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The author doesn't appear to have read DeMesquita (summarized with lots of gaps in the "rules for rulers" cartoon video), or about the Resource Curse economy, w
by motohagiography 6y ago
The author doesn't appear to have read DeMesquita (summarized with lots of gaps in the "rules for rulers" cartoon video), or about the Resource Curse economy, which are both about how states operate without the popular tax collection he refers to.
Monarchs just need to pay armies, and the easiest way to do that was to keep them conquering new territory and paying them off with the spoils.
If I were to start a state today, I would bootstrap it by seizing a small, resource rich area and use the money to subordinate other, remote and small independent territories and then reform them into international financial centres. You will need the tacit support of a super power, so finding a powerful coalition in one of those countries and offering them secure offshore holdings in exchange for political support and holding off competing powers seems like a play. Becoming the offshore banker for the up and coming opposition faction in a super power provides enough cover to continue to pay your army with your natural resources cash. Opposition parties are a goldmine that way, as they need to protect their assets and strategic funding from the ruling party. And the populace? Well, surely there will be enough cash left over for bread and circuses, and you can't underestimate how much loyalty a lottery system that lifts some of them out of poverty will buy. With sufficient randomness or at least a hidden mechanism, they'll keep each other in line so long as they've got hope. Who knows, maybe they'll even make or invent things that provide better income than the natural resources. If the reptilian cynicism of this has given you a wave of nausea, good, you're human. But probably not cut out for being an autocrat.
- john-shaffer 6y ago> Monarchs just need to pay armies, and the easiest way to do that was to keep them conquering new territory and paying them off with the spoils. You "just" have to be one of the greatest military geniuses of all time. Easy. Actually, this was an insurmountable problem even for Alexander the Great. His army simply got tired of marching all over the world, and demanded to go home.
- r00fus 6y agoWorked great for imperial Rome for a while - they let the the CEOs of the day (military generals) fight amongst each other and fight/conquer the Gauls, Franks, Teutons, etc. The generals and armies got to keep status and power if they brought the spoils back to Rome. Once in a while, one of the generals crossed the rubicon and the Senate called on the other generals to suppress that one.
- WalterBright 6y agoHistory shows that being a free market country provides a huge advantage towards victory.
- komali2 6y agoHow are you defining free market or victory? I'm not aware of any existent "free market."
- WalterBright 6y agoThat all depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
- komali2 6y agoReduction ad absurdism is not valid here. My question is perfectly valid for such a brief comment claiming something so far reaching.
- WalterBright 6y agoI'm familiar with rhetorical attempts to redefine commonly understood terms, or assign overly literal meanings. I prefer to abstain from such debates. The words I use are commonplace and I use the commonplace meanings of them.
- brmgb 6y agoChange the ressource rich part for a pre-existing deep harbor, swap the lottery for extremely cheap public housing and replace the somewhat far-fetched thing about an opposition party by the Western Block during the cold war and you more or less described the history of Singapore.
- maest 6y ago> I would bootstrap it by seizing a small, resource rich area That's probably a prerequisite, but the issue is, there is virtually 0 unclaimed land on Earth. You need to find some ways to avoid having larger nations stiffle you during the early days. So your options would be: 1. Use a remote island nobody cares about (or create an island in the middle of the ocean). There was an idea to create such a nation for media piracy reasons, I can't remember the name. An outlandish project where they'd buy an island, declare themselves a new nation and have very lax IP laws. 2. Find a political power void. Good candidates are places with little rule of the law and/or weak governments. Ideally a place where there is no well organised force maintaining peace. War-torn areas might seem to fit the bill, but are probably to volatile to work. 3. Go off-planet, if space colonisation becomes a thing during our lifetime. Also, when it comes to creating a new nation, the CHAZ in Seattle is a great example in what _not_ to do. CHAZ was never going to work, but execution was so bad the problem basically took care of itself with virtually no involvement from the US govt.
- john-shaffer 6y agoCHAZ was the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, not Portland.
- maest 6y agoFixed that, thanks!
- selimthegrim 6y agoBiafra, Katanga and ISIS forgot about the superpower part.
- motohagiography 6y agoA narco state is another option as well. The alternative is to hollow out the institutions of an existing state using a movement. Takes about a generation, but you get an intact society with it. Game of Thrones' "Sparrows," are an example of it. You'd need a viral idea that people would seize upon and be willing to sacrifice themselves in service of it. They could teach it to kids so that it's all they ever knew, and as they matured they would inherit the reins of institutional power, and then use them in service of the idea. It's easier to get people to be against something than for it. I can't think of one off hand, but I suppose if you got them to imagine there were no countries, which wouldn't be difficult, and then not believing in anything strongly enough to kill to save or protect, and then no religion either, they could imagine living life in peace. Anyway, not to solution it. Just saying, it's not as complex as the OP writes.