Collier why bad guys matter

The president used the dual system to siphon off money, he whispered. Another disturbing fact pointed out in the feature is that many of these dictators gained power supposedly fighting to liberate their country, only to morph into a just as insidious a leader as the one that came before.

Without a system of internal mechanisms to prevent the rise of a powerful dictator, countries seem doomed to get caught in a vicious cycle of oppression and weakening of their state. Also: What dictators wear slideshow. So it seems the decaying conditions in society attract psychos, and people who tend towards that end of the extreme, with the odd liberator turning in that direction through being unable to accept adoration intelligently.

Human psychological nature is to blame for creating the conditions which in turn destroy the proper function of government.

Our need to be right in our own eyes, our illusion that identity and belonging are what we need, no matter the narrative of the belief culture. Our control by our subconscious and our extreme ambition and competition. You are commenting using your WordPress.

You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. June 20, , PM. Tags: Democratization , Economics. November 11, , PM.

Blame Brussels. Trending 1. Fiona Hill: U. Latest Analysis. Andrew Connelly. Or are they? The Month in World Photos. Trending Fiona Hill: U.

Analysis Jeffrey Wilson. Argument Andrew Connelly. Report Jack Detsch. Morning Brief Colm Quinn. The world, unfortunately, has many Mobutus. In Angola, I once asked a finance minister why, in defiance of economic logic, his country operated multiple exchange rates. The president used the dual system to siphon off money, he whispered. Bad guys matter, and when they rule, they make weak states weaker. It did, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

Recently, an Oxford colleague, Anke Hoeffler, and I sifted through their results again, distinguishing this time between democrats and autocrats. We found that in democracies, changing the leader does not change growth — all leaders are disciplined to perform tolerably. Here lies the difference between good leaders and great ones: Good leaders put right the policy catastrophes of bad leaders; great leaders, like the men who shaped the U.

Constitution, build the democratic checks and balances that make good leaders redundant. So much for the good and the great — now back to the bad. At the extreme of greed are kleptocrats. At the extreme of insensitivity to the pain of others are psychopaths. At the extreme of preference for getting their own way are tyrants.

Although people with such characteristics are rare, they have a knack for getting themselves into precisely those positions where their traits are most damaging. Kleptocrats do not aspire to become monks; they want to be bankers.