Brinkmanship in Business

This article could be entitled, “How to Succeed in Business by Being Unreasonable.” Most businessmen are very skillful in this respect, although their behavior is popularly called negotiation, gamesmanship, or, perhaps most apt of all, brinkmanship. The art of being unreasonable is not, of course, restricted to smoke-filled rooms at corporate headquarters. The principles are regularly applied by labor union negotiators, diplomats, and extortionists as well as by businessmen.