The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future

Leopold’s “police” received low salaries but could earn big commissions by meeting or exceeding their rubber quotas. Unrestricted by any law governing their conduct except, literally, the law of the jungle, and provided with a huge financial incentive through the commission system, these soldiers of sorrow, from the very bottom of the ladder to the very top, used whatever means they saw fit to meet the quotas. The incentives included not only riches for those who succeeded but the severest punishment for those who failed, including beatings and even death. To avoid this fate the police tortured, maimed, and often murdered those below them who threatened (or could be claimed to have threatened) rubber production. Rewarded for killing people allegedly engaged in antigovernment activities and needing to account for every bullet they spent, soldiers quickly took to indiscriminate mutilation of innocent souls as a way to boost their counts and thereby their fees, going so far as to chop off the right hands of women and children to provide evidence of their work on behalf of Leopold’s interests. Perhaps as many as 10 million people were murdered at the hands of the Force Publique in their pursuit of wealth for Leopold and, of course, for themselves.³

In contrast to Leopold’s progressive policies in Belgium, virtually nothing was invested in improving conditions in the Congo. Roads were built only where they helped move rubber to market. Laws protecting women and children or worker’s right to strike were unheard of. Much as Leopold worried about protecting the security of his Belgian subjects, he worked to undermine the security of his Congolese subjects. Just about the only items exported to the Congo were weapons for the Force Publique, while vast riches flowed back to Europe. Indeed, it was this extraordinary imbalance in trade that eventually led to the revelation in Belgium that Leopold was growing rich through slavery and much worse. In 1908, the evidence of atrocities reached such a level that they could no longer be denied, and Leopold, with great reluctance, surrendered his control over the Congo to the Belgian government. The ministers certainly did not rule it well, but compared to Leopold, they were a significant improvement.

How could King Leopold II have ruled two places at the same time in such dramatically different manners?

It’s easy to blame Leopold’s apparent split personality—a progressive in Belgium and a monster in the Congo —on some character flaw or on a diseased mind. It’s also easy to explain away his horrible rule in the Congo as typical racist behavior. These explanations feel good, but they almost certainly cannot describe the big picture. After all, just think about Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congo’s latter-day Leopold, the monster in a leopard-skin hat who ruled Zaire (largely what used to be the Congo Free State and is today the Democratic Republic of Congo) for more than thirty years (1965—97). During that time he bankrupted his country, stole billions of dollars for himself, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Congolese. Surely we cannot blame Mobutu’s murderous rule on racism. Was he crazy? Probably not, and besides, what are the odds that so many allegedly crazy people would rise to and then successfully cling to power for decades despite their awful rule?

Leopold and Mobutu are far from unusual cases. Even today, the United Nations reports that people caught up in Sierra Leone’s diamond war have had their hands and feet cut off. Similar policies of mutilation, torture, and murder are reported in Zimbabwe and occurred in the genocide in Rwanda. And then we should not forget the Holocaust or, more recently, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, who ordered the murder of millions of Cambodians for such crimes as wearing eyeglasses (proof that they were educated and therefore probably a threat to the regime). Such monstrous rulers are not a thing of the past. Murder and misery have been mainstays of long-lasting leaders throughout history, a fact that remains as true today as a hundred or a thousand years ago.⁴

It’s nice to think that leaders who provide peace and plenty rule for long, happy years, beloved by the people and content to do good for them day and night. But in fact those who want to run a country for a long time are ill advised to go around promoting peace and prosperity. Not that making people well off is inherently bad for leaders; it isn’t. It’s just that promoting corruption and misery is better. That was well understood by Leopold and Mobutu in the Congo, and is clearly understood today by the governments in places like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Turkmenistan, Chad, Syria … sadly, the list goes on.

It so happens that leaders who are really good at giving their people life, liberty, and happiness are, overwhelmingly, democratically elected and therefore face organized political competition. It also so happens that they are routinely thrown out after only a short time in office.

It’s true that Leopold ruled Belgium for forty-four years, but he was a constitutional monarch who had to work within the constraints of the democratic system that governed Belgium if he was to remain in power. Yet in looking at modern democratic governments, we see that doing right by the people is no guarantee of political longevity. During Golda Meir’s period as prime minister, Israel enjoyed a 9 percent average annual growth rate. She held office for just four years. Japan’s Eisaku Sato presided over a 9.8 percent growth rate, surviving as prime minister for less than eight years. Perhaps most famously, in 1945, after five years in office and less than two months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, Winston Churchill was tossed out as prime minister of Great Britain and replaced by Clement Attlee, despite having (allowing for slight exaggeration) saved the United Kingdom itself.

Why, in contrast, do those leaders who make their subjects’ lives miserable typically die in their sleep or live out their retirement years lounging on a luxurious beach after being in office twenty, thirty, or forty or more years? It’s my claim, and it may seem controversial, that kleptocratic leaders are not inherently evil—at least not necessarily so—and that those who do a great job for their people in hopes of reelection are hardly fit for sainthood. They’re all doing the right things if they want to stay in power as long as possible. Leopold, despicable as he was, did what worked best for him in the politically unconstrained environment of the Congo, and he did what worked best for him in the constitutionally limiting environment of Belgium.

The difference between doing a good job and doing a lousy job is driven by how many people a leader has to keep happy. Why doesn’t every leader allow cronies to loot and steal the way the Force Publique did? Large-scale democratic leaders can’t—they have to reward too many people to make theft and corruption work for them. In other words, the system does not effectively incentivize that strategy. Virtually all long-lasting (read authoritarian) leaders, however, really depend only on a very small number of generals, senior civil servants, and their own families for support. Because they rely on so few people to keep them in power, they can afford to bribe them handsomely. With such big paydays, those cronies aren’t going to risk losing their privileges. They’ll do whatever it takes to keep the boss in power. They will oppress their fellow citizens; they’ll silence a free press and punish protesters. They will torture, maim, and murder to protect the incumbent as long as the incumbent delivers enough goodies to them.

The rub is that even when crony-dependent leaders want to do good deeds, they dare not pay for them with money promised to their essential supporters. Taking money from their cronies’ pockets is a sure way to get overthrown. Spend too much on helping the people, and the cronies will find someone new to take over the top spot, someone who will pay them reliably instead of “dissipating” money on the masses.⁵

Like autocrats, elected officials are held accountable by people who want to know, What have you done for me lately?—except, for elected leaders, there are millions of such potential backers (or detractors, if not made happy), as opposed to hundreds. Democratic leaders have to act as if they care about the masses. Their campaigns are always an arms race in policy ideas: which candidate has (or appears to have) the best ideas about health care, about taxes, about national security, about education, and on and on. When a seemingly fit democratic leader is thrown out of office, it’s generally because his or her opponent is perceived to be just a little bit better—a remarkably positive condition, particularly when the alternatives are considered.

So the explanation for Leopold the Builder King and Leopold the Monster has begun to fall into place. When rulers need the support of many—as was Leopold’s situation in Belgium—the best way to rule is by creating good