For a particularly dramatic example of this, read G.K. Chesterton&#x27;s _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_.<p>In the book, England, late in a long and uneventful history, is governed by lot; a randomly-chosen individual is crowned King and given dictatorial powers. Eventually, the lot falls on a bored nihilist with a fondness for 16th-century uniforms, and within twenty years London is a patchwork of feuding principalities with antiquated weapons, beautiful heraldry, and a whole lot of innocent people dead.<p>This book confirms what you&#x27;re saying: it&#x27;s not very likely that a barking madman will be randomly chosen as dictator, but it only has to happen once.<p>(The strangest thing about it is that Chesterton saw the most troublesome belligerents, who at one point threaten to use a water tower as a sort of late-Victorian atomic bomb, as the good guys; their willingness to use violence brought beauty and dignity back to a pacific, indolent world. This book was written before Chesterton became Catholic, and its bored nihilism reflects his own feelings at the time; I strongly suspect that it had an influence on the development of fascism, given that Mussolini was a fan of Chesterton&#x27;s.)