"But I acted through necessity, not choice, and, while Mike's position was improved, it was still not an easy one.  Mike was, for the nonce, the acknowledged sovereign of Mars under the legalistic malarky of the Larkin precedent... and, as such, was empowered to hand out concessions, trading rights, enclaves, ad nauseam.  He must either do these things himself... and thus be subjected to pressures even worse than those attendant on great wealth and for which he is even less fitted - or he must abdicate his titular position and allow his Larkin rights to devolve on those twenty-three men now on Mars, i.e., to Douglas."