Throughout history, governments have repeatedly been appropriated to personal purposes by pharaohs, emperors, kings, dictators, theocrats (), and other rulers. The ruler's value scale determines the ends of government, and his or her subjects become means to those ends. The disadvantage of such systems for the subjects is evident: they are no longer able to realize either their subjective or their objective values to an optimal degree.

Less obviously, such governments fail to serve even the interests of the rulers or ruling classes effectively. Because dictatorial rule engenders a tremendous natural conflict between the values imposed by the rulers and those of the subjects, it is necessarily tenuous and precarious. The history of such régimes is replete with beheadings and other gruesome assassinations, political intrigue, and paranoia often leading to insanity. On net balance, the life of a Julius Caesar, a Louis XVI, or a Saddam Hussein is not an enviable one. In their egotistic pursuit of subjective ends, such individuals fail utterly to realize optimum levels of life and well-being, i. e., their self-interest as understood by rational egoism.     

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