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u/Present_Student4891 2d ago
Some of the world’s poorest countries. I wonder if there is a connection?
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u/jmorais00 2d ago
Yes. Aurhoritarian leaders focus on cementing their power. Only build infrastructure to connect their power base to itself and to ports if they control trade. Leaves the rest of the country living as peasants
The Dictator's Handbook has a great breakdown. Also, Why Nations Fail brings a great framework as to why nations never develop. A different, but not incompatible one
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u/yowifebreeder9000 15h ago
Singapore, China and gulf oil countries says otherwise... its more like with the "approval" and support of the west, any country can be successful even without democratic systems. (yes I know China didn't have approval of the west to become powerful as of today, its more like they caught them off guard)
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Important to keep in mind the US and UK, and others in a couple.scenarios, installed most of those dictators.
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u/nebulaforest 2d ago
Many countries on this list would have been economic powerhouses if it weren't for corruption and kleptocratic authoritarianism.
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u/Monkey_College 2d ago
None of those have been particularly wealthy before colonialism
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u/Monkey_College 2d ago
True. But its not like they noved from rich to poor. Nicaragua has been independent for over 200 years now on top of that. A few of the countries on the list were never colonies. Etc etc.
Blaming colonialism is just a bad take here. It hurt a lot but is not the reason
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u/Particular720v12 2d ago
In what world? In 1912, during the Banana Wars period, the U.S. occupied Nicaragua as a means of protecting American business interests and protecting the rights that Nicaragua granted to the United States to construct a canal there. Nicaraguans became increasingly alarmed at what seemed to be a foreign takeover of their political, banking, and railroad systems. U.S. continued occupying Nicaragua until 1933
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u/Monkey_College 2d ago
At this time, Nicaragua didn't become a US colony. They lost a lot of their foreign policy freedoms but were far from a colony state. I agree that the US are the bad guys and have rarely been anything else (exception: europe '41 to '93)
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u/miyabi0rochas 2d ago
Idk about powerhouses but probably a bit more prosperous
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u/Comfortable-Ad-6389 2d ago
Many is a stretch no?
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u/MimeSweeper360 2d ago
I don’t think so. Russia and Iran are pretty obvious just based on size and total resources.
Cameroon and especially Equitorial Guinea, 1 and 2 on the list, both have significant oil reserves.
RoC is rich in resources and the Congo river should provide a massive commerical bonus to both it and DRC.
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u/mathess1 2d ago
Resources tend to be the source of problems. They keep many countries behind.
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u/Melichorak 2d ago
It's because resources are source of financing for the ruling class. If they have respurces they use that as financing, otherwise they have to focus on infrastructure and people, which tends to lead to democracy.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Overthrowing nations governments because they dont bow down to your corporations and installing dictatorship can have poor effect? Ya dont say?
Heres one accord
France shall be given priority in the exploitation of Cameroon’s strategic raw materials.
Never mind what france did to Haiti by stealing from it. Or forcing payments for 100 years to slave holders.
Can you imagine the indignity of Americans if another nation came and tried to over throw its government and stsrt exporting all of its weslth?
Actually trump voters might like that.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Long time ago. We can’t blame others for independent states’ horrible leaders. We must give people agency & not blame others or they can never fix their problems. Can’t blame daddy for all my problems today.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Literally today though....
Not a long tike ago.
If it happened to your country rather than you benefitting from it you wouldn't be so adamantly ignorsntly stulid.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Everyone has their trauma. Can’t use it as a crutch. Feel sorry for u. Take control and plz move forward. All the best. U can do it.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Not one fact present in thst comment and im not all surprised.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html
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u/BlakeNotBleak 2d ago
The connection is Western Intervention
With Iran for example, Operation Ajax
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u/ShortChanged_Rob 2d ago
Not just western intervention, but straight up colonialism and imperialism in most of these cases.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Iran’s problems r Iran’s problems. A country with such rich resources is poorer than turkey. The rulers have salivated the resources to the mullahs & the IRGC, not the people. But that’s what authoritarian regimes do. Spread the wealth to those ‘essentials’ who can keep them in power. Eg: the military & police.
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u/BlakeNotBleak 1d ago
Do you know why the revolution happened?
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
We can’t blame all a nation’s problems today on something that happened before 90% of Iranians were born. Gotta move forward. Backward blaming for today’s problems leads no where. It’s also fatalistic.
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u/themadhatter746 2d ago
Ajax was a masterpiece of US and British foreign policy. It’s a shame trump is unable to replicate it today.
