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> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a d

> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a de facto dictatorship then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy, or personal transfer of power, someday. people want him to be dictator for life and he seems to be loved enough to receive it. democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional. hes a wise person whose made good investments for his country.

screye 3y ago
As a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral gold) It's similar to how commitees have never built successful startups. At the early phases, you need a decisive and singular leader. I continue to be on team democracy for poor nations. But I'm well aware that data is not on my side.
- kovezd 3y ago
  Interesting, you should publish your results. And it does makes sense, in a way it would be similar to letting children (developing persons) make their own decisions. The interesting question would be what is then, the best form of government for developing nations. Or even better, what are the required skill-set for leaders to bring development?
- roenxi 3y ago
  The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. The failures (USSR, Republic of China for example) where democracy doesn't take on a wide scale are probably also interesting studies. The key problem in setting up a democracy is that people are, on average, pretty dense. Doing things by vote doesn't cause stupid people to make good decisions. There is a real cultural element where the people involved have to be strongly against solving domestic problems with force, for evolution over revolution and also big believers in general liberty (otherwise you just get two factions fighting to use the big stick of government against the other).
  - sib 3y ago
    >> The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. I'm not sure that you could say that France was a democracy in the late 18th century (1770's, 1780's) - the critical time for the creation of the US and its form of government.
  - bluish29 3y ago
    > The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy The more interesting one is how often a democracy can survive against democratic superpower wishes. I.e, during the cold war era, the US helped taking down more democratic governments than the USSR itself. That is a bit of ironic remark. People tend to forget that the US didn't like democracies outside its sphere of influence in the last century. I am sure this legacy gets blind eye when people usually talk about democracy and why many people doesn't like it. The scars are still alive til this day (Iran is the prime example here).
    - philwelch 3y ago
      Iran had already ceased to be a democracy by the time the coup happened. That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup, which had a ton of popular support at the time. Mossadegh was essentially a dictator ruling by means of emergency powers at the time he was overthrown, and even before that point, he had also interfered with the 1952 parliamentary election by stopping the counting of votes once the minimum quorum of MP’s had been elected.
      - bluish29 3y ago
        > That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup Are you suggesting that the CIA was worried about democracy in Iran so they ousted him to give the absolute power to the king?
        3y ago
- nemo44x 3y ago
  You need a monarch to breed an aristocracy that takes care of its home by virtue of having skin in the game. A fake democracy immediately dissolves into an oligarchy which is self interested and will take whatever it can for itself up until the point a strong king rises up and smashes it. In this case Bukele.
- GaggiX 3y ago
  I would think of the Third Polish Republic.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  I think democracy needs a “Deep State” to succeed. This can be imposed by a time of autocracy gradually evolving into democracy - see the UK, imposed during colonialism and then taken over after independence - see the Indian Civil Service, Courts, etc, or imposed by an occupying force - see Germany. Without that “Deep State” it will degenerate in alternating bouts of violence until people cry out for autocracy - See Roman Republic.
  - nocoiner 3y ago
    My general working thesis is that 99.9% of the time when people refer to the “deep state,” they just mean “the state.” Aren’t you just referring to regular government institutions or is there something I’m missing from your comment?
    - macintux 3y ago
      Can’t speak to the original comment, but I think part of a “deep state” is institutional inertia/tradition. A state without that deep-rooted sense of continuity is much more fragile. Having a civil service without political allegiance seems to be critical to preservation of a democratic system.
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        Why are you under the impression that the bureaucracy class does not have a political leaning/allegiance? We know it does, 95% of DC votes for the people that want larger government.
        macintux 3y ago
        Allegiance is not the same thing as a tendency. And the fact that one party uses smaller government as part of its sales pitch may not last forever. In the U.S. I would say that Trump’s takeover of the GOP has generally de-emphasized smaller government as a plank of the party. He certainly doesn’t care about it. Whether the bureaucrats lean towards one party or the other doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t compelled out of fear for their jobs to break the law at the president’s command.
- throwme_123 3y ago
  it works in civilization (the game) too switch to democracy for a long time and it's a mess
- ks2048 3y ago
  What are your top examples of autocratic success stories?
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    I assume they're counting South Korea. Singapore is probably also up there, although I don't know enough about the country to know just how democratic it's democracy really is today.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    FDR. Packed the courts and ignored congress by way of emergency powers. Created countless agencies to perpetuate power in democratically and in perpetuity by virtue of the managerial state. Completely changed how America is run. Not saying it was bad either. Just that he was an autocrat and extremely successful. The moment they could congress weakened the executive branch to the point of near uselessness as we see today.
- nextos 3y ago
  Iceland and Ireland went from being poor to wealthy and stable, both as small democracies, and during the 20th century.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Iceland is also the oldest democracy in the world, so it's less they went from "incredibly crappy existence" and more "they were always stable, and just became more wealthy". I'm taking the OP as talking more about "you can't democracy your way out of being Haiti" kind of things.
- bitcurious 3y ago
  The US became absurdly wealthy during the 20th century. Canada did well too. Poland, Czechia, Estonia and a few other recently independent democracies are thriving as well.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The US became absurdly wealthy during the 19th century as well, particularly after the Civil War.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >The US became absurdly wealthy during the 20th century. Yes, but it was bootstrapped by the biggest land takeover in history, along with all of its natural resources. It also benefitted from all the western big players of the 19th/early 20th century being exhausted after 2 wars that never touched continental US soil. Neither is easily replicated without a rich in natural resources continent full of easy targets, or massive remote wars.
  - thisislife2 3y ago
