Editing Kleptocracy (section)

==Characteristics==
{{more citations needed section|date = August 2024}}
Kleptocratic rulers often treat their country's [[treasury]] as a source of personal wealth, spending funds on [[luxury good]]s and extravagances as they see fit. Many kleptocratic rulers secretly transfer public funds into [[numbered bank account|hidden personal accounts]] in foreign countries to provide for themselves if removed from power.<ref name=divideandrule>{{cite journal | last1=Acemoglu | first1=Daron | last2=Verdier | first2=Thierry | last3=Robinson | first3=James A. | title=Kleptocracy and Divide-and-Rule: A Model of Personal Rule | journal=[[Journal of the European Economic Association]] | publisher=Oxford University Press (OUP) | volume=2 | issue=2–3 | date=2004-05-01 | issn=1542-4766 | doi=10.1162/154247604323067916 | pages=162–192 | ssrn=476093 | s2cid=7846928 | url=https://economics.mit.edu/files/4462 |type= Paper presented as the Marshall Lecture at the [[European Economic Association]]'s annual meetings in Stockholm, August 24, 2003 | access-date=November 15, 2017 | archive-date=May 24, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524035024/https://economics.mit.edu/files/4462 | url-status=dead | hdl=1721.1/63819 | hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1"/>

According to L.K. Samuels, one reason governmental bodies subscribe to theft-prone policies is to lay the groundwork for the socialization of labor and property, thus permitting kleptocrats to make a populace "subservient to an institutionalized authority."<ref>Samuels, L.K. (2019) ''Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum,'' Freeland Press, p. 484.{{full citation needed|date = August 2024}}</ref> Journalist [[Paul Greenberg (journalist)|Paul Greenberg]], in writing in 1989 against the idea of the United States sending substantial foreign aid to [[Poland]], argued that the country was emerging from "40 years of a Communist thievocracy that has obliterated not only economic progress but also the idea of a modern economy."<ref>Greenberg, Paul (November 12, 1989) "Invasion: Here Come the Debtors," Congressional Record: Extensions of Remarks, p. 31757,{{full citation needed|date = August 2024}} as reported in the ''Washington Times'', Nov. 20, 1989.{{full citation needed|date = August 2024}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date = August 2024}}