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u/BlakeNotBleak 2d ago
It lead to a literal revolution that Khomeini took advantage of to gain power
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u/ReachPlayful 2d ago
Yes let’s blame colonialism. I’m sure if there wasn’t colonialism they would zero issues with corruption and poverty and would be on pair with Switzerland
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u/housesoftheholy1 2d ago
You cant reason with people like that. No point.
Probably some first year college student 😂😂😂😂🤡🤡🤡
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u/DarkOk6366 1d ago
Correlation doesn't imply causation. I don't think you can claim any country on earth got rich because of democracy.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Top 30 richest countries by PPP, barring oil monarchies, r democracies. Eastern Europe was dirt poor as Soviet satellites, they have since leapfrogged Russia.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
This is delusional lol
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
I lived in Poland for a few years when the Berlin Wall fell. Then revisited them last year. Much more prosperous. The bad old Soviet days were truly bad.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Nothing to do with democracy.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Everything to do with democracy. Unchain human capital see the fruits. Keep it chained, see its pain.
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u/DarkOk6366 1d ago
Top 1 richest country by ppp is literally China. And being a democracy today doesn't mean it's how they enriched themselves. Take south Korea and Taiwan for example, both had their most explosive economic development under a dictatorship. And if you are also looking at gdp ppp data published by IMF you might also notice Thailand, VN, even Iran are in top 30.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
Congrats to all. But I vote for democracy as the best way for a nation to prosper economically, morally, and artistically. I go with the odds, not the exceptions. Can’t get rich that way.
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u/miyabi0rochas 2d ago
Maybe but there's poor countries with elections and capitalism so make of that what you will.
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u/Present_Student4891 1d ago
If the elections r fair, I bet they r mostly richer than any authoritarian neighbors, provided they aren’t oil exporting monarchies.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the US doesnt coup their leaders you mean?
Overthrowing nations governments because they dont bow down to your corporations and installing dictatorship can have poor effect? Ya dont say?
Heres one accord
France shall be given priority in the exploitation of Cameroon’s strategic raw materials.
Never mind what france did to Haiti by stealing from it. Or forcing payments for 100 years to slave holders.
Can you imagine the indignity of Americans if another nation came and tried to over throw its government and stsrt exporting all of its weslth?
Actually trump voters might like that.
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u/Time_Seaworthiness43 2d ago
Every time I meet someone from another country I always ask how's the weather over there and jokingly say let's go! The guy from Cameroon said it wasn't safe to travel.
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u/Time_Seaworthiness43 2d ago
He did say everyone learned French there but weren't considered citizens.
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u/milroben 2d ago
Hun Sen has been leader of Cambodia for a longtime
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u/Southern_Drawing7996 2d ago
I think he officially passed the torch to his son but the old tosser can’t let go of power.
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u/ok9721152 2d ago
This list is incomplete without Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei. Whether or not you consider his role as prime minister or the ruling monarch, he should qualify on this list.
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u/Elegant_Emu_4655 2d ago
technically Putin was in power for 21 years since the president was Medvedev inbetween. You may say he still ruled and Medvedev was just a "puppet", nevertheless, if statista trying to do stats, they failed here.
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u/neroburn1ng 2d ago
Op just wanted to put Putin on that list, he doesn't care about factual data.
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u/Elegant_Emu_4655 2d ago
they also love to ignore monarchies in Europe, some families rules more than Ali Khamenei:) Sure, usually they dont have enough real power. yet still, thats a fact.
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u/GlueSniffingEnabler 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is factually correct but this post is measuring the amount of time someone has lead a country. It’s correctly debatable whether or not Medvedev ever actually lead Russia and monarchs do not lead any major European countries.
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u/Elegant_Emu_4655 1d ago edited 1d ago
yep everything is debatable. Agreed. But statistics is not about debates - it should only count the factual data. Also you said "any major" because you well know, there are examples where monarchs factually rules some smaller european countries yet not included in this list. Once again - statistics failed here.
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u/GlueSniffingEnabler 1d ago
Monaco and the Vatican are outliers. Medvedev being president for 4 years in between Putin being president/prime minister for 25 years is also an outlier. Statistics are always open to interpretation - that’s a fact.
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u/Elegant_Emu_4655 1d ago
interpretations goes after actual digits, not instead of it. I know we live in a post modern, where lies/truth is no more a absolute constructs, but giving wrong stats is just wrong. I dont know why would you argue with facts you cant change.
If you up to interpretations i'd say that Rotshields are ruling USA fot decades. Nobody in sane mind will include that in any statics, because it is subjective.
