The Essence of Kleptocracy

At my advanced and cynical age, I have concluded some level of corruption in the political process is necessary.

And I say that despite the very nice "thank you" note that Mr and Mrs Obama sent my wife last month for the challenge donation.
They must have had to write a lot of thank you notes.

Anyway, when I was young and idealistic I was outraged, outraged I tell you, at the corruption I was dimly aware of in the political process. Particularly within Iceland, where everyone really did know everyone else, and the corruption was particularly local and petty.

But, while it was infuriating and mildly corrosive, the corruption was rarely destructive.
For one thing, most of it was not quid pro quo bribery or direct subversion of process, rather it was what you see in most western societies - gladhanders, sweeteners, little lubrication for the hard working servants of the public.

Yes, having Old Boys getting free single malt whiskey bottles, or even cases, was unfair and annoying but it didn't quite buy their souls, just their attention and general warm fuzzies.
This is why Congresscritters are cheap - they are not being bribed, they are just being greased.
Somewhere between the odd single malt bottle, and the well appointed fully furnished ranch house with hot tub, the corruption moves from politics by other means to actual criminality, but a certain low level of that by stupid officials is survivable.

True kleptocracy takes the process to a different level.

This is where politicians and public servants take the attitude that the commons are there for their personal looting.
The nation's central bank is their piggy bank, the country's resources theirs to allocate, the income from taxes, exports and fees their personal income stream.
Theirs, not the peoples' or the taxpayers' or the commonwealth's.

Of course modern democracies have political safeguards and institutional controls, built up over centuries of political too-and-fro, to prevent such monarchial looting.
It is inconceivable, inconceivable I tell you, that kleptocrats could infiltrate a modern developed society to such a level that a large fraction of the GDP is seized and diverted from the public good to the benefit of small elite, connected by family and small compact social networks.

For such to happen, you generally either need a very hierarchical and immature political structure; a reformist government with a good angle; or a government claiming temporary extraordinary powers for the national benefit, while the looting commences under the emergency.
Further, you either need the political ruling group to be socially disconnected from the greater society, through ethnic or cultural schisms; or, the political elite must feel a disconnect from their parent society through globalization, that taking the loot and running to another, possibly better, society would be preferable to remaining immersed but poorer in their own society.
Kleptocrats who stick around too long tend to end badly, subterfuge or repression can only last so long, and so there must be an exit strategy. This was a stabilization factor for the developed democracies for many decades, because if those societies were looted, where would the kleptocrats go?

What happens when that is no longer the case?
What happens when the political elite feels they can take the money and run?
Because being ultrarich and stateless in eternal exile, secluded with their class peers in a second world enclave, is preferable to being merely very rich and powerful, but embedded in their motherland, their family and social background, with all its restrictions and social constraints.

That is when we find out whether our political institutions are actually robust to deliberate assault from within, or whether selfish ruthless thieves can really rob a nation in this day and age.

Of course some kleptocrats are very ambitious.
They better hope they're never caught.