Coercion it used all the time. Castro would send his doctors abroad, getting them paid handsomely by aid agencies and he'd take the lion's share of their income, and he'd get away with it by holding the doctor's family de-facto ransom. The Chinese government is known to do this.

There's a missing item: 'Duty + Guilt'. Governments will use a softer form of this coercion whilst trying to imbue a sense of national duty (I guess a kind of 'ideology') upon individuals, guilting them into 'doing the right thing for their people'.

The Chinese government plays at least a small role on many Western campuses helping organize their expats, promoting their agenda etc.

That's not Coercion in this context, it's Money.

Think more along the lines of Honeypot and blackmail when you think Coercion in this sense.

It may be money for Castro, but we're talking about identifying an actor using MICE. The original poster was correct, the actor was being coerced. Don't over think it.

What I had in mind by Ego was "flattery", so in a positive sense. In retrospect, ego without M is an empty, impotent argument.

Please don't make a trollish username on HN. It's distracting, since the account basically trolls every thread it posts to.

We can rename the account for you if you email a better username to [email protected], but I've banned this account in the meantime.

Or ego in the form of bait and switch offers of getting to have leadership responsibility or opportunity to heavily influence decision making about technical choices.

Hype a position up like someone has creative autonomy to lead, because it strokes their ego, then later just shrug.

You could argue that the US military uses ego very successfully. The money isn't good all things considered but it is reliable/stable. So, I think it is a mix of M and E.

Now imagine if we make universal health care and universal college education free of cost and available everywhere to everyone regardless of income. I bet military recruiters' job will become a lot harder.

This makes me wonder: why can't we use ego in civil service? I'm thinking police, firefighters, and transit workers (from the bottom all the way to top management). Because after all, if we want to reduce cost (and I hope we all do) then what's better than to reduce pay?

Ego without additional money could be a valid argument. A lot of engineers would leave a job where nothing gets done for an equal-paying job with a lot of impact.