    Can you really disregard its imperialistic history here - the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player), and you wish to completely ignore the role of the early western settlers in America.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player) I thought the slave states were significantly poorer than the free states, a major advantage of the North in the Civil War? I'm sure it's been examined, but would the South have been better off with paid labor of free people? Countries using that model do far better. Imagine someone trying to compete with slave labor against a modern enterprise. For colonization, that seems to have played a minor role in the US economy? My understanding of the pre-industrial or non-industrial US economy is that it's most powerful engine was the Mississippi River basin, which is something like the largest continguous amount of farmland in the world with navigable waterway access to the sea (and thus a way to get goods to market, as overland transport was much too expensive - compare a barge to a horse, or even a train).
- numeri 3y ago
  I believe this was one of Machiavelli's big arguments in The Prince – that sometimes a country in crisis needs a single strong leader/monarch/dictator, using cruelty if necessary to keep control and bring stability.
- Gimpei 3y ago
  This is not true. Japan and South Korea both experienced the majority of their growth as democracies. Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR. Chile experienced most of its growth after Pinochet. India is the largest Democracy on earth and it is growing at a very fast clip. That being said, there simply aren’t very many countries and even less ones that made the successful leap to rich world status regardless of the political regime. There’s a huge small sample problem here. And then of course there’s also a huge endogeneity problem. The literature in general has found a weak positive association between democratization and growth. And that’s about the most we can say. Stop worrying about the data not being on your side; it isn’t on anyone’s side.
  - greenavocado 3y ago
    That's not quite accurate. The dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for most of the post-war period has led to critiques regarding the vibrancy of political competition and the effective functioning of democracy. The chaebols, those massive family-run conglomerates, have essentially been the architects behind South Korea's economic renaissance since the '60s. Think Samsung, Hyundai, LG - these giants spearheaded the transformation from a post-war economy to an industrial powerhouse, under the guidance of policies favoring heavy industrialization and export-led growth. It's fascinating to see how the government played matchmaker here, doling out financial support and monopolistic privileges like candy at a parade. This strategic play birthed the "Miracle on the Han River," flipping the script from poverty to prosperity. But, as with all tales of meteoric rise, there's a darker subplot. The symbiosis between the chaebols and political elites isn't all roses. Issues of corruption, nepotism, and economic dominance cloud this success story, leading to a wave of calls for corporate governance reform and efforts to dilute their power. On a different note, South Korea's journey to democracy is a saga of its own. Decades of authoritarian rule gave way in the late '80s, thanks to the collective might of students, intellectuals, and labor activists. The June Democratic Uprising in '87 was a game-changer, forcing the military regime's hand to pave the way for democratic reforms and the country's first free presidential election later that year.
    - thisislife2 3y ago
- greenavocado 3y ago
  > It's similar to how commitees have never built successful startups. At the early phases, you need a decisive and singular leader. And then in the late phases you stagnate and get overthrown. Am I right?
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  CGP grey did a great video on The Dictators Handbook: https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/rules-for-rulers https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/rules-for-rulers It is well worth a watch. Anyone with an interest in democracy (or corporate politics or dominance hierarchies) definitely should watch it. I feel that his discussion of the making of the video was even more interesting (although long winded): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo The interesting conclusion that he draws in the discussion of the video is that all systems of governance are dependent upon responsible people getting into positions of power and then choosing to act responsibly rather than selfishly. The key insight is that getting into the position of power is corruptive and you have to make personal sacrifices to not be corrupted.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  There are endless success stories: Brazil, India, much of China's economic boom came from liberalizing and moving toward democracy (a process reversed by Xi), Eastern Europe, Japan, much of Taiwan's and S Korea's boom's. Singapore was mostly (but not sufficiently) democratic. In fact, there is no other form of government that is remotely close. All the wealthiest, most free countries in the world are democracies. Also, we have become so steeped in nationalism that we miss the true goal and point of it all: The freedom and prosperity of individuals. Raising aggregate wealth is not the goal - as we have seen recently, that means nothing to the people it doesn't benefit. Dictators and their syncophants say, 'only we can just ignore human rights, property rights, etc. and do X'. That doesn't help their victims. Democracy ensures that everyone has a seat at the table (imperfectly, and we can do it better - and we will do it faster if you'll help).
- imtringued 3y ago
  The thing is, naive democracies believe that the IMF is giving them advice in their best interest, but in reality most countries that sent from developing to developed status had to break most of the IMF rules. I'm talking about countries like Japan.
jrflowers 3y ago
> democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional What makes El Salvador a “country like this” that is incompatible with democracy as compared to other countries
- coldtea 3y ago
  The practical experience of 20th century Latin America countries, and their history, both regarding domestic politics and dynamics and external influence and meddling?
  - jrflowers 3y ago
    This makes sense. Latin America is incompatible with democracy and the reason for that is history; such a conclusion is so obvious it is a surprise that anyone would support the idea of democracy anywhere in the continent
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- infamouscow 3y ago
  In a democracy, over the long term, short term interests win out over long term interests. This is true of both the citizens and the politicians. In a monarchy, long term interests win out over short term interests because they're dynastic and stay within a family. There is a natural incentive for long term thinking that comes with a monarchy.
  - jrflowers 3y ago
    This makes sense. Kings are smarter and more selfless than bodies of democratically elected officials. One needs look no further than King Maha Vajiralongkorn for a contemporary example of a man that benevolently liberated his country from the hassle of managing its wealth
optimalsolver 3y ago
He could give the new dynasty of autocratic rulers some innocuous title like Mayors.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Sniffnoy 3y ago
> then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy I'm quite skeptical that that's the case. The basic problem is that a monarchy has an entirely different source of legitimacy from a modern popular dictatorship like Bukele's. What examples are there of this transition happening successfully? I guess you could maybe count North Korea, but even they haven't actually declared a monarchy... I could perhaps imagine it happening there, but that's a real extreme special case. A much more ordinary case like Bukele, I don't see it.

