On Dictatorship, Economic Development and Stability

2.2.2 Predation and repression

The dictator imposes his preferences through violence against the population. However,
the police forces that are the intermediaries of the exertion of the dictator’s violence do
not work for free. Violence has its price: the wages of these repression forces. A priori,
the individuals who oppose the dictator are not willing to buy this violence. As a result,
the dictator will seize a part of the individuals’ income to finance violence. Violence
and predation are thus intertwined: predation involves violence and violence requires
predation.

Therefore, the rate of predation, represented by qt , also reflects the level of repression in
the economy. Formally, q_t determines the amount of tax revenues that the dictator keeps
for himself and (1 - qt) is the rate of social order provided to the citizens. The more the
dictator wants to consume, the more repression is needed to make it possible and the less
resources to maintain social order. The tax rate, τ , and the rate of predation, q, thus
characterize all possible types of dictatorships. The higher τ and q, the more predatory
the dictator.

2.2.3 The insurrection threat

By using repression the dictator has the power to prey on national revenues. There
are two possible reactions of the population to repression and predation: obedience and
insurrection. Obedience means toleration of the regime and welfare losses. Insurrection
must imply a cost, otherwise no dictatorship would ever survive. In Grossman (1991),
the cost of insurrection is the foregone production by devoting time to the insurrection.

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