CdT-apxa-repression

Appendix A The Economics of Repression Once we have carried out our coup and established control over the bureaucracy and the armed forces, our long-term political survival will depend largely on our management of the problem of economic development. Economic development is generally regarded as “a good thing,” and almost everybody wants more of it, but for us—the newly established government of X-land—the pursuit of economic development will be undesirable because it militates against our main goal: political stability. An economy develops by extending and improving its stock of human and physical capital, and this requires investment, whether to train people or to build factories. In order to invest, current income has to be withdrawn from would-be consumers and channeled away to create capital. Clearly, the higher the rate of investment, the faster the development of the economy, but also the lower the present standard of living. The governments of economically backward countries —where the need for development is manifest—are, therefore, faced with the alternative of either slow economic development or further reduction of the already desperately low standard of living. The more that can be taxed from current incomes, the nearer the beautiful dawn of prosperity—even if it is the prosperity of Spain rather than that of North America. But there are limits to the amount of savings that can be forced out of a population whose annual income per head is already very low: there is an economic survival limit below which the population—or a large part of it—would simply starve (or retreat into the pure subsistence economy), but well before this point is reached, there is a political survival limit below which we, as the government, would be overthrown. The economic survival limit is more or less rigid: in any particular environment with a given climate, pattern of nutrition, habits, and traditions, there will be a minimum annual income that an inhabitant of average resourcefulness will need to satisfy his and his family’s bodily needs. The “political survival limit” is, however, very flexible, and it will depend on psychological, historical, and social factors, as well as on the efficiency of the system of state security and of the propaganda machine. The problem was particularly acute in the newly independent states of the Third World. The colonial regimes may or may not have tried to achieve economic development, but, if they did try, it was without the urgency that the new postcolonial regimes tried to achieve. Immediately after independence, then, instead of the increase in the standard of living that the native population had been led to expect, the opposite took place. The new “independence” government had to increase taxes and import duties in order to finance the great projects with which economic development often starts: roads, hydropower dams, harbors, and the like. Foreign aid, which many in the “donor” countries have been led to believe to be very substantial,a only contributes a fraction of the necessary funds. Except to the extent that foreign investment arrives—and it does, but only in some countries—most of the money has to come out of current incomes so that if development efforts are serious, the level of private consumption actually falls. This impoverishment of those who are already very poor is not easily tolerated—especially when the mechanism of expectations has been built up. Our basic problem, therefore, is to achieve economic development—in order to satisfy the aspirations of the elite and would-be eliteb—without taxing the masses beyond the politically safe limit, which could lead to their revolt. There are two main instruments with which we can persuade the masses to accept the sacrifice of present consumption for the sake of an increased future income: propaganda and repressionc or, more efficiently, by a mix ture of both. Imagine, therefore, that we have inherited a country with a backward economy, a poor but not particularly poor country, with a gross domestic product per head of US$2,000 per year, and that US$200 of this was paid out in various taxes while US$1,800 was spent on current consumption, or saved. Now we know that only US$500 per inhabitant per year is needed for economic survival, and the problem is to get ahold of some of the difference in order to finance development—and to do so without being overthrown. If we simply increase taxes, the chances are that part of the population will refuse to pay them, and if administrative methods are used in order to enforce payment, a violent reaction may ensue. We will, therefore, divert some of the modest tax payments received, now US$200 from other uses, and spend it on propaganda and the police. By spending just US$10 per person per year on propaganda and an efficient police system, we have lowered the political survival limit by US$100, and after deducting the amount spent on the system of repression and persuasion, we still have US$90. If we spend another US$10 per person per year, the chances are that we will be able to “liberate” some more of the possible margin above the survival limit; however, as we spend more and more money on repression, we are likely to find that it will lower the safety limit by less and less (see Figure A.1). And, of course, as we spend