This is true, but not all dictators are as smart as say Suharto. Trump has a lot more of the Marcos about him. - ThreadSky

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social • 30 days ago

This is true, but not all dictators are as smart as say Suharto. Trump has a lot more of the Marcos about him.

also that you can get a lot richer looting a state if that state is not a smoking ruin. the amount a dictator benefits from economic prosperity is smaller than the amount the nation as a whole does, but not zero.

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davidchance.bsky.social•30 days ago

Mahathir wasn’t a dictator and there’s scant evidence himself was corrupt. His sons are a different matter.

davidchance.bsky.social•30 days ago

And depending on whether you count killing half a million people as not screwing your own country, you’re on thin ice with Suharto.

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yeah. Horrible phrasing, my bad.

davidchance.bsky.social•30 days ago

Berkeley Mafia vs Chicago Boys would be a good book ✍️

dsquareddigest.bsky.social•30 days ago

the crimes of Chicago are overstated
the crimes of Berkeley are understated
the crimes of MIT are hardly understood to be crimes

africanadian.bsky.social•30 days ago

To paraphrase Stalin, stealing $1 makes you a criminal, stealing $billions makes you a genius philanthropist.

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social•30 days ago

Thinking about it: Suharto, Mahathir, Nazerbayev, Erdogan pre-Gezi, not sure if Mubarak would make it. but really the list of Strongmen Who Didn’t Screw Their Countries is short.

proofofburden.bsky.social•30 days ago

Park Chung-hee. He's high on my list of people "you do not gotta hand it to" but the breakneck increase in South Korea's standard of living while maintaining control was pretty canny

groda.eu•30 days ago

You know who else was a strongman who left his country in ruins

dsquareddigest.bsky.social•30 days ago

Lee Kuan Yew, come on let's get real here

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social•30 days ago

Did he loot though? I always got the impression that Singapore was horrible because he thought it was good for people rather than because he was robbing them.

dsquareddigest.bsky.social•30 days ago

oh I see what you mean, I was just target fixating on the word strongman

roylonergan.bsky.social•30 days ago

Always thought Geoff Capes looked a bit shifty. That might be the plod thing though.

africanadian.bsky.social•30 days ago

Tito? Sure he helped himself a bit.

rickchasey.bsky.social•30 days ago

Funny, that.

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social•30 days ago

But not nonexistent

rickchasey.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yeah.

Never been much of an ancient historian but the political cycles of the Roman Empire feel fairly relevant at the moment.

Plenty of variety in the success or otherwise of strongmen.

africanadian.bsky.social•30 days ago

We can do the "burnt it to the ground" crowd next, much longer list.

voidstarconst.bsky.social•30 days ago

I think this is a narrowly economistic take. Factoring in aesthetics, I’d say the guy is more of a Gaddafi.

abbyinnes.bsky.social•30 days ago

He does, but it’s an unusual move in an advanced capitalist democracy and open society full of lawyers. Just because he admires Putin it’s surely a mistake to confuse the political capacities of US with the social and economic ruins of the USSR…

mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social•30 days ago

I mean that seems absolutely logical, but just staggered how little institutional resistance there seems to be.

abbyinnes.bsky.social•30 days ago

Me too, so far, but that may be the sheer degree of shock at the speed of the chaos coming down the pipe, but once tariffs and state failures kick in then he’s surely going to create a coalescing opposition of sufferers in the real economy. In Republican states.

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