4 ms·

> for non-self-serving motivations That's a gotcha if I've ever seen one. Why would self serving motivations be a disqualifier? Not to mention, you can basical

> for non-self-serving motivations That's a gotcha if I've ever seen one. Why would self serving motivations be a disqualifier? Not to mention, you can basically argue that it's always self serving motivations no matter what. That said, yeah things are more likely to go badly than to go well. Nation building is hard; the allies were able to reform Japan and (West) Germany because while they had evil states, the states were at least functioning. It seems easier to improve governments morally than functionally.

rayiner 2y ago
Germany and Japan had highly functional states for centuries--in the case of Japan, over a millennium--before the allies installed democracy. Not only that, those places had cultures that had long internalized administration and rule of law even if people couldn't vote on those systems.
- broken-kebab 2y ago
  Germany as a single state emerged only at the second half of XIX. You may argue that those multitude of German states which existed before still count, but how more functional each of them were compared to e.g. Khmer Kingdom is an open question. What is 'functional' to begin with? I probably would agree that there should be some sort of pre-requisite for a working democracy, but your theory of a 'functional state' (at least as I can derive it from your commentaries) feels a bit too raw so far
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Functional means it has some form of bureaucracy that can collect taxes from the population and use that to do state things, usually provide for the defense of that population against internal and external threats. The actual system of government is irrelevant and in many cases the state itself survives even radical political change. What matters is whether it has the resources to actually exert authority. Haiti lost its functional state when the French colonialists fled en masse after the 1804 massacre. Due to racism, they were the only ones allowed in administrative positions in the bureaucracy so when they left Haiti, it was left with no one qualified to run the state apparatus. Since the population were transplanted slaves, they had no tribal traditions to fall back on. Without a continuity of bureaucracy it was left hobbled to this day. Since the state can’t afford to police the population, these gangs fill the void because they can use force to collect taxes (in the broadest sense because usually this takes the form of business shakedowns and roadblocks that they use to extract money from the population).
    - broken-kebab 2y ago
      The question is not that we need some system of gov't before coming to democracy. It's just that we can't explain multiple failures of building/exporting democracy by this thing alone. There are way more functional bureaucracies than there are democratic governments. The question is what is the secret ingredient.
      - throwup238 2y ago
        The bureaucracy is the secret ingredient and it’s orthogonal to the system of government. Throughout history the bureaucrats have survived regimes and adapted to the demands of their new rulers, whether that be kings or constituents. Successful conquerors and revolutionaries both tend to repurpose that bureaucracy rather than rebuilding it from scratch (which tends to end very badly, see Haiti or the Democratic Republic of Congo).
        broken-kebab 2y ago
        I don't think so. China shows us an example of exceptionally developed bureaucracy, having long historical roots, even entrenched in culture - and no democracy. I really don't think governing system in the US had the same at its birth, and look how it went. I'd rather suggest some features of judicial system is the key
  - rayiner 2y ago