screye 3y ago

As a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral gold) It's similar to how commitees have never built successful startups. At the early phases, you need a decisive and singular leader. I continue to be on team democracy for poor nations. But I'm well aware that data is not on my side.

kovezd 3y ago
Interesting, you should publish your results. And it does makes sense, in a way it would be similar to letting children (developing persons) make their own decisions. The interesting question would be what is then, the best form of government for developing nations. Or even better, what are the required skill-set for leaders to bring development?
roenxi 3y ago
The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. The failures (USSR, Republic of China for example) where democracy doesn't take on a wide scale are probably also interesting studies. The key problem in setting up a democracy is that people are, on average, pretty dense. Doing things by vote doesn't cause stupid people to make good decisions. There is a real cultural element where the people involved have to be strongly against solving domestic problems with force, for evolution over revolution and also big believers in general liberty (otherwise you just get two factions fighting to use the big stick of government against the other).
- sib 3y ago
  >> The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. I'm not sure that you could say that France was a democracy in the late 18th century (1770's, 1780's) - the critical time for the creation of the US and its form of government.
- bluish29 3y ago
  > The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy The more interesting one is how often a democracy can survive against democratic superpower wishes. I.e, during the cold war era, the US helped taking down more democratic governments than the USSR itself. That is a bit of ironic remark. People tend to forget that the US didn't like democracies outside its sphere of influence in the last century. I am sure this legacy gets blind eye when people usually talk about democracy and why many people doesn't like it. The scars are still alive til this day (Iran is the prime example here).
  - philwelch 3y ago
    Iran had already ceased to be a democracy by the time the coup happened. That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup, which had a ton of popular support at the time. Mossadegh was essentially a dictator ruling by means of emergency powers at the time he was overthrown, and even before that point, he had also interfered with the 1952 parliamentary election by stopping the counting of votes once the minimum quorum of MP’s had been elected.
    - bluish29 3y ago
      > That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup Are you suggesting that the CIA was worried about democracy in Iran so they ousted him to give the absolute power to the king?
      - 3y ago
nemo44x 3y ago
You need a monarch to breed an aristocracy that takes care of its home by virtue of having skin in the game. A fake democracy immediately dissolves into an oligarchy which is self interested and will take whatever it can for itself up until the point a strong king rises up and smashes it. In this case Bukele.
GaggiX 3y ago
I would think of the Third Polish Republic.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
I think democracy needs a “Deep State” to succeed. This can be imposed by a time of autocracy gradually evolving into democracy - see the UK, imposed during colonialism and then taken over after independence - see the Indian Civil Service, Courts, etc, or imposed by an occupying force - see Germany. Without that “Deep State” it will degenerate in alternating bouts of violence until people cry out for autocracy - See Roman Republic.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  My general working thesis is that 99.9% of the time when people refer to the “deep state,” they just mean “the state.” Aren’t you just referring to regular government institutions or is there something I’m missing from your comment?
  - macintux 3y ago
    Can’t speak to the original comment, but I think part of a “deep state” is institutional inertia/tradition. A state without that deep-rooted sense of continuity is much more fragile. Having a civil service without political allegiance seems to be critical to preservation of a democratic system.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      Why are you under the impression that the bureaucracy class does not have a political leaning/allegiance? We know it does, 95% of DC votes for the people that want larger government.
      - macintux 3y ago
        Allegiance is not the same thing as a tendency. And the fact that one party uses smaller government as part of its sales pitch may not last forever. In the U.S. I would say that Trump’s takeover of the GOP has generally de-emphasized smaller government as a plank of the party. He certainly doesn’t care about it. Whether the bureaucrats lean towards one party or the other doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t compelled out of fear for their jobs to break the law at the president’s command.
throwme_123 3y ago
it works in civilization (the game) too switch to democracy for a long time and it's a mess
ks2048 3y ago
What are your top examples of autocratic success stories?
- nordsieck 3y ago
  I assume they're counting South Korea. Singapore is probably also up there, although I don't know enough about the country to know just how democratic it's democracy really is today.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  FDR. Packed the courts and ignored congress by way of emergency powers. Created countless agencies to perpetuate power in democratically and in perpetuity by virtue of the managerial state. Completely changed how America is run. Not saying it was bad either. Just that he was an autocrat and extremely successful. The moment they could congress weakened the executive branch to the point of near uselessness as we see today.
nextos 3y ago
Iceland and Ireland went from being poor to wealthy and stable, both as small democracies, and during the 20th century.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Iceland is also the oldest democracy in the world, so it's less they went from "incredibly crappy existence" and more "they were always stable, and just became more wealthy". I'm taking the OP as talking more about "you can't democracy your way out of being Haiti" kind of things.
bitcurious 3y ago
The US became absurdly wealthy during the 20th century. Canada did well too. Poland, Czechia, Estonia and a few other recently independent democracies are thriving as well.
