In my student days, in reading Edward Banfield's
(1958) account of the beliefs of the people in a
poor village in Southern Italy, I came upon a
remarkable statement by a village monarchist. He
said, "Monarchy is the best kind of government
because the King is then owner of the country. Like
the owner of a house, when the wiring is wrong, he
fixes it" (p. 26). The villager's argument jarred against
my democratic convictions. I could not deny that the
owner of a country would have an incentive to make
his property productive. Could the germ of truth in
the monarchist's argument be reconciled with the
case for democracy?
It is only in recent years that I have arrived at an
answer to this question. It turns out that for a
satisfactory answer one needs a new theory of dicta-
torship and democracy and of how each of these
types of government affects economic development.
Once this new theory is understood, one can begin to
see how autocracies and democracies first emerge. I
shall set out this conception in a brief and informal
way and use it to explain some of the most conspic-
uous features of historical experience.
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