Consider the availability of as basic and essential a public good as clean drinking water. In a world in which easily prevented, waterborne diseases like cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea kill millions of the young and old—non-workers—clean water would be a tremendous lifesaver. The problem is that these are lives that autocrats seem not to value. Sure enough, drinking water is cleaner and more widely available in democratic countries than in small-coalition regimes, independent of the separate and significant impact of per capita income.
