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In “Autocracy, Inc. ”, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reports on the monetary establishments and industrial agreements that aided tyranny around the world.
By Sam Adler-Bell
Sam Adler-Bell is the co-host of the “Know Your Enemy” podcast.
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AUTOCRACIA, INC. : Dictators who will rule the world, through Anne Applebaum
Something new is happening in the world of oppression. At least that’s what historian Anne Applebaum says. Whereas the twilight struggle of the twentieth century was fought between formal “blocs” of ideologically aligned allies, today’s autocrats are more varied: a combination of self-appointed Marxists, bigoted demagogues, kleptocratic mobsters, old-school tyrants, and new-school theocrats. .
Of course, they share ideas, even ideologies, among which liberal internationalism is an alibi for imperialism, the means through which Washington and Brussels impose their decadent cultural interests and customs (especially LGBTQ tolerance) on the rest of the world. But today’s autocrats cement their bonds primarily, Applebaum says, “not through ideals, but through agreements. “Thanks in large part to the opacity of global finance, they gain advantages from a colorful industry of surveillance technology, weapons, and valuable minerals, which launder others’ dirty money and collude to evade U. S. sanctions. This venal pact of convenience he calls “Autocracy, Inc. “
Over the past decade, Applebaum has followed a fairly familiar trajectory, from a neoconservative Atlanticist to an anti-populist Jeremiah. and the bloodhounds of London, Washington, Budapest, and Warsaw—had abandoned classical liberalism for a kind of reactionary nationalism. Why was John O’Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter, propagandizing for Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban?Does sociologist Rafael Bardají paint for the Spanish far-right party Vox?Applebaum’s attitude in this volume was one of indignation: why had her friends abandoned the values (“pro-European, pro-rule of law, pro-market”) that she envisioned?Shared? Perhaps at all times they have been nothing more than wounded narcissists and liars who yearn for glory, channeling the “authoritarian predispositions” of the masses.
Admittedly, Applebaum’s new book threatens a more complicated and less flattering answer: globalization has worked, but not in the way she and her friends had envisioned. Everyone has the idea that in a more open and interconnected world, democracy and liberal concepts would spread to autocratic states,” Applebaum writes. One did not imagine that autocratic and illiberal concepts would “spread to the democratic world. “
And just ideas. Before and after the fall of the Soviet Union, money stolen from the coffers of the communist East flowed into bank accounts in London and the Caribbean. More recently, Delaware shell corporations bought New York apartments on behalf of Russian and Chinese oligarchs, while European and American accountants, real estate agents and lawyers earned huge bills for hiding the ill-gotten riches of the world’s kleptocrats. In short, the global formula served the wishes of the autocracy; The autocrats were forced to change.
Applebaum acknowledges the difficulties of remedying this situation: “Other powerful people gain advantages from the existing formula, need to maintain it, and have deep connections across the political spectrum. He is not anti-capitalist, but his recommendations for reforming the monetary formula (e. g. , requiring corporations to register in the names of their true owners) are concrete and admirable.
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