more and more on the police and propaganda, we will find that while the first extra US$100 of taxes costs us US$10 to obtain with safety, the next US$100 will cost, say, US$20. Eventually, the point is reached where (as shown in Figure A.1) further ex penditure brings us no increase in taxation at all. At that point, we spend an extra amount per year and get no increase at all in the taxes that can safely be collected. Well before that point is reached, however, there will be an earlier stage when we will spend, say, an extra US$10 on repression and persuasion and get exactly the same sum in further taxes. Immediately before that point is the maximum efficiency level of expenditure on the police and propaganda machine. Figure A.1. Political survival limit on taxation. Maximum Safety and Zero Economic Development This is the formula that Haiti’s dictator François “Doc” Duvalier applied in Haiti with increasing thoroughness from his rise to power in 1957 till his unlamented death in 1971 (see Figure A.2). Taxation, which was heavy for a country with an extremely low income per head, was spent almost entirely on the army, the police, and Duvalier’s very own Tonton Macoute militia, credited with some 30,000 murders, and on propaganda designed to inculcate fear of Duvalier’s powers, including his voodoo magic. The only major project was useless: the building of a new capital, “Duvalierville,” which, in any case, was suspended and then abandoned. Figure A.2. The Duvalier formula: political security = maximum economic development = zero. The Duvalier mix of efficient repression, pervasive propaganda, and no economic development at all paid off: he lasted in power continuously for fourteen years, and was then followed by his son Jean Claude “Baby Doc,” who lasted fifteen more years. The Tonton Macoutes operated as a semipublic presidential guard and were able to add to their generous salaries by private exactions from the diminishing business sector. The propaganda machine, which involves ceremonial parades, laudatory films, and the projection of Papa Doc as a voodoo master, was almost as expensive to run as the Tonton Macoutes—but evidently useful. The extreme poverty of the population meant that their level of political awareness and even physical vitality was extremely low; meanwhile, the Tonton Macoutes who terrorized everyone else were themselves captive to Duvalier’s will because, without his voodoo authority, the army and police would combine to massacre the Tonton Macoutes. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and many other African leaders now dead, in prison, or in exile, differed radically from Duvalier’s formula by following policies of high taxation and investment associated with clearly insufficient propaganda and repression efforts. Nkrumah, in spite of his eccentricities, was largely defeated by his own success: the by-product of the considerable economic development achieved by Ghana was to stimulate and educate the masses and the new elite; their attitude to Nkrumah’s regime became more and more critical in light of the education the regime itself provided. When this happens, more and more repression and propaganda are needed to maintain political stability. In spite of considerable efforts, Nkrumah was unable to build a sufficiently ruthless police system. The cause of his downfall was not, therefore, the mismanagement of the economy—which was considerable—but rather the success of much of the development effort. The middle way—efficient repression, extensive propaganda, and vigorous economic development to create new elites that accept or even support the regime—has long been followed successfully in China. Repression, propaganda, and economic growth are all interchangeable up to a point, and the most effective mix to preserve the regime will depend on the particular country and its political culture.

a Foreign aid has been falling as a percentage of GNP in the developed countries for many years. b For the elite, economic development subsumes the national goal of modernization with the personal goal of expanded career opportunities. For the new generation of educated citizens (the would-be elite), economic development is a guarantee of employment—and the unemployed intelligentsia is a major threat to many regimes in the Third World. c By “propaganda,” we mean the whole range of activities whose content is information or entertainment and whose function, in this case, is (a) to distract attention from present hardship and (b) to justify it in terms of assured future happiness. This may or may not involve the presentation of the outside world as even less well off, but it will almost certainly present the past standard of living as much inferior. An equally important aim of propaganda will be to persuade the masses that the present leadership is the most efficient vehicle for modernization; this can be done in rational terms by using statistical images, or by irrational ones that present the leadership as superhuman. By “repression,” we mean the whole range of political police activities that aim at: (a) suppressing individual political activity by surveillance and imprisonment, (b) intimidating the masses by displays of force, and (c) preventing the circulation of rival information by controlling the media and inhibiting public discussion.