I'm not sure how that comes into what you were saying - and I also don't think it's true. Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and China being just a few current examples - but that's a whole new thread if you want one.
Originally Posted by Mazomaniac
These are all examples of dictatorships emerging from preexisting autocratic—or sometimes dictatorial—rule. They are not former republics that have succumbed to dictatorial rule.
What I was responding to was your comment that centralizing power inherently leads to despotism. The point is that it clearly doesn't. Sometimes you have to centralize or re-centralize power in a more benevolent entity before you can redistribute it back to the people. It's a common thread from Oliver Cromwell (with obvious reservations) through today.
Originally Posted by Mazomaniac
Initially, I was merely commenting that I liked DFW5Traveler’s quote by Aristotle regarding republics. Then, in response to CT’s query, I added that highly centralized governments (not necessarily republics or democracies) are the ones most easily overthrown and subjugated. Some historical examples are Rome over Carthage and Egypt; Spain over the Aztecs and Incas; and the Allies over Germany, Italy and Japan during WWII. Other examples include, Czarist Russia and, eventually, the USSR; both Iraq and Iran (Iran several times in the 20th century), and there are others.
The Romans could defeat the less hierarchical (by comparison to Carthage and Egypt) Scottish and the German tribes in battle. Similarly, the Spanish conquistadors could on occasion best the Apache, Pueblo and Navajo, who were notably less hierarchical than the Aztec and Inca. Yet, Rome and Spain both failed to ever subjugate these less hierarchical cultures. Note, it took some 300 to 400 years for European’s (and Americans) to completely subjugate the native tribes of North America (north of Mexico). There was no one, individual ruler holding sway over the indigenous people, so each tribe had to be dealt with separately. Similarly, the tribal Afghans have been resisting Western domination since Alexander the Great.
It's exactly what Kemal and the Young Turks did - and it's exactly what the US is currently doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Originally Posted by Mazomaniac
And you might add Germany, Japan, and S. Korea—and I agree, it is much easier and cheaper in human lives for the U.S. to rebuild states as opposed to trying to occupy and keep former enemies subjugated. We learned that lesson after WWI.
There are very few parallels that you couldn't draw between the social and and economic reforms put in place under the "dictator" Kemal and the US efforts in the gulf. We went in, forcibly took complete power, imposed absolute rule under a strict police state, and then gradually relaxed the grip as the reforms we instituted took hold to the point that social equilibrium, economic independence, and democratic government could safely emerge.
Iraq is the Young Turk revolution in a nutshell exercised by a benevolent foreign power rather than a benevolent domestic one. We just don't like calling ourselves "despots" in the way that we like to apply that term to people like Kemal. People just don't like telling their children that daddy's over in Iraq being a "military despot" for the good of the Iraqi people. "Fighting for Iraqi freedom" or something such sounds a lot better to the kids.
Originally Posted by Mazomaniac
I agree with everything you’ve written here. BTW, my Patrick Kinross book on Atatürk has not arrived yet. I ordered it ten days ago, it’s coming in from the UK.
I don't know how to fully respond to this as I have no idea how the financial climate crept into it or the context that you're bringing it up.
However, I will say that one general tenant of governance that I have always held is that there has to be a balance between public and private authority in just about everything that a government does. For me too much regulation is just as great an evil as too little regulation. Public and private power need to be weighed against each other in order to check the natural tendency of governments to seize absolute control with the natural tendency of human beings to consume and destroy every single thing they touch. Cross-checking the ambition of the government with the greed of the market keeps both of them too busy to fuck you over.
So I guess my general answer to your question is no, I don't believe that we need a "dictator" to solve our financial issues.
But I do believe that our financial issues were in large part due to an imbalance between government and private power in the market that allowed the private sector to do what it does best - gorge on every crop in the field until a famine set in.
Now we'll probably respond (as we always do) by swinging the pendulum too far the other way and choking off economic potential with overly-strict reform. Then it will swing the other way, then the other way, then the other way, etc, etc, etc, until finally after a few decades we'll settle things down to where they should be and move on to the next crisis.
Originally Posted by Mazomaniac
I made the off hand remark about the financial crisis because it is at the heart of most (not all) of this county’s problems. But my new fear is that the central government is grasping too much power (Patriot Act, Healthcare, etc.,) and this centralization is undermining the principal of federalism on which this country was founded. The Supreme Court preempted FDR’s attempt to gain extraordinary executive powers during the ‘30s, but the right set of circumstances coupled with a charismatic leader (another Huey P. Long?) could lead to a dictatorship because so much power is already concentrated in DC and not properly shared with the states as originally intended.
The Swiss have a model federal system, and they have been able to preserve their system for several centuries without succumbing to a dictator.