- philwelch 3y ago
  The US became absurdly wealthy during the 19th century as well, particularly after the Civil War.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >The US became absurdly wealthy during the 20th century. Yes, but it was bootstrapped by the biggest land takeover in history, along with all of its natural resources. It also benefitted from all the western big players of the 19th/early 20th century being exhausted after 2 wars that never touched continental US soil. Neither is easily replicated without a rich in natural resources continent full of easy targets, or massive remote wars.
- thisislife2 3y ago
  Can you really disregard its imperialistic history here - the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player), and you wish to completely ignore the role of the early western settlers in America.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player) I thought the slave states were significantly poorer than the free states, a major advantage of the North in the Civil War? I'm sure it's been examined, but would the South have been better off with paid labor of free people? Countries using that model do far better. Imagine someone trying to compete with slave labor against a modern enterprise. For colonization, that seems to have played a minor role in the US economy? My understanding of the pre-industrial or non-industrial US economy is that it's most powerful engine was the Mississippi River basin, which is something like the largest continguous amount of farmland in the world with navigable waterway access to the sea (and thus a way to get goods to market, as overland transport was much too expensive - compare a barge to a horse, or even a train).
numeri 3y ago
I believe this was one of Machiavelli's big arguments in The Prince – that sometimes a country in crisis needs a single strong leader/monarch/dictator, using cruelty if necessary to keep control and bring stability.
Gimpei 3y ago
This is not true. Japan and South Korea both experienced the majority of their growth as democracies. Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR. Chile experienced most of its growth after Pinochet. India is the largest Democracy on earth and it is growing at a very fast clip. That being said, there simply aren’t very many countries and even less ones that made the successful leap to rich world status regardless of the political regime. There’s a huge small sample problem here. And then of course there’s also a huge endogeneity problem. The literature in general has found a weak positive association between democratization and growth. And that’s about the most we can say. Stop worrying about the data not being on your side; it isn’t on anyone’s side.
- greenavocado 3y ago
  That's not quite accurate. The dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for most of the post-war period has led to critiques regarding the vibrancy of political competition and the effective functioning of democracy. The chaebols, those massive family-run conglomerates, have essentially been the architects behind South Korea's economic renaissance since the '60s. Think Samsung, Hyundai, LG - these giants spearheaded the transformation from a post-war economy to an industrial powerhouse, under the guidance of policies favoring heavy industrialization and export-led growth. It's fascinating to see how the government played matchmaker here, doling out financial support and monopolistic privileges like candy at a parade. This strategic play birthed the "Miracle on the Han River," flipping the script from poverty to prosperity. But, as with all tales of meteoric rise, there's a darker subplot. The symbiosis between the chaebols and political elites isn't all roses. Issues of corruption, nepotism, and economic dominance cloud this success story, leading to a wave of calls for corporate governance reform and efforts to dilute their power. On a different note, South Korea's journey to democracy is a saga of its own. Decades of authoritarian rule gave way in the late '80s, thanks to the collective might of students, intellectuals, and labor activists. The June Democratic Uprising in '87 was a game-changer, forcing the military regime's hand to pave the way for democratic reforms and the country's first free presidential election later that year.
  - thisislife2 3y ago
greenavocado 3y ago
> It's similar to how commitees have never built successful startups. At the early phases, you need a decisive and singular leader. And then in the late phases you stagnate and get overthrown. Am I right?
hayst4ck 3y ago
CGP grey did a great video on The Dictators Handbook: https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/rules-for-rulers https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/rules-for-rulers It is well worth a watch. Anyone with an interest in democracy (or corporate politics or dominance hierarchies) definitely should watch it. I feel that his discussion of the making of the video was even more interesting (although long winded): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo The interesting conclusion that he draws in the discussion of the video is that all systems of governance are dependent upon responsible people getting into positions of power and then choosing to act responsibly rather than selfishly. The key insight is that getting into the position of power is corruptive and you have to make personal sacrifices to not be corrupted.
wolverine876 3y ago
There are endless success stories: Brazil, India, much of China's economic boom came from liberalizing and moving toward democracy (a process reversed by Xi), Eastern Europe, Japan, much of Taiwan's and S Korea's boom's. Singapore was mostly (but not sufficiently) democratic. In fact, there is no other form of government that is remotely close. All the wealthiest, most free countries in the world are democracies. Also, we have become so steeped in nationalism that we miss the true goal and point of it all: The freedom and prosperity of individuals. Raising aggregate wealth is not the goal - as we have seen recently, that means nothing to the people it doesn't benefit. Dictators and their syncophants say, 'only we can just ignore human rights, property rights, etc. and do X'. That doesn't help their victims. Democracy ensures that everyone has a seat at the table (imperfectly, and we can do it better - and we will do it faster if you'll help).
imtringued 3y ago
The thing is, naive democracies believe that the IMF is giving them advice in their best interest, but in reality most countries that sent from developing to developed status had to break most of the IMF rules. I'm talking about countries like Japan.

