An autocratic country could easily spread propaganda in the democratic country, because of “free speech” rules that most democratic countries have, but a democratic country cannot easily spread its propaganda in the autocratic country.
An autocratic country can buy an election in the democratic country, but the democratic country cannot easily coup an autocratic country.
Are all democracies are doomed to fail?
Is the future of humanity, autocracy? For the rest of humanity’s existence?
Quite the opposite. Due to systemic corruption autocracies are economically highly inefficient with low productivity across the board with all kinds of long term effects this brings. And while it might look bad for democracies at the moment, I think many of the current crop of autocracies will be short lived. In the end, economy is where it’s at, and autocracies are horrible at it.
It’s one of those things where evil people actually don’t win - it just looks like it on the short term!
“I destroyed the country but I got rich”
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Rich, or bayoneted up the ass, strung up in the square by a mob, executed by the military, etc.
It’s a pretty big gamble but it sometimes pays off.
Keys to Power by CGP Grey
I mean, if you’re rich and can leave for somewhere else, that still works for you. Assad being the latest example.
Until he gets shown out a window by his hosts for whatever reason.
😂
Not many want to fight for the autocracy either. Bunch of slack-ass soldiers. Fight for freedom? You’ll get people volunteering.
Definitely. Autocracies always end up being poorly run. Any system that concentrates all authority in a single ruler is going to have some pretty bad outcomes. Even if the dictator really was the smartest guy in the country, instead of merely the most ruthless, even geniuses make bad decisions from time to time. Autocrats quickly find themselves surrounded by yes men. This is how you end up with boneheaded ideas like Mao’s backyard steel production or Stalin embracing Lysenkoism.
Autocracies are short-lived power grabs by certain people or groups of people. They pillage what they can, oppress who they want, and then run or fall when the walls start closing in.
Many have come and gone during our history on this planet. Many more will rise and fall.
See Plato’s five regimes.
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No they’re not.
Look around history over the global and democracies consistently are he most powerful because of the transparency that roots out corruption and the freedoms that allow scientific progress and capitalism that allows for strong economy.
Now before lemmies start down voting: yes, capitalism has its issues and it needs to be tempered by strong laws or you get whatever the hell the US is, but in principle allowing free trade is a huge boon to a country and it’s citizens
Free trade with a reasonable safety net for those at the bottom. The safety net also ends up acting as a minimum standard, why pay your entire wage to a landlord for a slum when the state will provide you with better accommodation for less?
Obligatory correction that capitalism =/= free markets and free markets =/= capitalism. Markets existed long before capitalism and will exist long after it.
Capitalism very specifically describes the economic relationships between owners of capital and workers. Without the exploitative relationship, it’s not capitalism.
Capitalism is just exploitation of those with no capital. If we really cant have strong economy without that then might as well not have one.
Yeah no, that is not what capitalism is. It’s a side effect of capitalism that can happen when not curbed with good laws, but it’s not capitalism.
In the same way I can say that communism is only about suppression, brainwashing, and murder because that’s what Russia and China have been about for a long, long time
Still, by definition it means those with capital make the rules
“countries” are invisible lines draw on a map by someone. Propaganda and lies are a tool used by people to persuade others, free speech and freedom are a natural condition upon which humanity can evolve and prosper.
The US is a democracy (for now), and has backed multiple coups in other countries. Nicaragua is probably the classic example, but there are many, many more. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
I feel like the US is more of a Hybrid Regime
Between what? Democracy and oligarchy? Yeah, I guess. Most of those terms are often used pretty loosely…
The US has never been a democracy, we’ve never been a particularly equitable representative republic either and our government was designed this way on purpose
Guess it depends on how you define the term. The US certainly fits the minimalist representative definition. I don’t think equity is inherently part of the definition… Obviously I think it should be, but that’s more of a value overlaid on the organisational system, I think…
Literally all communication depends on how you define the terms you use, that’s the whole point of having fixed definitions for words, and the US absolutely does not fit any reasonable definition of a democracy
- Fixed definitions for words do not exist. Language is constantly evolving.
- The US IS a representative democracy, and whether that’s actually functionally providing government by the people doesn’t really prevent this use of the term by a vast majority of people, whether you or I agree with it or not.
- In the context of the question, I think the US seems to fit more into the OP’s democracy category. I agree I’m using the term loosely, but does your terminology disagreement actually add anything?
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Incorrect, fixed definitions don’t stay fixed forever, that doesn’t mean they aren’t fixed right now. Words mean things, if a word changes meaning in a generation or two or five it’ll mean fuck all for you right here and now.
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The US is not a democracy at all and never was. It was arguably at various points in time a representative republic, not a particularly good one but that’s not part of the definition.
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I don’t care what you think, I know you’re using the term loosely that’s my point, fucking duh
You still haven’t clarified what you mean by it…
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Sure it does
Wrong
Are you 12?
What is a ‘reasonable definition’ of democracy according to you?
A 1 to 1 vote to citizen ratio that is the actual determining factor in decision making, the electoral college alone completely destroys any argument for the US being a democracy just by existing, and we’ve had that bullshit running since day one
I don’t know if there are any good examples of autocracies working better than democracies.
