Autocracy, INC

 

Anne Applebaum, “Autocracy, INC.: The Dictators Who Want To Run The World, Doubleday, 2024, 176 pp.

This is a book by one of my favorite authors when it comes to explaining autocracies and how they work together to undermine the democratic world.  It is well-worth reading.

We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents.  But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to 21^st century reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another (thus minimizing the impact of sanctions). The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.

International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.

 

My Notes:

Pg. 1:  Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services—military, paramilitary, police—and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation.  The members of these networks are connected not only to one another within a given autocracy but also to networks in other autocratic countries, and sometimes in democracies too.  Corrupt state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another.  The police in one country may arm, equip, and train the police in many others. 

 

Pg. 30:  Putin’s Russia is a full-blown autocratic kleptocracy, a mafia stated built and managed entirely for the purpose of enriching its leaders.