Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Autocracy, Inc. (The Dictators Who Want to Run the World)
By: Anne Applebaum
Narrated By: Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum (Author, journalist, historian, wrote Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction with “Gulag: A History” Also wrote “Red Famine”, both of which have been reviewed in this blog.)
“Autocracy, Inc.” infers there are two forms of government in the world, one is autocratic, the other democratic. Applebaum shows autocracies are often venal and kleptocratic. One might agree, but immorality and greed are a part of human nature in every form of government. This is not something Applebaum denies, but all forms of government have experienced excesses of wealth and power that have led to autocracy. What Applebaum argues is that autocracy is more threatening today than at any time in history.
The prestige of national leaders is by definition power.
As the British Lord Acton noted in 1887–“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Both democratic and autocratic leaders are subject to Acton’s aphorism. This is not to say Applebaum’s argument is not important, but no form of government, including democracy, has been found to fairly regulate the faults of human nature.
What Applebaum makes clear is that autocracy magnifies the faults of human nature because in countries like China, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, parts of Africa, and similar autocracies, there are no checks and balances.
Imprisonment, torture, and murder for challenges to leadership are condoned, and commonplace. Applebaum’s added dimension is that many autocratic nations have begun aligning themselves to split the world between the lands of the relatively free and the chained.
Applebaum offers many examples of imprisonment, torture, and murder in autocratic countries. Some of the most famous are Navalny in Russia, the Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo in China, Jang Song-thaek, the second most powerful leader in North Korea, and of course, Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. However, what makes Applebaum’s history terrifying is the calculated and cooperative effort by aligned autocracies to subvert freedoms offered in America and other democratic countries.
The author argues many autocratic leaders have become so powerful that no fellow countryman, regardless of their location, is safe from incarceration or assassination.
Assassination of Kim Jon Un’s brother.
Vladimir Putin is believed to have ordered the assassination of a number of Russian citizens around the world. Autocracies use the tools of State to directly or indirectly threaten or assassinate dissidents anywhere in the world.
Facial recognition in China.
The advance of Artificial Intelligence has magnified the strength of autocratic rule with tools of surveillance, assassination, and indoctrination that reach around the world. Applebaum argues the line between democracies and autocracies is hardening to the point of irreconcilable difference, leading to wars between states and territories like Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza.
Democracy has its problems which includes dalliance with autocracy, but rule by the one where there are no checks and balances threatens war and discounts peace.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 
One thought on “RULE BY THE ONE”