Adam Smith's Dictatorship, Democracy, And Development
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Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. Martin Luther King Jr.
The decision over the regime of one country cannot be made by people and in most cases is historically formed based on the set of preconditions and events, unless people decide to move to places with more preferable governmental structure. Autocracy and democracy as two complete opposites are highly circulated and analyzed in the scientific community. The former was one of the first regimes known to people and the latter is the most popular in the twenty first century and makes us believe that it is the most desirable outcome. The number of democracies…show more content… He writes: “There can be no satisfactory theory of power, of government and politics, or of the good and the harm done by governments to economies, that leaves out the second invisible hand”. In his piece “Dictatorship, democracy, and development” he introduces his theory of two types of bandits: “roving bandits” and “stationary bandits”. Basically he believed that stationary bandit, unlike roving one, would monopolize and form a state in order to collect money in form of taxes, providing public goods for the society to incentivize nation to produce more, thus increase his own income.
Olson states: “any individual who has autocratic control over a country will provide public goods to that country because he has an encompassing interest in it.” While the autocrat pursues his own interests, society benefits from the rule of one that guarantees a stable existence and enjoys public goods that the dictator presents. Therefore the equilibrium or mutual agreement is achieved and everyone is better