From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Mar 25 2003 - 12:23:10 MST
MaxPlumm@aol.com wrote:
> Amara responded to Matus:
> ...
> "The title of the message is of course, referring to what the Afghan
> people called the invasion of the Soviets in 1979. How many millions
> disappeared? Nobody knows."
>
> Strange how that is always a feature of Communist governments.
> ...
I would suggest that what it is a charcteristic of is autocratic
governments, where the power is centralized, and where the person who
controls the power is one who has acquired his job by being move skilled
at power politics than at diplomatic manuvering. In this context I
consider assination and deceit to be parts of power politics rather then
diplomacy.
This description predicts that dictatorships will generally tend more
towards massive violence than monarchies, and that oligarchies will fall
in between, but note that a lot depends on the character of the
autocrat. This is an inevitable feature of centralized autocracies,
though many of them are built around a social structure that tends to
encourage some particular type emerging.
That which is called Communism then becomes a special case. But the
principles are much more general, having in large part to do with the
relative power of the various parties, and the degree of immunity felt
by the autocrat. (It could, however, be argued that some personality
types are more likely to lash out visciously against weak targets when
they feel threatened.)
Please remember that Communism and Democrary are names. They don't
describe any real systems, or they describe them so vaguely that the
terms can include widely variant systems. I, personally, tend more
towards classifying things as variations on cultural continuity. Thus I
had though that Mao was setting up a new Empire, and now suspect that
what is really happening is the developing of a Mandrinate. I think
that Stalin was more like Ivan the Terrible than like any other
personage of note, etc. The names used on the surface as often mislead
as enlighten. Just consider the term "People's Democratic Republic", a
less descriptive term would be difficult to invent with intent. But it
was probably adopted (at least the first time) will full intention of
living up to the name.
Back to the thread:
I'm not sure that a private military-industrial complex would be any
different than what we've got. But I'm not sure it would be any worse.
In fact, if I look at who buys what from whom, it seems quite likely to
be a desription of the current system, though governments tend to
actively suppress the independant contractors. But then I believe that
it would be a safe prediction that whoever became the dominant military
contractor would act to suppress the competition. (And *that's* the
weakness of libertarian theory. Monopolies need to be prevented. It
should be seen as one of the legitimate functions of government.)
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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