Excerpts: “These include the notion that the law is a neutral force, not subject to the whims of politics; that courts and judges should be independent; that political opposition is legitimate; that the right to speech and assembly can be guaranteed; and that there can be independent journalists and writers and thinkers who are capable of being critical of the ruling party or leader while at the same time remaining loyal to the state” (p. 10).

“Kleptocracy and autocracy go hand in hand, reinforcing each other but also undermining any other institutions that they touch” (p. 42).

“Instead of money laundering, this is information laundering. The goal is to spread the same narratives that autocrats use at home, to connect democracy with degeneracy and chaos, to undermine democratic institutions, to smear not just activists who promote democracy but the system itself” (p. 85).

“If the old system was designed to inculcate the ‘rule of law,’ these new institutions are meant to promote ‘rule by law’–the belief that ‘law’ is whatever the current autocrat or ruling party leader says it is, whether inside Iran, Cuba, or anywhere else in the world” (p. 107).

“A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia. That world is the one we are living in right now” (p. 121).

“For all those reasons, no single politician, party, or country can reform this system alone. Instead, an international coalition will have to change the laws, end secretive practices, and restore transparency to the international financial system” (p. 161).

“There is no liberal world order anymore, and the aspiration to create one no longer seems real. But there are liberal societies, open and free countries that offer a better chance for people to live useful lives than closed dictatorships do. They are hardly perfect. Those that exist have deep flaws, profound divisions, and terrible historical scars. But that’s all the more reason to defend and protect them. So few of them have existed acrosss human history; so many have existed for a short time and then failed” (p. 175-176).

Applebaum, Anne. (2024). Autocracy, Inc. – The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. New York: Doubleday.