an immediate appeal to their emotions. Forget about science. Color, sound, ceremony, and pomp provide that.
We’re getting well up into the second half of The 48 Laws of Power. Law thirty begins summing up the previous laws by stating “make your accomplishments seem effortless.” Basically, it means you have got to pay attention to all the laws, but for heaven’s sakes don’t let anyone know you read this book!
“Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor,” that’s law number 16 in Greene’s book, The 48 Laws of Power. It is also stated as “too much circulation makes the price go down.” (No relation to “too much light makes the baby go blind.”) Basic law of supply and demand, applied to your actual person, rather than a product.
We are up to Law 15 in Greene’s the 48 laws of power. It states that you should “crush your enemy totally.” I completely agree. It states that if one ember of his fire is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. The enemy will recover and seek revenge. They really will.
In Greene’s book, the 48 Laws of Power, he states law 14: “Pose as a friend, work as a spy.” He suggests that in polite social encounters, you probe by asking indirect questions that reveal people’s weaknesses and their intentions.
In my ongoing discussion of the 48 Laws of Power, today I have come to law number four, “always say less than necessary.” This is so hard. Let’s face it, most of the time we never think of the right thing to say at the right time, so when we actually DO think of something outrageously clever and appropriate and oh-so-true to say, we want to say it! And go on and on about it! And really make our point well! And make sure everyone understands!
My mother always told me, “When you marry, if you want anything from your husband, make it sound like it was his idea.” I never observed her successfully perform this amazing feat, however. She was right about it, for sure, but theory and execution are two different things. In Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, he offers law number eight in homage to this bit of housewifely wisdom. It reads, “Make other people come to you—use bait if necessary.”
