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Comment by jhugo | Hacker News Reader

OK, so we decide that a democracy == "has free and fair elections by the UN criteria". That seems perfectly reasonable on the face of it.

So let's say that we have a democracy by that definition, for example Myanmar — a big garment exporter — in 2020 or so. The 2020 elections were described by international organisations as "free and fair".

Should the result of the coup d'état that happened shortly after those elections be that not only do the garment workers lose their right to vote in future free and fair elections, but they also lose their jobs when the factories are closed due to foreign countries introducing their "don't trade with non-democracies" policy? Do we think that would improve or worsen the situation?

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What's worse, inciting widespread discontent with a government that has illegally seized power potentially leading to a violent overthrow of said government or continuing to deal with that government in perpetuity while they abuse their people? In other words, how do you quantify and measure human suffering? Is it better or worse for there to be more acute suffering for less time or somewhat less suffering for a much longer period of time?

It's not an easy choice when human lives hang in the balance. My view is that allowing authoritarians to entrench themselves for years, generations, possibly centuries is by far worse. We know that democracy is a fragile state of affairs. It rarely occurs without a violent overthrow of the elite and often doesn't last very long. Despotism, on the other hand, is common and long lasting because it is unabashed about cowing people through violence, torture, murder, blackmail, and all the other evils you can imagine. If we want to keep our freedom we must continually resist all attempts to take it.

Inciting discontent with the despots is of course positive, but taking resources away from the common people is not — even if you focus solely on encouraging overthrow, it's counterproductive.

Even sanctions generally apply only to specific individuals and groups, rather than entire economies. Unfortunately, risk-averse financial institituions generally treat them in practice as applying to entire economies, since it can be virtually impossible otherwise to ensure you are not dealing with a sanctioned individual/group.

That last part is key, authoritarian countries operate in the same way a criminal or mafia organization does. Any significant trade will have money siphoned out of it through corruption or just outright theft. It doesn't matter who you deal with in the country, the regime will take a cut somehow.

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