795: Alastair Smith | The Dictator's Handbook Part Two

Public Goods

Autocratic regimes often fail to provide essential public goods, such as clean water and reliable electricity, due to the high costs and political dynamics involved. Alastair Smith explains that dictators prioritize projects that benefit their supporters, often leading to corruption and poorly executed infrastructure. This selective provision of public goods ensures productivity without empowering citizens to organize against the regime 1.

Built to low standards. Your friends get the bids, we take them away. So the places are corrupt.

--- Alastair Smith

Even basic services like healthcare are provided only to maintain a productive workforce, while freedoms that could lead to dissent are actively suppressed.

   

Engineered Famines

Famines in autocratic states can be manipulated as tools for political control. Smith highlights the Ethiopian famine as an example where aid was misused to suppress opposition rather than alleviate suffering 2. Governments may allow or even engineer famines to weaken rebel groups, prioritizing political stability over humanitarian needs.

The technology is existed, but yet famines persist. So the question is somebody allowed them to happen, and that's typically the government.

--- Alastair Smith

This deliberate neglect underscores the harsh reality that famines are often avoidable, yet persist due to governmental indifference or malice.