Corrupt, heavy-handed governments inflict wealth on themselves, but necessarily inflict poverty on most of the common people in the territory they control. Unlike most Americans, I actually lived in a third-world dictatorship when it was still a dictatorship, and I know that the process of the coming people gaining freedom from dictatorial rule is not an easy process. Yes, people who seek freedom and fair administration of justice eventually find that they gain prosperity too, but in the short term it can be frightening to seek freedom when the secret police can suddenly assassinate or imprison regime opponents. I am glad that the dictatorship I used to live under (that of Taiwan) had fallen by the second time I lived there, and I hope the dictatorship of (for example) North Korea falls soon, but the condition of many common people around the world is not aptly described as "self-inflicted."
Corrupt, heavy-handed governments inflict wealth on themselves, but necessarily inflict poverty on most of the common people in the territory they control. Unlike most Americans, I actually lived in a third-world dictatorship when it was still a dictatorship, and I know that the process of the coming people gaining freedom from dictatorial rule is not an easy process. Yes, people who seek freedom and fair administration of justice eventually find that they gain prosperity too, but in the short term it can be frightening to seek freedom when the secret police can suddenly assassinate or imprison regime opponents. I am glad that the dictatorship I used to live under (that of Taiwan) had fallen by the second time I lived there, and I hope the dictatorship of (for example) North Korea falls soon, but the condition of many common people around the world is not aptly described as "self-inflicted."