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> it's coordinating the external trade links to keep everyone paid and in their jobs while the top of the regime changes to new hands that's difficult. That's
by nxobject 2y ago
> it's coordinating the external trade links to keep everyone paid and in their jobs while the top of the regime changes to new hands that's difficult.
That's actually a really good insight. It explains why quite a few successful revolutions – e.g. Russia and China – happened in countries _without_ an established administrative bureaucracy, and patted themselves on the based on their apparent competence in building one.
- motohagiography 2y agothe view of coups as one faction replacing another is quite a rabbit hole, but it's a political analysis that has some experimental and predictive power. there has to be guarantor or benefactor on the other side of it. in this view, leaders are figureheads accountable to the small essential coalition who keeps them there. the idea of secret cabals orchestrating these things is usually backwards, where a revolutionary (or politician) is really just an entrepreneurial dealmaker between elite factions. it's essentially demesquita's "logic of political survival," also distilled into the well made cartoon, "rules for rulers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- cyberax 2y ago> That's actually a really good insight. It explains why quite a few successful revolutions – e.g. Russia and China – happened in countries _without_ an established administrative bureaucracy Erm.... Whut? China was (and is) _the_ example of a country held together by a civil bureaucracy. Ditto for Russia.
- orkoden 2y agoChina literally invented bureaucracy 3000 years ago. It’s the cornerstone of Chinese civilization.
- pewpew2020 2y agoThey invented inventing 5000 years ago