What Would Machiavelli Do? The Ends Justify the Meanness

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful: A satire or an instruction book?, December 16, 1999 By A Customer This is a five-star book if you're interested in the decadence and peril of corporate culture, or if you like Stanley Bing. It's a SIX STAR book if you work for the real-life Bing and have learned anything at all from its pages. "What Would Machiavelli Do" is both a satire of America's sadistic corporate culture AND an instruction book on how to be a ruthless, self-indulgent ladder-climber. It's very funny, except when you think too much about it. Bing acknowledges and accepts--even celebrates--the twisted idiosyncrasies of life among the suits; stuff that would make any blue collar worker or crunchy granola idealist puke. But it's all true, and that's the sad part. Bing sees it all for how strange it is, and it's his perception that enables him to both make fun of the system while succeeding in it. It's a strange contradiction. It's as if business were a mudhole and Bing glides along easily without ever getting dirty because he has a profound understanding of mud. Anyway, I liked it. The book put in writing a lot of what I thought about the business world, and a lot that nobody in upper management would ever admit to.