Why, in contrast, do those leaders who make their subjects’ lives miserable typically die in their sleep or live out their retirement years lounging on a luxurious beach after being in office twenty, thirty, or forty or more years? It’s my claim, and it may seem controversial, that kleptocratic leaders are not inherently evil—at least not necessarily so—and that those who do a great job for their people in hopes of reelection are hardly fit for sainthood. They’re all doing the right things if they want to stay in power as long as possible.