China looks good right now but it’s real estate market is about to collapse in a way that has probably not been seen before in American markets in a long time.
The corruption in these countries is almost universal as the ruling bodies have nothing checking against them and are often staffed with shoe-ins who are there to make money. much of the bureaucracy doesn’t even function without the corruption. theft and extortion are toothpicks holding the system together.
The US government is corrupt as fuck, but I don’t think Americans comprehend the nature of corruption outside of the western world. it really is another type of beast.
No.
Autocracy moves faster at marshaling the resources it has, but is significantly worse at accumulating resources than what economists Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson, and Simon Johnson describes as inclusive political and economic institutions, which broadly allow members of the public to engage in political and economic activity. (Note that their work on these things won them the Economics Nobel last year.)
Distributed, decentralized power is important for maximizing the potential of a population.
Autocratic political systems are brittle. They’re also poor. They tend not to survive more than a decade or two before the strongman is deposed, one way or another, whether from internal coup or revolution, or simply external invasion of a weakened state. And a successor strongman might be weaker. All the while, the inclusive states continue to grow in their own power and influence.
So any short term gain in consolidating power into smaller groups is going to be up against time, and the fragility of the whole arrangement as the autocratic country falls behind its competition.
but the democratic country cannot easily coup an autocratic COuntry.
CIA: am I a joke to you? Look at my portfolio
“More powerful” in which sense? Military? Propagandistic?
An autocratic country can buy an election in the democratic country, but the democratic country cannot easily coup an autocratic country.
A “democratic” country may also install puppet governments, sometimes autocratic, as the USA did with Iran (1953), Chile (1970), Guatemala (1954), Bolivia (1971), Nicaragua (1912), Afghanistan (2003), etc.
Are all democracies are doomed to fail?
As long as it has enemies or bigger fish that want to eat it, maybe. Playing their cards right, one could manage to get the big fish fighting against one another.
Autocratic countries have a small number of leaders, often one.
The goal of said leader isn’t really to grow and bring wealth and prosperity, but to never lose power.
So overall, the economics of the country would plateau, cause why risk allowing wealth to grow and fall into your opponents’ hands?
Hence why countries like Russia and North Korea rarely innovate, but just take what’s available to further entrench their country’s position.
So the only way autocracy can prevail is by brining down anything superior to it, much like what Russia is doing to the US.
Autocracies seem like flame. Some burn hotter and some colder but its not really sustainable because eventually they will run out of “fuel”. They also will cause harm to everyone around them if big enough and at least concern for neighbours or if they have access to things that can easily cause harm, even if they are small.
The United States has been until it decided to become an autocracy the most powerful nation in all of human history so take that how you will.
Personally i am of the belief that democracy is inherently flawed though due to its reliance on people and therefore always doomed to either fail or go through a period of unrest and reform every hundred years or so
How can you say “flawed due to its reliance on people” with a straight face? We are people. Anything we create will “rely on people” in some way. Even if we make some machine to rule us, if it messes up, well, “it’s flawed because it was made by people.”
Unless you mean something different, which could very well be the case. Maybe you mean that democracy relies as people as a group while autocracy relies on an individual person or something?
People collectively are stupid, lazy, forgetful, and irrational which makes them easily manipulated. Democracy’s reliance on the opposite from its citizens means people have to constantly fight against their own nature to preserve it. And when they’re continuously successful they’re prone to forget why they’re doing it in the first place and get lazy. When that happens they’re just as likely to throw up their hands and say “fuck it” when uncomfortable or faced with adversity as they are to get in line and enthusiastically ask to blow the whole thing up, wittingly or not.
Similar idea to “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times” if strong and weak were idk vigilant and apathetic probably work.
Idk, im just stoned writing shit, im not educated or anything, probably shouldn’t take me too seriously. Sorry i worded the original comment poorly lol.
This is an extremely nuanced topic with thousands of mitigating factors affecting it in the real world and subjective definitions about what “power” means. “Doomed to fail?” What sort of a loaded question is this? Isn’t every civilization “doomed” to fail given the ultimately finite nature of life? If a democracy does fall to an autocratic uprising or another autocratic civilization, was it “doomed” to be so?
This question is just way way way way way too broad and to expect any sort of narrow or succinct answer. I don’t believe we can really say any form of government is more “powerful” than others or that any are “doomed” to fail (or we can be reductive and say they all are).
I think your questions are more complicated than you realize.
Are Autocracies more powerful than Democracies?
If you separate the form of government from the governing, yes autocracy is a superior form of government. A dictator can instantly marshal resources to face any threat, or completely shift an entire nation, if a direction becomes clearly wrong. The reason they don’t work, is because the leader is always human. Humans make shit leaders, almost always. So distribution of power across a large number of people mitigates the risks of putting it all in one.
Are all democracies are doomed to fail?
Yes. Obviously. Everything eventually fails. The Sun will fail and take the earth with it.
Is the future of humanity, autocracy? For the rest of humanity’s existence?
No. Obviously. Everything eventually fails. The Sun will fail and take the earth with it. I would hope humanity (or whatever species humanity evolves to) lives past that.
