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This is a common feature of dictatorships: a boneheaded decision from a central government wreaks havoc on the people in the field that would know better. It r
by nostromo 4y ago
This is a common feature of dictatorships: a boneheaded decision from a central government wreaks havoc on the people in the field that would know better.
It reminds me of Mao ordering all sparrows be killed because they eat agriculture seeds.
This of course caused a much bigger crisis with insects destroying crops - because everyone knows sparrows also eat lots of insects.
- epistasis 4y agoWell to be fair to Mao, sparrows are renowned for their bourgeois capitalists tendencies.
- rmatt2000 4y agoThe sparrows in my yard have been exploiting and oppressing the wrens for years.
- pfdietz 4y agoThe wrens are stuck back in the middle ages. They keep having faires about it.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoThat's a golf clap worthy pun.
- ethbr0 4y agoSometimes I think a huge percent of communism's economic overhead is simply everyone having to remember another dictionary's worth of current communist truths. To the extent they have less mental free space to actually do work. Even in abridged form... that's a lot. https://campbellmgold.co.uk/archive_definitive/red_book_chairman_mao_1966.pdf https://campbellmgold.co.uk/archive_definitive/red_book_chai...
- krainboltgreene 4y agoit's two words man
- drdeca 4y agoHuh?
- imtringued 4y agoOrganic farming
- pishpash 4y agoIt's not that, really. There are only so many boneheaded decisions that can come from a central government, and you risk over-weighting one person directly. More frequently, it's the indirect, created conditions typical of centralized power that allow sycophants and incompetents to run decision-making at lower levels -- where there is more impact and volume -- based on purely political and personal reasons.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sumanthvepa 4y agoSri Lanka is not a dictatorship. They have regular elections. The Rajapakshas might have been authoritarian, even corrupt. But they won the last election in a landslide. Sri Lankans cannot entirely absolve themselves of blame for repeatedly electing a populist regime.
- murukesh_s 4y agoi think its an unfortunate combination of many things, covid being the main. this shows that democracies are not immune to leaders resorting to populist measures to win elections.. hope its a good lesson to lankans and rest of us.
- trhway 4y agodemocracy isn't just about elections (otherwise even the totalitarian fascist Russia could have been called democratic :). Elections is just a basic necessary condition of democracy, a starting point. Many of those populist regimes aren't democracies really, they are more like ochlocracies naturally hijacked by authoritarians.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoYes - exactly. Genuine democracies are a complex patchwork of competing interests which somehow balance to generate policy that benefits most of the population. As soon as you have a government run for the benefit of a small group, you no longer have a democracy. Elections don't change this. Not even nominally free and fair ones. The problem - as always - is that any system of government trends towards capture by Dark Tetrad types. No matter what decisions they appear to make, and no matter whether they're left/right populist/monarchist democratic/authoritarian, the consequences are always disastrous.
- HPsquared 4y agoAre the two mutually exclusive? I don't see why a democracy can't elect a dictator, even a different one every couple of years. In ancient Rome the title dictator was a short-term thing.
- wesleywt 4y agoThis was populalism with a dose of nationalism. Not a dictatorship, more in vain of Trumpism.
- hunglee2 4y ago'bad government must be authoritarian' meme is interesting to observe, as if it is impossible for bad governance to occur in democratic systems. Sri Lanka clearly is a democracy, albeit a degenerate one
- sacrosancty 4y ago
- hellomyguys 4y agoWanting to overturn an election due to false claims of voter fraud is exactly the same as people protesting bad governance /s
- nibbleshifter 4y agoIts entirely possible for democratic systems to be authoritarian. Sri Lanka is a democracy, in that they have elections, but it is also hilariously corrupt, with extremely authoritarian governance.
- cute_boi 4y agoWhich country isn't corrupt? I know many nations that are more corrupt than Srilanka. The major difference is Srilanka depended on tourism which led to this downfall. Regarding the authoritarian governance, can you please supply the valid examples? Srilanka is just one example. There are many countries like Bhutan, Nepal which seems to be sliding day by day. I hope we won't label them authoritarian when they fail? Democracy is not immune as people expect. We can't label demagouge who sways people as authoritarian. Democracy is only sucessful if majority of people aren't biased and vote based on merit rather than religion, greed etc.
- hunglee2 4y agothis is not possible as 'authoritarian' is described as opposite to 'democratic'. Witness the recent posture of US alliance building / NATO to Asia pivoting / Anti-BRI funding.
- adrianN 4y agoI'm not sure that "people in the field" would have predicted that killing all sparrows will lead to a surge of insects.
- CrackerNews 4y agoPerhaps Mao appealed too heavily to the sentiment of farmers upset with their seeds being eaten, not realizing that killing the sparrows would have had adverse ecological effects.
- hellomyguys 4y agoThis is a common feature of most hierarchical structures (and also democracies)...