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Autocracy, Democracy, and History with Appendix: An Abstract Model of Autocratic Versus Democratic Government
Working paper, Research brief
Mancur Olson
January 1991 |
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| The line of thinking set out in this paper began in my student days with the reading of a quotation from a man in a backward village in Southern Italy who believed in absolute monarchy. This man argued that "monarchy is the best kind of government because the King is then owner of the country. Like the owner of a house of a house, when the wiring is wrong, he fixes it." This reasoning jarred against my democratic convictions. I could not deny that the owner of a country would indeed have an incentive to make his property productive or the implication that his subjects would also gain from this. The present essay is a result of episodic attempts over many years to accommodate my commonplace prejudices in favor of democracy -- and the great economic and other achievements of various historical and contemporary democracies -- the germ of truth in the village monarchist's argument. This essay attempts to identify and explain some commonplace historical differences between autocracies and democracies and to suggest why autocracies are the norm at some stages of historical development but not at others. |
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| Last updated on: 3/23/2006 |
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