Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

And its a good reminder just how fledging this moment can be.

Two days ago I posted an article on just how rapid was the downfall of democracies in the last decade: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27320565

There are less functioning democracies today than in 1991.

The truth of life is simple. There is no deep, philosophical argument to it. Who wins, rules, be it a democracy, or totalitarianism.

If you lose to totalitarians, you die. If totalitarians lose to you, they die.

Do not discount military action as sometimes the only option on the table to defend, and solidify a democracy.

View on HN

The way I think of it is that democracy is a very expensive form of governance. Having legal protections and representation for all members of society is great, but it is also a luxury that allows various bad actors and interest groups to clog up the entire system for their personal gain. And the only way to afford this political luxury is to ensure that the economic vibrancy of an open system produces enough wealth to patch up what gets bled away by democracy's inherent costs. And if that is not enough, to have an external source of wealth to subsidize this continuous bleeding. Because if democracy fails to produce enough wealth and distribute it to enough people, then people quickly turn to authoritarians who claim they have all the answers.

Under these assumptions, the burgeoning of democracies in the 1990s might be due to indirect economic subsidies from the US. And the reason why the US could be a democracy is because the American continent, with other resource claimants eliminated by disease and war, could generate enough wealth to subsidize a messy but democratic system of governance that otherwise might have been overrun by more powerful authoritarian neighbors if it had been born on the Eurasian continent.

> it is also a luxury that allows various bad actors and interest groups to clog up the entire system for their personal gain

I don't see how this is something that democracy enables. Self-serving dukes, officials, and autocrats possessing difficult-to-check powers also exist in less democratic regimes.

If you lose to totalitarians, you die. If totalitarians lose to you, they die.

That's kind of a bizarre and exaggerated way to put things. Nominally, what separates dictatorship and democracy is that a democratic regime doesn't wantonly murder it's enemies. Some dictatorial regimes engage in brutal attacks on their enemies but even there, for most people life goes on.

Also, there are a variety of regimes mid-way between democracy and totalitarianism - the current regimes of India and Turkey for example. Which is to say the loss and the gaining of democratic rights is often (though not always) a gradual thing.

And if that military has other plans, well, learn to live under the new regime. I always think how fortunate western Europe was to have the US force them into democracy and freedom for the individual. Many don't agree with that, but if left to either the Nazis or the Soviets, we'd all be living under some sort of authoritarian regimes to this day.

Or Democracies could just try attack ala Soliemani.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com