Apathy – The Cause Thats Not Worth Fighting For, by Simon Hendley, is a booklet about how apathy really rules the world, it investigates the difference between an active choice to do nothing (apathy) and a passive actuality of not doing anything (laziness).
I worry that there is a slight fuzzying of the causal relationship seen here between apathy and despotic leaders, perhaps despotic leaders see opportunity in other peoples apathy, rather than the lack of apathy in the despotic leader causing problems for everyone else. But I might be overanalysing.
This is a subject that warrants a good deal more pages, but I doubt anyone could be bothered. Maybe there are other works out there, but I can’t be bothered to find them…