You Would Be a Terrible Leader

To effect political change you must obtain power because only those who control institutions and resources can allocate funds, change rules, and enforce decisions, so intentions without power remain ineffective.

A democracy becomes vulnerable to seizure when it grows very poor or a huge resource is discovered because the expected rewards from controlling the state spike, changing backers' calculations and making a small organized group's gamble more attractive.

Potential supporters weigh expected survival and rewards before backing a coup because in stable democracies many already enjoy wealth and protections, and the risk of being purged after a seizure often outweighs uncertain gains.

When popular revolts succeed in middling dictatorships, regime change is often driven by elites because uprisings only prevail if the military or powerful courtiers withdraw support, and those elites then replace the ruler to protect their own positions rather than enact mass reforms.

Middling regimes are most prone to revolution because they must extract enough from citizens to reward keys while still leaving citizens capable of revolt, creating a higher risk of upheaval than very rich autocracies or strong democracies.

Resource-rich dictatorships often produce poor quality of life because rulers can appropriate extraction rents without relying on a productive citizenry, so they and their supporters have little incentive to invest in broad public services.

Democratic leaders invest in public goods because raising citizens' productivity expands the tax base, so even with lower tax rates the absolute resources available to reward supporters and fund government increase.

More democratic systems tend to have lower average tax rates because broad citizen participation and many low- or non-taxpaying voters reduce average burdens, whereas autocrats can impose higher effective takes on productive citizens.