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Well, maybe. Thing is, political/economical systems are kind of path dependent. It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, fo

Well, maybe. Thing is, political/economical systems are kind of path dependent. It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, for reasons that I should hope are obvious[1] The reality is that 70 years while a lot for a single creature, is not very long in historical terms. Things from very long ago can have a continuous effect that is hard to stamp out as groups and cultures form in society that benefit from the existing or new structures. It's just not realistic to treat countries, organizations, or other large groups of people the same as if they are individuals, any more than it makes sense to treat a computer program like a transistor. Of course, in the USA at least, there is a pervasive culture of pretending the past doesn't matter, but this is childish. Two books I can recommend if you want to expand your ability to think this way are Why Nations Fail and Prisoners Of Geography. [1] But since common sense isn't so common: a democracy can vote to become authoritarian, but an authoritarian place can only usually become democratic by force. Also, a democracy, to survive, needs an economy that is dominated by a relatively large, not relatively small number of interests, so they will check and balance each other and no single interest can capture the whole system. But once you become authoritarian it is easy for the economy to decline, simplify and become less diverse (and thus even better fit for authoritarians). It becomes an attractor. Have you not noticed that authoritarian states have a tendency to suppress development/innovation sometimes when it seems "irrational" to pass up economic gains? This is to avoid creating more powerful elites that would compete with the existing elites. Once you own a huge enough part of the pie, it becomes more important to keep yourself on top than to make the pie bigger.

hunterb123 4y ago
> Well, maybe Was that maybe answering the first questions of the GP? The following: > So We should have just supported them developing intercontinental ballistic nukes while they have continued to chant death to America and called for the destruction of Israel to wipe it off the map for decades and heavily find terrorist groups Dropping a "maybe" after that is worrying to me. For me it's a definite no, we should not allow such behaviour. I feel as if you should have a definite answer on something like that or you can't really have a debate on it, as it's the core issue. On a related note, how do you feel about the Ukraine / Russia conflict and US involvement?
- bluesign 4y ago
  I think it was to this. > If only we had left them alone they’d have developed into a perfectly rational democracy like all the other Middle East / western Asian countries guided by principles of freedom and womens rights would have flourished?
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    What makes you think that? I'm still curious the answer to the first question though.
    - bluesign 4y ago
      All paragraph after, makes it more likely than nuclear subject.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 4y ago
> It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, for reasons that I should hope are obvious I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic. > Have you not noticed that authoritarian states have a tendency to suppress development/innovation sometimes when it seems "irrational" to pass up economic gains? This is to avoid creating more powerful elites that would compete with the existing elites. Once you own a huge enough part of the pie, it becomes more important to keep yourself on top than to make the pie bigger. Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies. Which is why Germany and Japan are two of the biggest examples of large authoritarian states that were transformed into democracies.
- galdosdi 4y ago
  > I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic. This is a very good question, but I think the real answer lies elsewhere in your comment: > Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies. My interpretation of history is that democracy and the industrial revolution is like panspermia: it is rare and hard for it to happen on its own, but once it has somehow happened, it does tend to spread easily through "conquest" (literal or indirect/metaphorical) But without some outside competitor or existential threat, it is very hard for an authoritarian, static system to become a more democratic, dynamic system, for the reasons I mentioned. Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Interesting points. I have a few responses. I think you might be slightly underrating the internal stability of democratic institutions. Nascent democracies like the Weimar Republic are vulnerable to the "vote to become authoritarian" failure mode (though even the Weimar Republic "voted to become authoritarian" via the dubious mechanism of a minority government and a political culture where every major party engaged in street violence), but a well-established democracy has a fair amount of internal stability. France, for instance, has successfully reestablished democracy even after foreign conquest and the military coup of 1958. The US and UK have been even more stable. > Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone. I assume you're talking about Iran again here. Iran's democracy was already in the midst of an internal collapse towards authoritarianism even before the coup, though. Mossadegh suspended Parliament and invoked emergency powers in the face of internal opposition. Even the coup itself arguably had more internal than external causes (see: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-06-16/what-really-happened-iran https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-06-... as archived at https://archive.ph/wdEy8 https://archive.ph/wdEy8). But if you look at things more broadly, there are examples of authoritarian regimes giving way to democracies for largely internal causes, in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, and South Korea. So there's some evidence for democracy also being a stable attractor, though this is far from universal if you look at countries like Russia, Afghanistan, or most of the Arab world.

hunterb123 4y ago

> Well, maybe Was that maybe answering the first questions of the GP? The following: > So We should have just supported them developing intercontinental ballistic nukes while they have continued to chant death to America and called for the destruction of Israel to wipe it off the map for decades and heavily find terrorist groups Dropping a "maybe" after that is worrying to me. For me it's a definite no, we should not allow such behaviour. I feel as if you should have a definite answer on something like that or you can't really have a debate on it, as it's the core issue. On a related note, how do you feel about the Ukraine / Russia conflict and US involvement?

bluesign 4y ago
I think it was to this. > If only we had left them alone they’d have developed into a perfectly rational democracy like all the other Middle East / western Asian countries guided by principles of freedom and womens rights would have flourished?
- hunterb123 4y ago
  What makes you think that? I'm still curious the answer to the first question though.
  - bluesign 4y ago
    All paragraph after, makes it more likely than nuclear subject.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

philwelch 4y ago

> It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, for reasons that I should hope are obvious I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic. > Have you not noticed that authoritarian states have a tendency to suppress development/innovation sometimes when it seems "irrational" to pass up economic gains? This is to avoid creating more powerful elites that would compete with the existing elites. Once you own a huge enough part of the pie, it becomes more important to keep yourself on top than to make the pie bigger. Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies. Which is why Germany and Japan are two of the biggest examples of large authoritarian states that were transformed into democracies.

galdosdi 4y ago
> I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic. This is a very good question, but I think the real answer lies elsewhere in your comment: > Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies. My interpretation of history is that democracy and the industrial revolution is like panspermia: it is rare and hard for it to happen on its own, but once it has somehow happened, it does tend to spread easily through "conquest" (literal or indirect/metaphorical) But without some outside competitor or existential threat, it is very hard for an authoritarian, static system to become a more democratic, dynamic system, for the reasons I mentioned. Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone.
- philwelch 4y ago
  Interesting points. I have a few responses. I think you might be slightly underrating the internal stability of democratic institutions. Nascent democracies like the Weimar Republic are vulnerable to the "vote to become authoritarian" failure mode (though even the Weimar Republic "voted to become authoritarian" via the dubious mechanism of a minority government and a political culture where every major party engaged in street violence), but a well-established democracy has a fair amount of internal stability. France, for instance, has successfully reestablished democracy even after foreign conquest and the military coup of 1958. The US and UK have been even more stable. > Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone. I assume you're talking about Iran again here. Iran's democracy was already in the midst of an internal collapse towards authoritarianism even before the coup, though. Mossadegh suspended Parliament and invoked emergency powers in the face of internal opposition. Even the coup itself arguably had more internal than external causes (see: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-06-16/what-really-happened-iran https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-06-... as archived at https://archive.ph/wdEy8 https://archive.ph/wdEy8). But if you look at things more broadly, there are examples of authoritarian regimes giving way to democracies for largely internal causes, in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, and South Korea. So there's some evidence for democracy also being a stable attractor, though this is far from universal if you look at countries like Russia, Afghanistan, or most of the Arab world.