Friend: Have you read the power broker ?

Me: Yes I finished it in December

Friend: How did you find it?

Me: Long, so it’s only for the practiced reader. I’m reading on a mission so it’s easy for me to get through a book like that.

My main takeaway from Aristotle is that the best way for all but the genius to understand the universal is to understand many specifics. The Power Broker, along with other biographies are basically those specifics repeated over and over again.

The two main takeaways I had from The Power Broker is that there are two sources of power:

1) If you understand something better than literally everyone else, and are in a position where that understanding can be applied, you can gain an immense amount of leverage. Moses’ power originally came from very minor changes in the language of parks legislation. He gave himself powers so expansive by using a definition of “appropriation” as applied in an obscure law from the 1800s that allowed NY to use eminent domain on forest land without any delay or appeal, in order to prevent the trees from being cut down when going through the eminent domain process. Everyone who read the bill thought of “appropriation” as it normally applied, as in he could request money from the legislature, but instead he was given the power to appropriate basically whatever land he wanted in NYS by just showing up with police and telling the previous owner to request compensation from a court.

That allowed him the essentially unconstitutional power to appropriate any land he wanted in the state. Not only that he could do so essentially without having the money to pay for it. Since he could take the land and the owner had to seek compensation afterwards, he could appropriate land, then trust that the legislature was going to come up with the funds after the fact as the damage had already been done, and his parkways already started.

Now this power was certainly unconstitutional. However it wasn’t challenged for decades specifically because Parks were a bipartisan issue. The masses of NYC wanted out, and parkways and parks were universally popular at the time. The people whose land he appropriated were not a strong political force. The people who tried to stop him didn’t have the money to legislate, while NYS law provided essentially an infinite legal fund Moses could draw down from.

All this power originated from an obscure clause in legislation Moses advised on, because he happened to be the most informed man on NYS legislation at the time. He created the Parks Commissioner job for himself, and gave it unprecedented power.

2) Power originates from money that can be spent freely. Moses was an unelected official who controlled hundreds of millions of dollars in Triborough revenue. He was not subject to auditing, pressures of elections, or really any political considerations.

When it comes to building a bridge, you hire thousands of workers and possibly hundreds of contractors and subcontractors. Does he use Acme corp or American Industrial corp for providing the accounting? They’re the same price, the same quality, so the side he chooses doesn’t really matter. Who he gives the contract to is the guy who Moses eats with, is friends with, and who is willing to muster significant money, private money mind you, to support the candidate that Moses favors.

The man was bipartisan or apolitical, whatever you want to call it. He was a reformer who advocated for change, but also ran for governor as a Republican. Of course he lost since he had no negative charisma for handling the public, but he wasn’t wedded to any side so long as he had power to build his bridges, parks, and roads.

Thus for decades politicians had the option of getting massive financial support from private donors from Triborough contractors that donated because Moses merely suggested that they were on “our side.” That translates directly into political influence, and all this for a cause that everyone and their grandmother supports; Parks and roads (this was before the mass-transit people were popular. At the time Cars were the innovative solution).

He also applied his knowledge of government, better than almost any other man alive, to increase his financial resources. When the Federal Government decided we need to build infrastructure, which for FDR and post-WW2 US was a big priority for the government, they didn’t centrally plan it. They couldn’t, as the country was too vast and too different. Instead they would announce they were going to pay for a billion dollars of infrastructure, and wait for proposals. Of course every municipality in the country wanted the money, but only Moses, with his crack-team of Urban planners, architects and engineers, the best of which he scooped up for literally fractions of a cent on the dollar during the Great Depression, would come up with proposals in weeks. Sometimes they were literally ready to go on day 1, since he had so many great employees, whereas other public institutions were understaffed.

So whenever there was federal funding for infrastructure, a complete, well-planned proposal was on the desk of some bureaucrat in Washington within hours. Whereas for anyone else it would be months, or even years, before they had something. So naturally the money flowed to Moses’ proposals. And a bridge Triborough built with 50% Federal money all of a sudden freed up half that money for more “graft” to lubricate his political machine I mention above.

His biggest flaw, which seems to be the flaw of all great men, was Hubris. Not just against God (although for Moses there was that too…), but against other men, and against the changing times. He was going deaf but refused to wear a hearing aid since it made him look old. He would fire anyone who disagreed with him, surrounding himself with Yes men.

Importantly, whenever he encountered pushback from politicians (mayors or governors) he would threaten to resign. And Moses had great popular support as the apolitical man who built parks and roads for the people underpriced, an image was supported by a similar graft as he was doing in politics, in media.

Eventually his threat to resign was called. He sent a letter in to the mayor, and his resignations from a dozen political positions that allowed him his power was accepted. He was by then an old man, and he thought the public would be up in arms to reinstate him, but it turns out nobody cared. A man in his 80s resigning from politics wasn’t seen as a power play, but as a man gracefully moving to retirement. He miscalculated, and willingly resigned almost all his power on a bluff. He couldn’t imagine that he wasn’t the young popular man that he used to be. Hubris against his own mortality that was present to everyone else.

Tbh this is why I am reading the western canon and many biographies. I think there’s now a double-digit chance I will become a consequential figure (before I’d say single digits), and all these great men fail or burn up their legacy in similar ways. If things work out like I plan over the next 10-20 years, I’ll be very vulnerable to the same failures as the men that came before. I expect that I will fail too, becoming arrogant, haughty, hubristic, whatever you want to call it. But at the very least I’m putting in the effort while my mind is still young and pliable. When the task is important enough, an expectation to fail should not discourage you from trying, so long as there’s a conceivable chance of success.

Great book all around. It wouldn’t be the first biography I would recommend due to its length and extreme detail being possibly tedious for most readers, but for the right person it’s excellent.

Very possibly the “best” biography written on some metrics.

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This is just me pasting my thoughts on Caro’s The Power Broker here as I’m referencing them in an essay I’m writing. This is unedited, so please forgive any typos! I may turn this into an essay this week.