Skin in the Game

The Nature of Leadership and Divine Kingship

“Do not stand apart from the work, nor shy away from the risk of failure. True leadership demands that you share in the burden, for only by your own hand will justice be done and honor preserved.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Having skin in the game”—a phrase oft confined to the vulgar corridors of business—carries within it a far greater truth, a principle that underlies the very nature of leadership, power, and existence itself. It is not merely a matter of personal risk or investment in outcomes. No, it speaks to the deeper demand placed upon those who wield power: they must be bound, body and soul, to the consequences of their decisions. In business, in governance, and in life, the absence of this principle marks the slow death of true authority. Where leaders are insulated from the repercussions of their actions, power becomes hollow, diffused, and without honor. The essence of leadership withers when it becomes abstracted from personal consequence.

In modern governance, this degradation is glaring. The bureaucrat, that faceless servant of a soulless machine, reigns supreme. No longer does the leader stand before the people, risking life and legacy with each decree. Instead, power is diffused through a web of processes, institutions, and committees. The leader, untethered from the consequences of failure, is no leader at all, for true leadership requires a man to stake his very being on the results of his will.

The Erosion of Authority

What has become of the spirit of kingship, that ancient archetype of power rooted in both the temporal and the divine? Where once kings were bound by a sacred covenant, accountable not only to their subjects but to the very cosmos, today’s leaders hide behind the apparatus of bureaucracy, their hands clean but their souls stained by indifference. The critiques of men like Carlyle and Yarvin, who decry the rise of bureaucracy and the fall of personal, accountable leadership, speak to this fundamental loss. Bureaucracy, as David Graeber so eloquently illuminated, is the antithesis of authority. It is a system designed to disperse responsibility, where no single hand bears the weight of failure. In this way, the bureaucratic state mirrors the cowardice of the bureaucrat himself—retreating from the burdens of true power, content to manage systems, not souls.

But true authority is not born of systems; it emerges from the will, and the will must bear the weight of the world. To invoke authority was to assume the mantle of cosmic responsibility, to have skin not only in the game of politics, but in the very fabric of the universe. Leadership without such spiritual accountability is no leadership at all. The modern bureaucrat, by contrast, wields power without consequence, shirking the responsibility that should bind him to the results of his actions.

The Failure of Modern Leadership: Carlyle and Yarvin’s Critique

Thomas Carlyle, who saw in history the works of great men, would shudder at the hollow shells that pass for leaders today. To Carlyle, leadership was a personal, heroic endeavor—an act of will where the leader stands alone, accountable to the people and to himself. Bureaucracy, with its layers of abstraction and diffusion of responsibility, strips this heroic model of its essence. The bureaucrat, shielded from failure, is incapable of true leadership because he risks nothing, his decisions echoing in hollow chambers where no true accountability exists.

Curtis Yarvin, too, sees this modern system as a betrayal of leadership’s core. In his call for a return to monarchism, Yarvin offers a vision where power and responsibility are again united in the figure of a single ruler. For him, the bureaucrat is a symptom of democracy’s decay—a system where no one is truly in charge and thus no one can be held responsible. In Yarvin’s monarchism, the king is not only a ruler but a man with everything to lose. His decisions determine not just his subjects’ fates, but his own. He has skin in the game, and that makes all the difference. In failing, the monarch loses his throne, his wealth, his legacy—perhaps even his life. Therein lies the essence of true leadership: a man who risks all in the exercise of his will.

The Bureaucratic Revolution: A Poisoned Legacy

The managerial revolution of the 20th century, as chronicled by James Burnham, marked the rise of the bureaucrat and the demise of personal responsibility in leadership. The shift from kings and owners to managers and bureaucrats has hollowed out the soul of leadership. Those who control resources now hold the reins of power, but they do so without risk. The bureaucrat, unlike the king, cannot be dethroned. His survival is guaranteed by the very structure of the system that insulates him from failure. Burnham understood that this revolution was not merely a shift in governance but a degradation of leadership itself. It signaled the rise of a class of rulers who govern without responsibility, safe behind the walls of bureaucracy, where failure is diluted, and no one stands to lose.

Restoring Leadership: A Return to Skin in the Game

If we are to restore leadership to its rightful place, we must reintroduce the principle of skin in the game—not just in the material sense, but in the spiritual and moral dimensions as well. Leadership must once again be a sacred act, where the leader is bound not only to the people but to the cosmos itself. To lead is to place oneself at the center of the world, to take on the weight of both the material and the divine.

Whether through decentralization of power, a return to monarchic forms of governance, or a reimagining of leadership roles, the path forward must involve a radical reassertion of personal accountability. Those who lead must be willing to risk everything—not just their reputations or careers, but their very souls. Only then can we break free from the bureaucratic quagmire that has consumed modern governance and reclaim the true essence of leadership.

Conclusion: The Triumph of the Will

In the end, the choice is clear: we must choose between the bureaucrat and the king, between hollow leadership and true authority. The lesson from Carlyle, Yarvin, and Graeber is simple: without personal investment, without the risk of failure, there can be no leadership. The king, with his skin in the game, his soul on the line, embodies the true essence of power. The bureaucrat, safe in his system, does not. And so, if we are to reclaim the future, we must once again place leadership in the hands of those who are willing to bear its full weight. Only then will we escape the stagnation of bureaucracy and rise to the heights that true leadership demands.