Mach attack

Machiavellians are like JCBs: they will crush your heart, your career, and your bank account, then push you into oblivion

Those are found weighty strokes which come from the hand, But those are killing strokes which come from the head O, the rare tricks of a Machiavellian! The White Devil, John Webster (1612)

Think of your favourite politician or actor. What does it take to wield power over others? In a study of the backgrounds of Nazi elites and Chinese communists, sociologist Dr Daniel Lerner from Stanford found that, depending on their lifecycles, social movements attracted individuals with specific personality traits into leadership roles. Small, ideological and revolutionary movements attracted charismatic, neutral, middle-class intelligentsia. As movements grew, those leaders were displaced by less ideological and more resultoriented, lower-class individuals.