    Unified Germany was a direct outgrowth of the Prussian state, which was an efficient, centralized modern state. Most of Germany was also within the holy roman empire, which had a sophisticated government with an elective monarchy (though the electors were a handful of princes). Of course German elements of democracy goes back to pre-Christian times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)
    - broken-kebab 2y ago
      Thanks for the answer, but we haven't moved anywhere. Prussian state became a 'modern' (to its time) state not long before. HRE wasn't a state at all, and I'm not sure one can really call an assembly of princes 'a sophisticated government'. It didn't have direct power over anything for the most time of its existence, and to tbomk never had functional executive bureaucracy. Pre-Christian Germanic 'ting' is as irrelevant to the problem of modern representative democracy as qurultay (which existed arguably for longer periods, but most Turkic countries are not democracies). Practically all significant tribes had a period when heads of clans had their gatherings to reduce amount of internal violence. Long story short there's a tradition (starting from Marx, if I'm not mistaken) to call it 'military democracy', but once you look at it closer, it's a clear case of misnomer. In addition, I dare to say, centralization doesn't really correlate with democracy.
- pcwalton 2y ago
  What? This is totally ahistorical. The Meiji era (the beginnings of what we might call a modern Japanese state) didn't start until 1868. Before that, Japan was feudal with wars happening all the time. Quoting from Wikipedia about the infamously-chaotic Sengoku period in the 1400s [1], which was just one of many turbulent times prior to the Meiji period: > The period saw a breakdown in the traditional master-servant relationship between a lord and his vassals, with many instances of vassals rebelling against their lords, internal dynastic conflict over lordships within noble families (in which vassals would take sides), and the installation of figurehead lords by cadet branches of noble families.[3] The period was also marked by the loosening of samurai culture, with people born into other social strata sometimes making a name for themselves as warriors and thus becoming samurai. > [W]eariness of war, socioeconomic unrest and poor treatment by aristocrats provoked the wrath of the peasant class. Farmers, craftsmen, merchants and even villages would organize uprisings (known as "ikki") against the ruling class. An extraordinary example is the Kaga Rebellion, in which the local ikki had staged a large-scale revolt with the support of the True Pure Land sect (thereby establishing the term ikkō ikki) and assumed control of the entire province of Kaga. Whatever post-Heian, pre-Meiji Japan was, it was not an orderly, harmonious society. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Rayiner is using the word “state” in a subtly different manner than you are. You’re talking about concrete polities, but he’s talking about the state apparatus which generally survives between republics, dynasties, and even empires. It’s the bureaucracy (in a broad sense) used by the feudal lords to collect taxes, raise retinues, etc. that was transformed into the modern state. Tax collectors that are familiar with how much everyone owns in an area, agronomists who are familiar with farming and irrigation techniques suited for the area, judges or local chiefs that have the trust and authority to settle disputes, recordkeepers and their records, that kind of thing. After a revolution or conquest, any of these people that survive are usually recruited to help run the new state, just under new instructions from up top.
    - pcwalton 2y ago
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Building a state/civic society is extremely hard and generally takes a long time to sink in. In contrast, taking an existing evil state and making it less-evil seems a lot easier, as you can see with Japan and Germany.
raincole 2y ago
Japan had a limited democracy where only tax-paying males could vote until their prime minister got assassinated. Way before WWII.

