Is the Economy Of Fascism The End Of Democracy Around the World? - Thom Hartmann

[applegrove]

1. A system with no guardrails or proper government will result in revolution.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/31/opinion/trump-assault-government-americans.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE4.5Aex.iXq99N3_sFZd&smid=re-nytopinion

"SNIP..........

But a slew of self-aggrandizing leaders has taken advantage of rising inequality, cultural conflicts and changing demography to grab power. The result has been a steep decline in the government’s ability to provide essential services such as health care, education and safety.

Compared with the weak feudal states that preceded them, patrimonial regimes such as the Dutch Empire in the 17th century and czarist Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were good at extracting revenue and making war, but otherwise inept. They were capable of coercion, but they could not provide the predictable enforcement of laws essential to modern capitalism.

The arbitrary decision-making that is typical of patrimonialism sometimes even resulted in the disintegration of the state itself. Czar Nicholas II of Russia could decide in the middle of World War I to take over direct command of Russian troops, leaving his capital city in the hands of his wife and her confidant, the faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Within a year and a half, the Russian Empire collapsed in defeat and revolution, leaving a power vacuum that was ultimately filled by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.

Americans love to hate the state. About half of our citizenry now believes that there is really a “deep state” of shadowy power brokers who pull the strings of our government behind the scenes. But as annoying and inefficient as bureaucracies sometimes are, all of us depend on them to live what we now consider normal lives.

..........SNIP"