Author(s)

Jan-Erik Lane

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

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.

Dictatorship, Looting, Principal-Agent Interaction, Asymmetrical Information

Lane, J. (2022) Looting as Vocation. Open Journal of Philosophy, 12, 505-509. doi: 10.4236/ojpp.2022.124033.