The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption - Endangering Our Democracy

by Frank Vogl

Authoritarian regimes in many countries, and the men that lead them, depend on the international management of licit and illicit funds under their control. Frank Vogl shows that curbing their activities for their kleptocratic clients is critical to secure democracy, enhance national security, and ensure international financial stability.

Genres: Economics

216 pages, Hardcover

Published November 15, 2021

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good information on how international corruption takes place and potential solutions to curb the menace. Felt that the book is not analytical enough on the subject matter and that the solutions proposed by the author aren't concrete enough to have a substantial impact.

[Alexandria Avona · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book with a wealth of actionable logistical facts for researchers. Does it succeed in engaging in a deep way, outside of the scope of organizations that exist already where they trace money and name names? No. Does it explain, casually, how democracy leads to shared investment and actionable problem solving and therefore leads to more tenacity that doesn't collapse as easily as the trauma-glue of totalitarianism? No. This is rich in "investigative journalism" low on the "philosophy" side. The main takeaway being of course that people don't enforce the end of bribery because most people will take a bribe. Again and again Putin has proven this to be correct. He has little to no respect for the West because he believes it is inundated in vanity of "not taking bribes" when he has seen little to no reason to believe that, bribery just hasn't infiltrated deep enough into the culture. That's true until there was a lot of German regulatory pushback, which was largely responsible for the end of the Ukrainian puppet state. And guess who are "the Nazis" now. If you don't take a bribe, you're a Nazi. If you don't let your nation collapse into a cesspit of addicted oligarchy due to severe enabling, it's slander time, like a kid having his lollipop taken away. Negative point number, what, 111 for Russia these days. That said, a lot of the West is embarrassingly for sale and Donald Trump proved that.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vogl business model depends on Governments and government-like corporations paying the good money for counseling. Hence, this text.

[Todd Cheng · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scary. How tainted money is moving around the world.

[Julia]

This was recommended by the Financial Times as reading about money laundering and other financial crime globally.
It could perhaps serve as a good introduction to the topic for those completely new to the subject but fails to explore the topics in greater depth and relies too much on quite well known case studies.