Machiavelli

When describing the Roman campaigns of military decimations, Nicollo Machivelli, the famous analyst of power wrote that it was an admirable tactic. As brutal as it was, he said, it solved a very important problem for the king. If the army was suspected of disobedience, he needed a credible punishment. Killing all the people in the army will leave him with no army and not responding at all risks diminishing his authority. Killing 10% of the army randomly seems to keep enough people thankful to survive and fearful enough to obey while maintaining enough men to have an army.

Henry Ford famously loved firing employees arbitrarily regardless of how productive they were in absolute terms. Keeping employees in constant fear of being at the bottom of the rankings and in competition with one another seemed to work as well as the roman decimations in keeping people obedient and disciplined. The fear of losing your job may not be as bad as the fear of losing one’s life, but it has a very similar effect. Women famously report while working on GM plants in 1930s that resisting sexual advances by managers was dangerous. Nobody wanted to lose their job. A climate of fear amongst people can only be sustained if everyone is easily replaceble. That was the case at GM before the major sit down strikes.