Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa were all at the peak of their economic development when they switched to black majority rule.

And not in either of the Congos - a little bit of mass genocidal 'African World War' going on there.

Thus, the recent history of Sub-Saharan Africa provides empirical support for the idea that economic recessions put autocratic regimes in a position where they have no choice but to make democratic concessions.

That's a curious observation. Maybe global warming's good for democratization?? Talk about a sticky situation! Maybe that's why death squad-democratic banana republics thrive in jungle countries in Latin America? All they need is some desertification and drought to bring them around toward concessions? On some level, it makes perverse sense -- that as things get worse, people push for change when they realize the status quo isn't working out so well, even in an autocratic regime.

So, does that mean the ongoing drought in the South and Southwest will herald regime change in the US?

Prior to 1973, Afghanistan had a king who was a moderate in the context of the country's politics, that is, he stood in the middle between the hard core tribal Pushtuns and the hard core Marxist reformers.

His goal was to build democracy and reform the tribal/feudal economy gradually.

Then along came a drought that wiped out the peasants who lived on the bottom of the Afghan food chain.

This pushed together the Marxists and the King's quasi-socialist Pushtun nationalist relative Mohamed Daoud.

The authoritarian strongman Daoud attracted the support of Richard Nixon and his buddy the Shah of Iran by promising to eradicate the native hashish culture in Afghanistan and expel all of the hippies.

The Shah offered Daoud financial support, a doctor working for the American CIA helped get the King out of the country on the pretext that he needed medical treatment in Italy for a simple black eye, and there was a coup.

UNFORTUNATELY the Marxists failed to reform the country. They utterly failed at prying the tribalists away from tribalism.

And Daoud ended up souring his relations with Afghanistan's main military aid benefactor -- the USSR.

See, Daoud cared far more about taking the north of Pakistan for a Pushtun homeland to be called "Pushtunistan" than he cared about starving Afghan peasants wiped out by a spell of bad weather.

Daoud actually tried to bully the Soviet Union into helping him make war against Pakistan to take back Pushtunistan.

This pissed off Brezhnev so much, their relationship quickly went down the toilet.

Daoud was assassinated in a coup arranged by the Marxists who had helped him into power. The new government fell apart within a year and the Soviet Union invaded shortly thereafter.

There hasn't been peace in country since then.

It was all triggered by a drought. And the drought only lasted one year!

This has been happening cyclically in the US for over 100 years. As things get better economically you get robber barons or multinationals taking over government. They siphon too much money out of the economy, the middle class collapses and you get a major recession or depression, followed by a populist government who builds up the middle class again. People start worrying about "getting government off their backs" as they get more prosperous and the parasites use that self interest to take over again, ad infinitum.

The trick isn't good government or bad government, or social justice or economic justice. It's keeping enough people on your side to stay in power and not getting greedy. If you're already taking way too much out of your economy and there's a recession, you loose. This is why ancient kings tended to get sacrificed when the crops failed. Now we just vote tem out of office.

Yes, as Marx noted about 150 years ago, depression and war do lead to political upheaval and revolution.