Arabs of a younger, more savvy generation appear more willing to take their dissatisfaction directly to the front stoop of repressive leaders.

Rather, they have absorbed those of the Chinese Communist Party, praising repressive leaders and endorsing, through silence or worse, their methods.

In his view, transactions in a market economy are voluntary, and the wide diversity that voluntary activity permits is a fundamental threat to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish power to coerce.

The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power.

The American economist Milton Friedman argued that in a socialist state, the absence of market exchange makes it too easy for repressive political leaders to grant themselves coercive powers.

Since then - before, during and after the war in Kosovo last year - she has paid much attention to another repressive leader, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.

In his view, voluntary character of all transactions in a free market economy and wide diversity that it permits are fundamental threats to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish power to coerce.

Milton Friedman argued that the absence of voluntary economic activity makes it too easy for repressive political leaders to grant themselves coercive powers.

He had been a Washington lobbyist for President Mobutu Sese Seko, the repressive leader of neighboring Congo, called Zaire at the time.

Nicolae Ceausescu, among the world's most repressive Communist leader, even organized a demonstration last month in support of his regime.