The Criminal Metaphor: A preponderance of power as a protection racket

In an intriguing thesis by the late economist Mancur Olson, the tax-collecting, public good-providing behavior of any autocratic government can be directly perceived via the microcosmic lens of a Mafia protection racket in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. For the roaming, small-time thief, the future wealth of his victim means nothing; he takes 100 percent of whatever is in the purse. Yet for the stationary Mafioso who monopolizes power in a given neighborhood, he does not rob but rather taxes, such that the money given to him protects the taxpayer from both crimes that he would commit if no payment was received and crimes that outsiders would commit if the Mafioso had not monopolized power in that neighborhood.

For Olson, any autocratic government is a direct, macrocosmic replica of this criminal dynamic. The autocrat does not rob and pillage 100 percent of his subjects' wealth; if he did so, there would be no incentive for them to keep producing. In fact, the autocrat maximizes his collections from his subjects when his subjects are doing as well as they can for themselves. In this light, the proffering of public goods and services by an autocratic government is in fact a masquerade for the self-interest of that government -- nothing more benevolent than that.

Those interested in Olson's metaphor should pick up his book Power and Prosperity.