TITLE:
Looting as Vocation
AUTHORS:
Jan-Erik Lane
KEYWORDS:
Dictatorship, Looting, Principal-Agent Interaction, Asymmetrical Information
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.12 No.4,
October
11,
2022
ABSTRACT: What drives a politician? The standard answer in political philosophy is Hobbes’ power, strongly supported by Max Weber. However, the emergence of the Putin regime in Russia forces us to theorize the role of economic motivation as looting. We find it in all dictatorships, e.g., Burma. The giant financial economy enhances the private prospects of looting, especially in closed societies.