Rent-seeking lessons from Mubarak to Louis XIV
By John Kay, Financial Times 06-27-12
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ace1...0.html#ixzz1z1psk1pU
. . . The real damage imposed by men such as Mr Mubarak is not the money they might have stolen. The tragedy is that the system that enables them to steal it destroys opportunities for others to generate wealth - not only for themselves but for the whole population.
. . . "I am the state," said Louis XIV, and when you are the state, the law supports you and the wealth of the state is yours. The most wicked of criminals often do not break the law, because they control the laws. Mr Mubarak, the Stuarts and Louis XIV created societies in which wealth and power were conferred not on those who had succeeded in business but on those who were their friends or had provided support for their leadership.
. . . Some friends of the court benefited from state-granted monopolies, a common phenomenon today. In Egypt â and strikingly in Russia or Latin America â we see politicians who masquerade as entrepreneurs, businessmen whose power and financial success come not from the resources and activities they helped to create but from the resources and activities they used their influence to control.