rayiner 2y ago

Germany and Japan had highly functional states for centuries--in the case of Japan, over a millennium--before the allies installed democracy. Not only that, those places had cultures that had long internalized administration and rule of law even if people couldn't vote on those systems.

broken-kebab 2y ago
Germany as a single state emerged only at the second half of XIX. You may argue that those multitude of German states which existed before still count, but how more functional each of them were compared to e.g. Khmer Kingdom is an open question. What is 'functional' to begin with? I probably would agree that there should be some sort of pre-requisite for a working democracy, but your theory of a 'functional state' (at least as I can derive it from your commentaries) feels a bit too raw so far
- throwup238 2y ago
  Functional means it has some form of bureaucracy that can collect taxes from the population and use that to do state things, usually provide for the defense of that population against internal and external threats. The actual system of government is irrelevant and in many cases the state itself survives even radical political change. What matters is whether it has the resources to actually exert authority. Haiti lost its functional state when the French colonialists fled en masse after the 1804 massacre. Due to racism, they were the only ones allowed in administrative positions in the bureaucracy so when they left Haiti, it was left with no one qualified to run the state apparatus. Since the population were transplanted slaves, they had no tribal traditions to fall back on. Without a continuity of bureaucracy it was left hobbled to this day. Since the state can’t afford to police the population, these gangs fill the void because they can use force to collect taxes (in the broadest sense because usually this takes the form of business shakedowns and roadblocks that they use to extract money from the population).
  - broken-kebab 2y ago
    The question is not that we need some system of gov't before coming to democracy. It's just that we can't explain multiple failures of building/exporting democracy by this thing alone. There are way more functional bureaucracies than there are democratic governments. The question is what is the secret ingredient.
    - throwup238 2y ago
      The bureaucracy is the secret ingredient and it’s orthogonal to the system of government. Throughout history the bureaucrats have survived regimes and adapted to the demands of their new rulers, whether that be kings or constituents. Successful conquerors and revolutionaries both tend to repurpose that bureaucracy rather than rebuilding it from scratch (which tends to end very badly, see Haiti or the Democratic Republic of Congo).
      - broken-kebab 2y ago
        I don't think so. China shows us an example of exceptionally developed bureaucracy, having long historical roots, even entrenched in culture - and no democracy. I really don't think governing system in the US had the same at its birth, and look how it went. I'd rather suggest some features of judicial system is the key
- rayiner 2y ago
  Unified Germany was a direct outgrowth of the Prussian state, which was an efficient, centralized modern state. Most of Germany was also within the holy roman empire, which had a sophisticated government with an elective monarchy (though the electors were a handful of princes). Of course German elements of democracy goes back to pre-Christian times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)
  - broken-kebab 2y ago
    Thanks for the answer, but we haven't moved anywhere. Prussian state became a 'modern' (to its time) state not long before. HRE wasn't a state at all, and I'm not sure one can really call an assembly of princes 'a sophisticated government'. It didn't have direct power over anything for the most time of its existence, and to tbomk never had functional executive bureaucracy. Pre-Christian Germanic 'ting' is as irrelevant to the problem of modern representative democracy as qurultay (which existed arguably for longer periods, but most Turkic countries are not democracies). Practically all significant tribes had a period when heads of clans had their gatherings to reduce amount of internal violence. Long story short there's a tradition (starting from Marx, if I'm not mistaken) to call it 'military democracy', but once you look at it closer, it's a clear case of misnomer. In addition, I dare to say, centralization doesn't really correlate with democracy.
pcwalton 2y ago
What? This is totally ahistorical. The Meiji era (the beginnings of what we might call a modern Japanese state) didn't start until 1868. Before that, Japan was feudal with wars happening all the time. Quoting from Wikipedia about the infamously-chaotic Sengoku period in the 1400s [1], which was just one of many turbulent times prior to the Meiji period: > The period saw a breakdown in the traditional master-servant relationship between a lord and his vassals, with many instances of vassals rebelling against their lords, internal dynastic conflict over lordships within noble families (in which vassals would take sides), and the installation of figurehead lords by cadet branches of noble families.[3] The period was also marked by the loosening of samurai culture, with people born into other social strata sometimes making a name for themselves as warriors and thus becoming samurai. > [W]eariness of war, socioeconomic unrest and poor treatment by aristocrats provoked the wrath of the peasant class. Farmers, craftsmen, merchants and even villages would organize uprisings (known as "ikki") against the ruling class. An extraordinary example is the Kaga Rebellion, in which the local ikki had staged a large-scale revolt with the support of the True Pure Land sect (thereby establishing the term ikkō ikki) and assumed control of the entire province of Kaga. Whatever post-Heian, pre-Meiji Japan was, it was not an orderly, harmonious society. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period
- throwup238 2y ago
  Rayiner is using the word “state” in a subtly different manner than you are. You’re talking about concrete polities, but he’s talking about the state apparatus which generally survives between republics, dynasties, and even empires. It’s the bureaucracy (in a broad sense) used by the feudal lords to collect taxes, raise retinues, etc. that was transformed into the modern state. Tax collectors that are familiar with how much everyone owns in an area, agronomists who are familiar with farming and irrigation techniques suited for the area, judges or local chiefs that have the trust and authority to settle disputes, recordkeepers and their records, that kind of thing. After a revolution or conquest, any of these people that survive are usually recruited to help run the new state, just under new instructions from up top.
  - pcwalton 2y ago
TulliusCicero 2y ago
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Building a state/civic society is extremely hard and generally takes a long time to sink in. In contrast, taking an existing evil state and making it less-evil seems a lot easier, as you can see with Japan and Germany.

raincole 2y ago

Japan had a limited democracy where only tax-paying males could vote until their prime minister got assassinated. Way before WWII.