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Heads of state often don't "own" their property the same way a private individual does in that they cannot liquidate their holdings. The Queen of England, for e
by pcrh 10y ago
Heads of state often don't "own" their property the same way a private individual does in that they cannot liquidate their holdings. The Queen of England, for example, can't simply sell Windsor castle. The "personal" property of dictators has the habit of becoming state property on their death or fall from power.
- sytelus 10y agoUmmm... I think they sure can if public access to property is not allowed and if they wanted to. For example, why can't they lease out part of their property that only they have access for 1000 years lease which would be a "sell" for all intent and purposes.
- Noughmad 10y agoBecause then they wouldn't be royalty for long.
- ido 10y agoThe Queen can't because her role is purely symbolic and she has no real power, but could e.g. Sadaam or Gaddafi when they were in power? IIRC Putin has a lot of actual liquid assets as do many other plutocrats.
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoPutin has a lot of assets (possibly even the most of anyone), but nothing close to the full assets of Russia. Dictators can definitely use their power to enrich themselves greatly, but they can't capture the entire country's assets; they need to use a lot of the assets just to keep the country running and to stay in power. The people that help them to stay in power will expect to get something out of it for themselves. It's kind of like how you wouldn't count the shares of Microsoft that Gates gave away to early employees as part of Gates's assets even though Gates was effectively the dictator of Microsoft.
- ido 9y agoNobody is saying you'd count all the country's GDP, only that their own richness is already as high as the others.