That quote is almost straight Machiavelli:

“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

So far I think TPTB's economic revamps have been in the wrong direction, but I keep hoping they'll improve. On Steem and the internet in general it's already a lot harder to completely crush and permanently silence someone than it was in Machiavelli's day, but there's lots of room for improvement. Until we can fix the centralized distribution, fix the economic incentives, and better educate more of the large stakeholders, I think our best option is to increase the linkage density of the social mesh. It's hard to silence someone who has a lot of followers in a large network without people noticing.

Once crushing is off the table, the discipline of constant dealings takes hold and reciprocity gains traction as a strategy. In the real world almost nothing is zero sum. You can usually cooperate for positive sum or betray for a negative sum outcome. Eventually rational people will gravitate toward cooperation and stop wasting time destroying each other for short term selfish gain.