A Little Strategy for Business, Politics, or any other field where public approval is vital.

Lately, I've been mulling over the following idea, which I recognized as a basic principle of any field where outside perceptions are critical to victory or failure. I noticed this principle while playing Texas Hold 'Em within the game Red Dead Redemption (published by Rockstar Games) on my Xbox 360 console. Big corporations or other large entities with massive amounts of liquid capital are in the same position as a gambler playing Texas Hold 'Em who possesses a large purse with which to place bets throughout the game. Essentially, anyone in such a position has the ability to win without a winning hand, simply by bluffing consistently, confidently, and patiently enough to both drive up the Pot, while also eventually driving all other competition to fold, either out of fear of losing or because they can no longer afford to remain in the game. Having driven up the Pot slowly, the other players stayed in the game long enough to at least contribute resources of their own to the Pot which ends up as the winnings of the protagonist of my hypothetical card game scenario. If the protagonist appears too confident in his hand prematurely, the other players will fold before contributing to the Pot, resulting in little or no winnings beyond the contributions of the protagonist and the entry fees for each game, making the effort less productive while also increasing risk for the protagonist if another player has an excellent hand. This translates into business and politics in a similar fashion - the better funded organizations with highly liquid capital have a cushion which enhances their ability to demonstrate resolve in the face of opposition, regardless of how bad their playbooks (the equivalent of their hands) really are, driving smaller business to use up their own capital while the bigger players can remain cozy in their own positions. Which makes modern business and government influence more of a game about influencing perception of your ability to succeed than about any other strategy, including issues, ethics, hard work, or anything else. Sure, there is always a small chance that someone else focusing on a winning hand playing on one or more of these factors can still beat them, but the probability is incredibly small that they will even be able to gain such a hand, let alone often enough to keep on beating the bigger players. So politics and business in this period of time is largely driven by money and marketing, creating a drastically lopsided playing field.