Tom Burgis on the Rise of Kleptocracy

ByMike

In today’s episode I speak with Tom Burgis, an investigations correspondent with the Financial Times, and author of two courageous books: The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth and the recently released Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World.

I strongly encourage you to buy copies of Tom’s books, read them, and share them with others.

Why?

Because as you’ll hear in this podcast, the themes his books cover constitute an existential threat to democratic institutions and governance — and the rule of law — globally.

They’re absolutely riveting yarns, full of intrigue and consequences.

And my hope is that if more people read Tom’s work, then we’ll stand a better chance of resisting the precipitous slide into kleptocracy that endangers us all.

Courage is contagious.

My discussion with Tom covers:

  • The dots connecting The Looting Machine and Kleptopia.
  • The story of Mukhtar Ablyazov — a Kazakh billionaire whom some say is a freedom fighter, some say is a fraudster, and some say maybe he’s both.
  • The complicity of U.S. and UK professional services firms in facilitating the activities and laundering the funds and reputations of kleptocrats.
  • Some mistaken assumptions behind the ‘convergence’ thesis.
  • How citizens can keep Kleptopia in check and revivify democracy.
  • John Kenneth Galbraith’s notion of ‘the bezzle’ and where ‘the bezzle’ is biggest now.
  • And, what the rise of Substack and the proliferation of journalists going solo or direct-to-consumer imports for the future of investigative journalism.

I’m fired up about this episode, and I hope you will be, too.

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This podcast was recorded in November 2020.