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What Venezuela has in common with the late Empire is that economic controls are pervasive, without the sort of punitive completeness you'd find in the USSR, or
by montrose 9y ago
What Venezuela has in common with the late Empire is that economic controls are pervasive, without the sort of punitive completeness you'd find in the USSR, or China under Mao. While few controls works, and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy), this middle strategy doesn't work well at all.
- HenryBemis 9y ago> this middle strategy doesn't work well at all I will translate your suggestion like this: -Either be a full-on dictatorship OR -Be a modern democratic state
- ekianjo 9y agoAnd thats basically what we have in the world in terms of relatively stable regimes. Nothing in between.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 9y agoIf "stable" merely means "persisting over time", then all kinds of between regimes have been very stable...
- ekianjo 9y agoSuch as what kind of regimes?
- infinite8s 9y agoChina is in the middle.
- ekianjo 9y agoChina has only been in the middle for very, very short time. Let's see where they are 50 years from now.
- coldtea 9y agoAll of Latin America, Eastern Europe, etc has been having such regimes for ages... China that infinite8s mentions in his comment could also be considered as such. Heck, Franco's Spain lasted for 30+ years...
- ben_w 9y agoYup, that’s how it is. CGP Grey has a good video on that, “The Rules For Rulers”: https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
- megaman22 9y agoYes, it's dangerous trying to cross between those poles of stability on the J Curve. It's been a while, but I think Venezuela was one of Ian Bremmer's prime examples. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743274725/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743274725/
- coldtea 9y ago>and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy) That's an ideological statement. One can be a "police state" and has advanced technology and products -- free market not required. In fact most of the technical and product developments in 18th and 19th century took place in markets quite far from "free", and of course Nazi Germany (the de fact "police state") was quite competent technologically.