This is like the argument that without antitrust, somebody can buy up all the beef cattle and charge $1 million per hamburger. Theoretically true, practically impossible.
The dictator would have to have more people on board with his program than not. Hard to see that coming about in a free society. And if it did, that would indicate benevolence and market choices, not totalitarianism.
A question for everyone though, how does Robert Mugabe sustain his regime? What the hell is there left for the tax feeders to feed on?
The broader point I’m getting at here is how the government can squeeze enough out of the ruined private sector even to keep the army fed.
When money gets that worthless, the real economy goes underground and people stop paying taxes, one would think. Are there royalties from minerals extraction that the government can live off of even though the private sector has stopped generating tax revenue?
This is actually exactly what happened in Zimbabwe. As far as I’ve ready people there stopped paying with zimbabwe notes a few years ago. The gold and silver market there is doing quiet well. People moved on with their lives in the absence of government tender. This goes along with the lines of that we are already in anarchy. We just choose to participate in our own governments shenanigans.