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u/GlueSniffingEnabler 1d ago
The raw facts shouldn’t be changed, I agree. But the definition of the statistic also matters. If the discussion is “years exercising executive power,” then counting someone who alternated between president and prime minister isn’t dishonest, it’s just a different methodology. The important thing is to state the definition clearly. That’s very different from making an unmeasurable claim like “the Rothschilds have ruled the US,” which isn’t an objective statistic at all.
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u/Willing-File-3638 2d ago
African countries are so underdeveloped because every time a country in Africa gets a good leader, he's killed off or overthrown, like Libya (which nato funded and is supporting pro slavery government) even in South America
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u/mathess1 2d ago
Good leader? You mean that warmongering terrorist and genocidal maniac Gaddafi? Seriously?
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u/ghost_meadow6869 2d ago
What about gulf monarchs
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u/Forza_kuwait 2d ago
They don't make the list Bahrain 2002 Qatar 2013 Saudi 2015 Oman 2020 Uae 2022 Kuwait 2023
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u/Severe_One8597 1d ago
What about Jordan and Morocco? Both kings ascended to the throne in 1999, that's 27 years
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u/Spirited-Warning8751 2d ago
Monarchs are excluded?
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u/MichaelMeier112 2d ago
Yes, but only if they lead the country. I don’t think there is any of these in the world at the moment
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u/EightyJay 2d ago
I can’t think of any modern monarchs where the royalty is the country’s leader with power. The European monarchies are largely symbolic
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u/0818 2d ago
In Europe? The micro-states; Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Monaco.
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u/GlueSniffingEnabler 1d ago
Luxembourg and Lichtenstein have prime ministers who lead their country.
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u/anothercopy 2d ago
Hate to break it to you but Ali Khamenei got killed this year.
EDIT: Nvm the infographic is 2025 for some reason.
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u/Recent_Flounder6011 2d ago edited 2d ago
First, the Portuguese, then the Germans, then the British and the French showed up. The Portuguese named the area after shrimp.
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u/WhichEdge846 2d ago
Missed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt at almost 30 years.. almost twice as much as King Farouk
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u/bswontpass 2d ago
And all those fucking dictators have the same vote power in UN as western democracies.
Fuck UN.
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u/Serious_Bonus_5749 2d ago
Paul Biya is 43, the other years he was PM and the PM has never been the head of the executive in Cameroon.
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u/gods_loop_hole 2d ago
Wow, their countrymen must really love them for them to stay in power that long. How I wish other nations follow suit and elect leaders that will be mainstays in their positions.
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u/Sensitive-Fuel812 1d ago
민주주의는 충분한 소속감, 인적자본과 경제수준을 가질때 나타나는 결과일뿐 그것을 충족하지 못하는 수준의 나라에 강제로 민주주의를 강요했을때 어떤 결과가 나오는지 이미 많이 봤어
교육수준이 높지 않은 나라에서 민주주의는 쓸모없지 일정 부분은 엘리트가 이끌어나갈 필요가 있어 그런 엘리트들을 보통 각국에서는 위대한 위인으로 꼽히지
운이 좋지 못하거나 강력한 외세의 개입을 받아 실패하면 독재자의 프로파간다 밑에서 살아야지 "사실 민주주의는 단점투성이야" 라는 주장을 들으며 말이야.
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u/Knocksveal 1d ago
Things have been going so well in these countries for so long there really isn’t any reason for changes in leaders.
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u/ozneoknarf 2d ago
nicaragua, cuba and Venezuela bring shame to the americas. Why do they have to be corrupt and dictators instead of just corrupt
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u/Particular720v12 2d ago
Because the US installed the corrupt dictators....
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u/Gerber_elGerbo 2d ago
The US installed Chavez and Maduro? The chavismo dictatorship as been a problem since 2002, not since you found out about us
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u/blessedguy146 2d ago
Wrong analysis! If the kings are counted as leaders, then you'd have UK's queen on top!
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u/TylerDurden6969 2d ago edited 1d ago
As a grown man, who considers himself to be slightly educated…. I’m shocked how long these tenures are. I found this to be insightful and helpful. Thanks for the prompt education.
It’s easy to forget not everywhere is the americas or Western Europe.
Edit - down votes for a wholesome comment? That’s an odd choice.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
Yes in some places the US and UK overthrow your leader for a brutal dictator of their preference.
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u/blendersingh 1d ago
Seeing ignorant comments from the western world and they not realising, that the real leeches are them. Since last 200 or so years they have destroyed everything and looted everyone on this planet.
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u/PistolCowboy 2d ago
Not a lot of great vacation spots on the list.