Why do dictators always lie about economic growth?

Dictators start with a bigger plan about being powerful in the long-term through charismatic development pledges so that mass people can’t recognize them first their true intentions.

After being in power for two, three, or more terms without any election rather than what we call “selection” the dictator thinks they are inevitable.

Along their term, the Authoritarian govt passed suppressing laws that deprived fundamental rights (i.e. freedom of speech) of mass people though they kept in practice those laws in the name of controlling cyber security.

By doing injustice among mass people dictators try to make themselves inevitable by partisan bureaucracy, law enforcement & military.

Economic growth is the only tactic authoritarian govt used to manipulate mass people.

Some economic progress happened but during this economic development, huge corruption takes place by authoritarian govt, bureaucrats & oligarch businessmen.

Huge corruption happens because those govt are beyond accountability towards mass people for they didn’t arrange true free & fair elections for long periods. That way dictators denied the voting rights of people.

Per capita, monetary income is the parameter for economic development. Per capita income (PCI) or average income calculates the average income per person received in a given area (town, city, country, etc.) over a given year. It is determined by dividing the total revenue of the region by its total population. Because of corruption other parameters of economic & social development like education, health, equity, poverty, population, and social cohesiveness are very dissatisfying than those proclaimed by dictators through paper-pen.

Admiration for autocracy is built on a pernicious lie that I call the “myth of benevolent dictatorship.”

The myth is built on three flimsy pillars: first, that dictators produce stronger economic growth than their democratic counterparts; second, that dictators, unswayed by volatile public opinion, are strategic long-term thinkers; and third, that dictators bring stability, whereas divided democracies produce chaos.

Let’s start with the myth that dictatorships produce stronger growth. This falsehood arose from a few well-known, cherry-picked examples, in which despots oversaw astonishing transformations of their national economy.

Starting in the late 1950s, Lee Kuan Yew helped transform Singapore from a poor, opium-filled backwater into a wealthy economic powerhouse. And in China, per capita GDP rose from nearly $318 in 1990 to more than $12,500 today. Those successes are eye-popping. But a systematic evaluation of the overall data reveals another reality.

Even with these outliers of strong growth, most rigorous studies have found limited or no evidence that authoritarian regimes produce better economic growth than democratic ones

To stay in power, authoritarian leaders face constant trade-offs. If they strengthen military or paramilitary leaders, they face the risk of a coup d’état.

But if they weaken their men under arms, then they can’t protect themselves from external invasion. To keep their elites happy, despots need to make them rich through corruption — usually at the expense of the population.

But a ruling class awash in ill-gotten gains could inspire a revolution, or a wild card: assassination. Autocrats appear stable, but they’re not. They’re constantly vulnerable, forced to make every decision based on what will stave off threats to survive in power.

Situations of authoritarian govt worse now after covid because they can’t cope with their huge corruption (money laundering) to extend the country’s economic activity because of the low dollar reserve.

That’s why corrupt dictators are still in power by printing money & increasing inflation day by day as products & service productions are less than money printing. Mass people are offended due to inflation, corruption, unemployment, injustice & rightlessness but dictators are careless –dictators only care about being in power at any cost.

Resources:

1. https://dpsa.dk/papers/Nyrup_DPSA.pdf#cite.0@bjornskov2018regime