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Yes, in the the utilitarian sense if we include the caveat that he is, without a doubt, an egoist. He does want what is best for Ankh-Morpork, but what is best for Ankh-Morpork is Him. Common failure state of Tyrants in general. The city is lucky he is a philosopher-king. I think he wants competent people doing stuff, idk if its exactly retiring or scapegoats as much that recognizes talent, he's very good at finding and applying leverage, talent working for you makes things easier and better for the city. Happy populaces means less attempts to overthrow him.
Yeah, but the trouble is that the other failure state is "when the tyrant is gone, people fighting over the power vacuum tear the place apart". Monarchy (with one well-defined rule of succession or another) was actually a valuable social technology at one point, and it's one that Ankh-Morpork doesn't currently have access to!
It's entirely possible that, even if Vetinari decides that Carrot (or someone else, considering Carrot's objections) would be a better leader, he still doesn't see any way he can name a successor and retire or die without that successor being under more threat than he was and the city needing a successor to the successor in short order.
It's a shame we never got to see how Pratchett would have had things all turn out. I like the "Vetinari tries to leave von Lipwig in charge, and Moist weasels out of it by hastily inventing democracy" fan theory, personally. That's not a story, though; you could describe most of the Discworld plots that plainly and unimpressively. The stories didn't get great until you got down into the details.
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