By Victor
If I were an outsider, a fellow African, say a Ghanaian, it would be easy – even satisfying – to denounce these opportunists outright: These greedy rent-seekers! እነዚህ ሆዳም አድርባዮች! But I am not an outsider. I am part of this body. We are insiders. And as insiders, we must reckon with a hard truth: We create our own gods, and our own devils. And since we are our brothers’ keepers, we must ask ourselves: are we truly different? Don’t we share any guilt?
Perhaps we are neither among the elites propping up the regime nor part of the shameless, herd-like parliament. But maybe we are among the millions who stay silent while atrocities unfold in plain sight. Yes – quiet, silent, and hiding.
Perhaps we are not sitting in the cabinet, but maybe we are seated comfortably among the selected elites, doctors, professors, appointed to the National Dialogue Commission, running errands for the PM. Bowing, kneeling, and hiding.
Let’s consider the question from an international perspective. Russian oligarchs support Putin out of fear that chaos would strip them of everything. In China, elites tolerate one-party rule because it delivers meritocracy and sustained development. In Egypt and Pakistan, corrupt military-business elites maintain control, justified by the perceived threat of instability if they loosen their grip. In Nazi Germany, many Germans elites supported Hitler not only out of fear or propaganda, but because he offered national revival and a unifying identity after the humiliation of World War I (much like we supported Abiy).
The mechanisms that sustain authoritarianism are not confined to politics or elites; they are embedded in our everyday lives. The difference lies less in kind than in scale and consequence. Therefore, before rushing to point at those elites who support destructive regimes, maybe we should explore our own behavior in decision making.
To start with, our daily decisions are shaped by the same psychological patterns, loss aversion (fear of loss), identity preservation, rationalization (self-serving bias), groupthink (social conformity), etc. To note some examples: We stay in harmful relationships, defend bad investments, excuse loved ones’ wrongdoings, and keep silent in groups to avoid discomfort. Don’t you?
Understanding this doesn’t absolve these elites. But perhaps, recognizing this is the first step toward real moral courage than loading a barrage of insult. It might even spare us from proposing even more dangerous remedies, such as elevating the autocrat to a presidential role or expecting another saint to save us. But the question remains:
Why would someone choose to operate in a rigged system when fairer alternatives exist?
Because in autocratic systems, power is a commodity. It’s accessed not through merit, but through loyalty, manipulation, and informal networks. The price is low: complicity. It becomes a mutually beneficial transaction for them – the autocrat rewards the inner circle, and the sycophants oblige with submission. Meanwhile, it is a nightmare for ordinary citizens and a catastrophe for the nation as a whole.
In just systems, access to power is expensive, it requires qualifications, patience, and following formal rules. For many, that route is simply out of reach due to limited capacity or insufficient merits.
However, there is a caveat. In autocratic systems, the transaction creates a kind of credit trap: influence is borrowed through allegiance, with promise of future rewards. But the debt never clears. To stay protected, one must keep paying, with silence, corruption, and loyalty. Thus, corruption is not merely tolerated in such environments, it is institutionalized. It becomes the currency of power, the ladder to higher posts, and the logic of self-preservation.
Yes, self-preservation – that’s why they stay, once immersed in it. Allow me to widen the scope a bit (add another autocrat) and turn to the seven authors I’m familiar with, to evaluate whether this hypothesis is merely anecdotal or supported by established thought leaders.
Abiy Ahmed and Augusto Pinochet – Parallel Patterns:
Just as elite irrationality reflects a broader pattern of human irrationality, individual authoritarianism can be seen as a microcosm of authoritarian systems, differing in scale, not in nature.
Although decades and continents apart, the regimes of Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia and Augusto Pinochet in Chile share similarities more than their authoritarian rule – in the way intellectuals and elites continue to support them despite evident harm. The following thinkers and frameworks help illuminate these continuing patterns:
1. Power as Strategy (Robert Greene)
In both cases, many elites align with power not out of conviction but strategic self preservation. Pinochet was hailed as a strong leader against communism, just as Abiy was embraced as a unifier of crumbling Ethiopia after the chaos unleashed by Woyane and OLF separatist dreams. In both cases, the public’s hunger for peace and unity led to the uncritical acceptance of any leader who promised order, no matter the cost. Supporting the regime ensured access to resources, influence, and safety. Loyalty was rewarded; dissent punished. Morality became too costly. Besides, in Ethiopia, strong individualism and surveillance culture inherited from EPRDF and perfected under Abiy makes it more excusable, as elites may be watched, their communication monitored, their networks infiltrated.
