Алистер Смит - The Dictator's Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Bravo to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for introducing universal adult suffrage in Russia’s old rigged election system. Lenin mastered the art of creating a vast supply of interchangeables.

Rule 3: Control the flow of revenue. It’s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from which the people can feed themselves. The most effective cash flow for leaders is one that makes lots of people poor and redistributes money to keep select people—their supporters—wealthy.

Bravo to Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, estimated to be worth up to $4 billion even as he governs a country near the world’s bottom in per capita income.

Rule 4: Pay your key supporters just enough to keep them loyal. Remember, your backers would rather be you than be dependent on you. Your big advantage over them is that you know where the money is and they don’t. Give your coalition just enough so that they don’t shop around for someone to replace you and not a penny more.

Bravo to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who, whenever facing a threat of a military coup, manages finally to pay his army, keeping their loyalty against all odds.

Rule 5: Don’t take money out of your supporter’s pockets to make the people’s lives better. The flip side of rule 4 is not to be too cheap toward your coalition of supporters. If you’re good to the people at the expense of your coalition, it won’t be long until your “friends” will be gunning for you. Effective policy for the masses doesn’t necessarily produce loyalty among essentials, and it’s darn expensive to boot. Hungry people are not likely to have the energy to overthrow you, so don’t worry about them. Disappointed coalition members, in contrast, can defect, leaving you in deep trouble.

Bravo to Senior General Than Shwe of Myanmar, who made sure following the 2008 Nargis cyclone that food relief was controlled and sold on the black market by his military supporters rather than letting aid go to the people—at least 138,000 and maybe as many as 500,000 of whom died in the disaster.4

Do the Rules Work in Democracies?

At this point, you may be saying, Hold on! If an elected leader followed these rules she’d be out of the job in no time flat. You’re right—almost.

As we’ll see throughout the chapters to follow, a democratic leader does indeed have a tougher time maintaining her position while looting her country and siphoning off funds. She’s constrained by the laws of the land, which also determine—through election procedures—the size of the coalition that she needs in order to come to power. The coalition has to be relatively large and she has to be responsive to it, so she does have a problem with Rule 1. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t try to follow Rule 1 as closely as she can (and all of the other rules too).

Why, for example, does Congress gerrymander districts? Precisely because of Rule 1: Keep the coalition as small as possible.

Why do some political parties favor immigration? Rule 2: Expand the set of interchangeables.

Why are there so many battles over the tax code? Rule 3: Take control of the sources of revenue.

Why do Democrats spend so much of that tax money on welfare and social programs? Or why on earth do we have earmarks? Rule 4: Reward your essentials at all costs.

Why do Republicans wish the top tax rate were lower, and have so many problems with the idea of national health care? Rule 5: Don’t rob your supporters to give to your opposition.

Just like autocrats and tyrants, leaders of democratic nations follow these rules because they, like every other leader, want to get power and keep it. Even democrats almost never step down unless they’re forced to.5 The problem for democrats is that they face different constraints and have to be a little more creative than their autocratic counterparts. And they succeed less often. Even though they generally provide a much higher standard of living for their citizens than do tyrants, democrats generally have shorter terms in office.

Political distinctions are truly continuous across the intersection of the three dimensions that govern how organizations work. Some “kings” in history have actually been elected. Some “democrats” rule their nations with the authority of a despot. In other words, the distinction between autocrats and democrats isn’t cut and dried.

Having laid the foundation for our new theory of politics and having revealed the five rules of leadership, we’ll turn to the big questions at the heart of the book, often using the terms autocrats and democrats throughout, to show how the games of leadership change as you slide from one extreme to the other on the spectrum of small and large coalitions. But just remember, there’s always a little mix of both worlds regardless of the country or organization in question. The lessons from both extremes apply—whether you’re talking about Saddam Hussein or George Washington. After all, the old saw still holds true—politicians are all the same.

2

Coming to Power

FOR CENTURIES, “JOHN DOE” HAS SERVED AS THE placeholder name assigned to unidentified nobodies. And while his first name may have been Samuel, not John, in every other respect Liberia’s Sergeant Doe was just such a nobody until April 12, 1980. Born in a remote part of Liberia’s interior and virtually illiterate, he, like hundreds of thousands of others in his predicament, moved out of the West African jungle in search of work. He headed to the capital city, Monrovia, where he found that the army held great opportunities even for men, like him, who had no skills. One of these opportunities presented itself when Doe found himself in President William Tolbert’s bedroom on April 12. As the president slept, he seized the day, bayoneted the president, threw his entrails to the dogs, and declared himself Liberia’s new president.1 Thus did he rise from obscurity to claim the highest office in his land.

Together with sixteen other noncommissioned officers, Doe had scaled the fence at the Executive Mansion, hoping to confront the president and find out why they had not been paid. Seeing the opportunity before him, he ended the dominance of Tolbert’s True Whig Party, a political regime created by slaves repatriated from America in 1847. He immediately rounded up thirteen cabinet ministers, who were then publically executed on the beach in front of cheering crowds. Many more deaths would follow. Doe then headed the People’s Redemption Council that suspended the constitution and banned all political activity.

Doe had no idea what a president was supposed to do and even less idea of how to govern a country. What he did know was how to seize power and keep it: remove the previous ruler; find the money; form a small coalition; and pay them just enough to keep them loyal. In short order, he proceeded to replace virtually everyone who had been in the government or the army with members of his own small Krahn tribe, which made up only about 4 percent of the population. He increased the pay of army privates from $85 to $250 per month. He purged everyone he did not trust. Following secret trials, he had no fewer than fifty of his original collaborators executed.

Doe funded his government, as his predecessors had, with revenues from Firestone, which leased large tracts of land for rubber; from the Liberian Iron Mining Company, which exported iron ore; and by registering more than 2,500 ocean-going ships without requiring safety inspections. Further, he received direct financial backing from the United States government. The United States gave Doe’s government $500 million over ten years. In exchange the United States received basing rights and made Liberia a center for US intelligence and propaganda. It is believed that Doe and his cronies personally amassed $300 million.