jrflowers 3y ago

> democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional What makes El Salvador a “country like this” that is incompatible with democracy as compared to other countries

coldtea 3y ago
The practical experience of 20th century Latin America countries, and their history, both regarding domestic politics and dynamics and external influence and meddling?
- jrflowers 3y ago
  This makes sense. Latin America is incompatible with democracy and the reason for that is history; such a conclusion is so obvious it is a surprise that anyone would support the idea of democracy anywhere in the continent
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
infamouscow 3y ago
In a democracy, over the long term, short term interests win out over long term interests. This is true of both the citizens and the politicians. In a monarchy, long term interests win out over short term interests because they're dynastic and stay within a family. There is a natural incentive for long term thinking that comes with a monarchy.
- jrflowers 3y ago
  This makes sense. Kings are smarter and more selfless than bodies of democratically elected officials. One needs look no further than King Maha Vajiralongkorn for a contemporary example of a man that benevolently liberated his country from the hassle of managing its wealth

optimalsolver 3y ago

He could give the new dynasty of autocratic rulers some innocuous title like Mayors.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Sniffnoy 3y ago

> then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy I'm quite skeptical that that's the case. The basic problem is that a monarchy has an entirely different source of legitimacy from a modern popular dictatorship like Bukele's. What examples are there of this transition happening successfully? I guess you could maybe count North Korea, but even they haven't actually declared a monarchy... I could perhaps imagine it happening there, but that's a real extreme special case. A much more ordinary case like Bukele, I don't see it.