Power

At more mundane levels, such tasks as diving operations in the Carolina swamps required a level of discretion and skill far in excess of that required to pick cotton the the South or cut sugar cane in the tropics. Slaves diving in the Carolina swamps had financial incentives and were treated far better. So were slaves working in Virgina's tobacco factories.

The point of all this is that when even slaves had to be paid to get certain kinds of work done, this shows the limits of what can be accomplished by power alone.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

Even the totalitarian governments of the 20th century eventually learned the hard way the limits of what could be accomplished by power alone. Chine still has a totalitarian government today but, after the death of Mao, the Chinese government began to loosen its controls on some parts of the economy, in order to reap the economic benefits of freer markets.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America