![]() ![]() On the other hand, once a dictator who has not been deterred is in power and is committing its murders, it is tempting to forget our commitment and offer him safe haven to minimize the costs ex post. On the one hand, if we (“we” who share classical-liberal values, who know economics, and who, by hypothesis, have a say in this matter) could commit ex ante to never offer safe haven to blood-soaked dictators, which would of course, as Daniel argues, increase the cost of tyranny and reduces the incentive to practice it. “Ordinary Russians will be paying the price of this hubris and this aggression.” “I think will have an insurgency on his hand that is going to be extremely wearing and degrading to him, to his military and to his economy,” the European diplomat said. The early fighting by Ukrainian forces and citizens portends an insurgency even if Russia were to take control of population centers and stand up its own government. But, suggests the Wall Street Journal (“ As Russian Invasion of Ukraine Widens, the West’s Options Shrink,” March 2, 2022), this would likely not be the end of the story: The current thinking about the war in Ukraine seems to be that, by intensifying its aggression, the Russian tyrant will win. The difficult life of the dictator makes everybody else’s life more difficult-except, at least for a time, for their minions and most important supporters and political clienteles. Opponents to a dictator, however, should make sure that they are not themselves, in the process, drifting toward dictatorial power. But this in turn does not mean that his violence should not be countered: resistance increases the cost to dictators, and the more so as if it affects their personal security. This is not denying that a cornered dictator may be a public danger for his subjects and, especially if he is armed with nuclear weapons, for foreigners. The lower the net benefits an autocrat can obtain, the lower his incentives to get the job or create the job for himself. No one is compelled by law to be a dictator.ĭespite the myth or dream of the benevolent despot, anyone who (like Tullock) shares classical-liberal or libertarian values is happy that a dictator’s life is difficult, and hopes these difficulties more than cancel the benefits he may gain from power and stolen money. The life of a dictator is not an easy one, but there is no reason we should feel particularly sympathetic. (“ Some Russian Troops Are Surrendering or Sabotaging Vehicles Rather Than Fighting, a Pentagon Official Says,” New York Times, March 1, 2022) ![]() The military’s morale is low, in part because it is not easy to motivate a 20-year-old conscript to service missiles fired on women and children and to shoot foreigners whose lifestyles he probably envies. His army is much less capable than he thinks but an efficient one would of course represent a higher danger of coup against him. The autocrat also obtains poor intelligence in military matters. (On the economics of dictatorship, see Gordon Tullock, Autocracy see also my Econlog post “ The Autocrat and the Free Press: A Model,” October 15, 2019.) The dictator is “ isolated and out of touch,” as Putin is said to be more and more. His minions are often afraid to tell him the truth as they can be held responsible for the bad news. But he has little choice because a free press would directly endanger his tenure in the job, if not his life. The lack of a free press dramatically limits the autocrat’s knowledge of what is really happening in society (and in the military too). Putin’s regime illustrates the well-known flaws of a command-and-control system. (I take “autocrat” and “dictator” as synonyms.) The cost of communications with the rest of the world has dramatically decreased for ordinary people, although Putin is trying hard to compensate for this with internal propaganda through state media. Vladimir Putin’s control-and-command apparatus is not as pure as that of the former USSR, if only because of the presence of oligarchs who have pecuniary incentives to run money-making businesses yet, their main incentive is to stay in the good grace of the dictator. The war in Ukraine illustrates how difficult it is to be an autocrat on top of a command-and-control system. ![]()
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