Elite Capture Quotes

The captains of the [political] system become the captives of the system.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

Nigerian politics has been, since the military dictatorships, largely non-ideological. Rather than a battle of ideas, it is about who can pump in the most money and buy the most access.

Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be tempted to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies languish…. it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

Political authority is problematic in Africa because of the blurry dividing line between the public and the private realm. Formal rules matter less than a series of informal institutions that regulate politics.

The non-democratic governments of petro-states, … use the wealth of at their disposal to resist pressure for more democratic government. In effect, they bribe the people they rule, persuading these citizens to forgo political liberty and the right to decide who governs them.

Paradoxically, resource-rich developing countries are often worse off than comparable countries that lack those resources. One reason for this is that large resource endowments provide a huge financial incentive for attempts to overthrow the government and seize power.

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

The elite isn't leading anymore. It's trapped.

These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries.

In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

There's no excuse for the macro corruption, but Afghanistan was always an informal society with a weak central government.

Conflicting legislation and regulations, overlapping mandates, unwillingness to enforce land use, elite capture, entrenched attitudes, and lack of incentives to influence behavior are rife in many resource-rich countries.

The problem is … that many African states lack the capacity to establish the crucial conditions for capital accumulation and, additionally, act in economically irrational ways. This non-developmental or even anti-developmental thrust is manifest in the mismanagement, inefficiency, and pervasive corruption of the public sector as well as political instability and the inability to prevent widespread evasion of laws and regulations.

When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Only capitalists get photographers.