Stable autocrats act like revenue-maximizing monopolists, trading order for tribute.
Olson's 1993 contrast with the roving bandit: a bandit who stays has an interest in the productivity of those he robs, so he supplies order. It is a theory of the state's origin without any social contract.
In practice
- A ruler who expects to be in place in twenty years builds roads; one who expects to flee takes the copper.
- A private equity owner planning a three-year exit and one planning a thirty-year hold make different decisions about the same maintenance budget.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works