Aretae: "Where there is competition, there is no power. Where there is no competition, there is power."

Hmmm.  And if you can convince someone to cede power to you, for some reason... doesn't that logically result in a death of competition?  It seems like it would be so much easier to go that route, after all, especially in politics.  Skip the whole "getting everyone to agree" step, just jump straight to the grant of power with a "trust me, I know what I'm doing" and voilà! - goodbye competition.

I'm sure that's never happened, though.