Getting Actuarial on the Authoritarians
Let's imagine the death of kings
The great lament of 2025 so far has been ‘the rise of the authoritarians’ posing an existential challenge to what we had previously thought of as the free West.
Here’s some good news: the real existential challenge is coming, and coming fast, for today’s crop of authoritarians. To put it very crudely, we’re being menaced by old men who’s time is coming.
As an economist, forecasting is something I avoid all the time, since as the history of economic tells us, it can’t be done. Nevertheless, I have huge confidence in this forecast: that the next five or six years is going to see a whole crop of succession crises in these fashionable ‘authoritarian’ countries. By extension, this is the ripest time for wholesale generational challenge in the world’s governance that I’ve seen in my lifetime.
OK, so lets get actuarial on their asses. Who has the Grim Reaper got down in his diary sooner rather than later?
It’s bad news for Vlad Putin. He was born in October 1952, which puts him at 72 years old in a country where male life expectancy is currently 67.7 years. In Russian terms, he has already had ‘a good innings’ and actuarially is on borrowed time.
Not such good news for Narendra Modi either: both in November 1950,he’s 74 years old in a country where male life expectancy is 71 years.
Not great for Donald Trump either: he may enjoy scaring us with his fantasies of a third term. Regardless of his ability to nix the US constitution, it doesn’t look likely: he was born in June 1946, making him 78 years old in a country where male life expectancy runs out at 77.2 years. Statistically, he has already had his big beautiful life.
Recep Erdogan's odds are slightly better: he was born in February 1954, making him 71 year old in a country where male life expectancy is just under 75 years.
Xi Jinping gets similar odds: born in June 1953 he’s still only 71 years old, but won’t be for long. Still, Chinese male life expectancy currently runs to 75.6yrs.
Now, there are some occupations which seem to foster longevity - you don’t want to be selling a life annuity to an orchestra conductor, for example. Similarly, whilst genuine dictators rarely end up dying peacefully in their beds, quasi-dictators can often outstay their actuarial welcome.
Part of the reason, doubtless, is extreme medical vigilance. But there might be another reason: the death of an authoritarian leader inevitably heralds a succession crisis which all at the top will desperately want to avoid. The succession crisis is the great flaw of kings and autocrats: you get points if you can name the successor to Stalin and Mao (hint, it wasn’t Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping).
The problem is, as Dolly Parton observed, that nothing grows in shade, so when the Big Man dies, the Little People left behind to run the shop are all extremely vulnerable.
Who knows who will succeed Putin? Who is the successor lined up to take over when Xi Jinping is gone? Does Erdogan know who will follow him, and if so, what is he doing about it now?
My guess is that this means the world is going to skip a whole generation of would-be leaders. Generational change is coming. A different world!
A somewhat simplistic and disappointing article. To state an average lifespan and then claim that anyone above that is at risk or whatever is meaningless without knowing the distribution.
For instance, hundreds of years ago the average mortality was significantly lower than now (around 40 years). This did not mean that most people died in their 40s, it was simply skewed by a large number of deaths in childbirth and early childhood (largely eradicated due to better hygiene - not vaccines). There was also war to consider - think of killing a few hundred thousand young men and what effect that would have on 'the average'. There were plenty of people years ago who lived well into their 80s and 90s.
Sorry, poor journalism. Without more and better facts, I'm not convinced.
Whatever the statistical validity, MT, this cheered me up no end. I have reading up on the last great US believer in tariffs and territorial expansion, McKinley, who beat your numbers by being shot dead. Never give up!