Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Strongman states, helped by their foreign backers, obscure the profound chaos and destruction they cause. Instead, they perpetuate the notion that authoritarianism bests democracy in terms of efficiency and economic growth.6 Certainly, some categories of people prosper under authoritarian rule. Leaders help their cronies and financial elites concentrate capital and privatize public goods. Yet business in general is often devastated by such predation. Fascist states went after the assets of Jews and other enemies; anti-colonial military regimes expelled foreigners (Mobutu, Gaddafi, and Amin had to invite some of them back to save their economies); and new authoritarians like Putin and Erdoğan take over profitable businesses, some built up over decades. By exacerbating economic inequality, plundering state assets, favoring ideology over expertise, and killing, imprisoning, and forcing into exile large numbers of talented people, strongmen impoverish the societies they rule.