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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Russians are genuinely more comfortable with a strongman in charge even if it means they live in shit. At least they are familiar with the shit

At which point a monarchy makes sense.

Dictatorships are unstable. They tie the fate of an immortal nation to the mortal whims and needs of a man. We came up with monarchy as a solution to this problem, and then swept it away when the modern republic was invented.

But republics aren't for everyone. Democracy requires compromise, and staring the uncertain and unknowable honestly in the eye. It may be high time that we admit that some populations prefer the certainty of autocracy. And within the domain of autocracy, the time-tested model is heridatory constitutional monarchy.

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I think you're missing the biggest strengths/weaknesses of the two systems.

The biggest strength of autocracy is the ability to be more long-sighted. Democracy, taken to it's natural extremes, leads to a system where you have representatives spending most of their time in office planning for the next election, which is to say fund raising and focusing on things that'll pay-off before the next election cycle.

So you get an obsession on the very short-term stuff, and a tendency to trend towards oligarchy (though Plato would claim it trends to tyranny).

But the problem with autocracy (that monarchy only exasperates) is that a single bad leader can undo generations of achievements of skilled leaders. Aurelius was one of the wisest and most capable leaders to have lived. His only son was one of the worst.

Democracy's weakness is it's strength there - even the most inept (or perhaps senile) leader can't do that much and they'll be out of office in a few years anyhow.

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Also, as I seem to end up debating with you in these little geopol threads often enough - let us hold one another to our predictions. Told ya on South Korea. ;)

And now as a random reader 7 hours later -- surely you must share that post/prediction with others! I'm too curious and your comment history is fairly dense.

It was in the midst of the 'Korean crisis' about 30 days ago. We were initially debating on what would happen.

My debate partner was under the might makes right pov, and felt that a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law.

I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.

Once it became clear that South Korea was in no mood to let an unpopular man declare himself dictator, we then debated his fate. I predicted death/imprisonment (as is practically a tradition in South Korean politics) while my debate partner was expecting him to get away scot-free, impeached at worst, arguing that no laws were broken in the President's attempt.

> my debate partner was expecting him to get away scot-free, impeached at worst, arguing that no laws were broken in the President's attempt

I never said this. What I may have argued is folks in the military following orders (note: not top brass) were not clearly breaking any laws so long as parliament hadn't overturned the martial law order.

> a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law

Out of order, but I would have never said this either. No man rules alone is like rule one of politics. Rule two is the law flows from power; being legally correct and politically wrong is a historical footnote to losing power.

Here is the link - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42307147

I don't think my paraphrasing was inaccurate.

The only part accurately summarised is the arrest bit. On that, there is no “told ya.” Yoon has not been arrested. (The chances he may be have gone up. The chances he will be imprisoned have not, in my view, as have those that trying to force his arrest precipitates a halting political crisis.)

This bit, on the other hand, is totally unsubstantiated: “a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity.” Nobody argued that.

Also: “I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.” <— You never said this. The closest we came to this was in what adversarial states would want.

You literally quoted me saying as much in the other thread, then tried to mock it:

[me, quoted by you] maintaining power without relatively widespread support is quite difficult

[you] Strange claim in a thread about the Korean peninsula.

I'm sure you know that Yoon was/is extremely unpopular. This was the crux of the issue. If Yoon had an 80% approval, I believe he would be the dictator of South Korea today instead of impeached and with a warrant out for his arrest.

Now obviously you agree with that as well. So where did we disagree? Right, on what happens when an unpopular man tries to declare himself dictator.

Interesting, especially as I'd have to say that events have proven both of you right from my perspective:

- soldiers gladly obeyed orders to essentially end all democracy

- soldiers mostly seemed to stop obeying their dictator's orders when they got confused about who's even in charge and what was legally standing rather than the public will.

- Yoon is not dead, not even imprisoned

Given all that mess, I can see aspects of both of your claims being true. It's quite interesting!

Fwiw his not being arrested is probably something of a technicality at this point. The government tried to serve an arrest warrant on him but it resulted in a stand of between large numbers of police and large numbers of his entourage, some military, and so on. In the end the police backed down and the drama is only escalating.

> I seem to end up debating with you in these little geopol threads often enough - let us hold one another to our predictions. Told ya on South Korea

Which thread are you referring to? (I was in Seoul for Yoon's impeachment, so it's not surprising a HN discussion got lost in my memory.)

But Russia already tried monarchy and it didn't end too well, for similar reasons it ended in France - arrogant rulers not caring for their people.

What do you mean by not caring for their people?

Louis XVI had a weak but what we would call progressive reign. Louis enacted religious tolerance, abolished imprisonment without trial, and abolished letters de cachet which subjected the monarchy edicts to approval of regional parliaments.

> Russia already tried monarchy and it didn't end too well

They also tried democracy and failed wholly at that.

Russia tried monarchy as an empire and with an absolute ruler. Something like the Kuwaiti monarchy might suit them better. Though I’m not sure it works since the modern Russian state sort of remains an empire, something made clear by their conscription discrepancies between Moscow and peripheries.

Russians were open for open liberal reforms and to become part of the EU and Western world. People were sick of Communist rule and praised US culture. The problem is that US/EU betrayed liebral reforms in Russia with the goal of dismantling the state.

USA supported liberal reforms in Central Europe/Warsaw pact countries like Hungary Romania Poland where shock therapy provided transition from communist economy to liberal market economy, and their currency was supported by the IMF/WB/US from severe shocks.

US literally lent money to Central European countries to ease their transition and not kill their economies.

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/ky53w3k2273hhec...

According to Jeff Sachs, the author of shock therapy in Poland, the same shock therapy was prescribed to Russia, but no support was provided. Russian liberal reforms were betrayed by USA. Which led to severe currency and economic crisis.

Crisis led to garage sale of all state assets and privatization by foreign financial groups (oligarchs), which created a very deep sense of unfairness among Russians. This led to ascencion of Putin as he returned some of that unfairly privatized property from oligarchs

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