2. Cognitive Blindness (Daniel Kahneman)
Kahneman’s insights on loss aversion and confirmation bias explain why many refused to revise their support to him. Early backers of both leaders clung to hope and filtered evidence selectively. The sharper the mind, the more elaborate the rationalization, serving not as a way out of the trap, but as a way to reinforce it. Add to this, the complex role of Ethiopian pride, on one hand, a positive force for independence and resilience; on the other, a source of stubbornness and conservatism, refusal to admit errors, and the result is a near-dogmatic commitment that only strengthens the original hypothesis…
3. The Soldier Mindset (Julia Galef)
In both regimes, intellectuals and supporters often adopted a Soldier Mindset, defending their positions rather than seeking the truth. Once their stance became intertwined with their identity, doubt felt like betrayal, blasphemy. This mindset fuels propaganda and stifles honest inquiry. The educational system of Ethiopia has contributed to this dynamic by producing skilled elites primed to occupy hierarchical roles, rather than cultivating independent, critical thinkers -it has become easier to conform than to question, easier to follow than to analyze.
4. The Banality of Evil (Hannah Arendt)
Whether in Santiago or Addis Ababa, much of the totalitarian motor runs on routine complicity. Ordinary professionals, judges, academics, technocrats, enable repression not through open malice, but by obeying without question. It’s the Milgram-Zimbardo truth in action: cruelty often emerges not from hatred, but from un-thinking compliance, cognitive laziness. They stop questioning, they forget they are thinking, feeling human beings.
5. Living Within the Lie (Václav Havel)
Both regimes demanded public performance over private belief. People wore masks of loyalty, repeated slogans, and feared silence would be interpreted as dissent – which was often the case. To break from the lie was to risk everything. So many elites chose comfort over conscience.
6. Mimetic Desire and Scapegoating (René Girard)
Girard’s theory helps explain how both regimes scapegoated enemies, students, activists or communists, ethnic groups – the Amhara, to channel public fear. This creates a feedback loop where elites mimic each other’s loyalty to retain access to power. This also explains the paradox, the prisoner’s dilemma: defecting is dangerous unless many others do it simultaneously. So, they wait, and by the time the danger is clear, it’s too late to retreat.
7. The Logic of Loyalty (The Dictator’s Handbook)
According to The Dictator’s Handbook, leaders stay in power not by serving the public, the interchangeables, but by satisfying a few key supporters, the Essentials– the loyalty of those who matter most. Elites back destructive regimes because they are beneficiaries of this survival logic. Pinochet relied on military and business elites; Abiy depends on key ethnic, military, and foreign actors competing for hegemony in the Horn.
Conclusion: A Collusion of Forces
These frameworks converge to reveal a stark truth: elite support is less about truth than it is about fear, ego, inaction, and power. Whether in Ethiopia or Chile, the system is sustained not by mass belief but by strategic compliance and moral perversion. The sad thing is not just what elites allow to happen, but what they become in the process.
Yet there is a path forward. Havel reminds us that resistance begins with simple acts of truth. Galef insists that clarity is a skill that can be trained- all is not lost for good. Kahneman warns us to check our instincts and biases and that our intuitions are not simple guesses. Arendt demands that we think – yes, think to say no. Girard urges us to resist scapegoating and revenge – to break the evil cycle. Greene sees through the illusions of power. And The Dictator’s Handbook reminds us: systems don’t change until the incentives change, what will keep their winning coalition- the corrupt, happy and loyal. These incentives include money, loyalty, access to resources, or power. Want real change? Don’t just call for a better leader, work to change the rules of the game that reward bad behavior: the system
Understanding this is the beginning of choosing differently, to avoid being taken for a ride by every eloquent autocrat who waves a new commandment… or expecting a messiah out of hell.
Editor’s Note : The article was shared first on P2P forum
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