The 21st century is shaping up as a showdown between dictatorships and democracies. A new book reveals the surprising evidence of how dictators and despots fall from power—and blows up popular myths.
How timely given we may be facing this in the US. The difference here is the way we elect the President is not helpful in the popular vote and gives a minority more power. I am guessing we are in the second area for chipping away in that case. But the wild card in the US is where is the military. I would surmise that much of the professional NCO and Officer Corp would refuse to carry out unlawful orders. One can imagine, ironically, the military may be the last bulwark against a full blown dictatorship in the US. The wild card would be those who already have authoritarian leanings and whether purges would actually take place, or we would end up in a full blown civil war.
I would note that not a single Fortune 500 CEO has given money to Trump, but it is billionaire tech bros (Musk, Theil, etc) who also may benefit from the impact on Crypto holdings with Trump policies that would to inflation, devaluing the dollar or even forcing the Euro to become the stable reserve currency. Trump is bad for business. And the tech bros and private equity share one thing in common with Trump, they bankrupt companies while taking out all the equity for themselves. It is an oligarchic business model. We see the inner circle forming as we speak.
Paul, responding to both of your posts; I’m in agreement. It’s amazing that after decades of winning elections on being the anti-communist party, the present Trump inspired GOP is so supportive of authoritarians.
Your list of governments we’ve helped overthrow should wake up people. But I suspect that they refuse to believe that. Guatemala is a great example where the Dulles brothers (Secretary of Defense and CIA director) and United Fruit were instrumental in overthrowing an elected government. About a year or more ago, Kamala Harris visited Guatemala and said that we need to get to the root causes of emigration. No one asked her the obvious question, What are the root causes? Even Pogo knows the answer to that question; “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
What happened in Guatemala might, in the long run, be historically less consequential than what we did in Iran.
You also mentioned the French. After their experience in Vietnam and Algeria, they warned us not to go into Afghanistan and Iraq. Our response was to rename french fries in the US Senate cafeteria “American fries.”.
What you write is true, but all tyrants, all autocrats, are not created equal. I would be interested in hearing you compare Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” with Dirsus’ book. To Arendt in 1950, totalitarian regimes are different from what we previously knew as authoritarian regimes. She only listed two (remember, this was 1950), Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Who would she cite today? You mention the top three, Russia, China and North Korea. I don’t think they can be compared to Uganda, Libya, Iraq or any other 21st century autocracy. Those three countries have decades of autocratic rule backing them up and also the new technology of surveillance and mind control. Those three automatic regimes, I think, would satisfy Arendt’s definition of totalitarian. Their leaders also, compared to the lesser regimes, appear to be more stable.
John, you bring up a good point and I would look to the post war era when the US backed with enthusiasm authoritarian regimes as a “bulwark” against communist expansion. The US overthrew elected governments in Chile, Guatemala, Iran to name a few. The US turned a blind eye to the military dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil. South Korea under Rhee was hardly the paragon of democracy in the early years, nor was Taiwan under the nationalists. The US fought against popular movements in Vietnam which offered the US a sweetheart deal in 1945 only to reject it, supporting a losing French cause (see also Algeria with France) and pushing Vietnam into the Soviet orbit.
The Soviets/Russians weren’t backward either seeing Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela along with Belarus, and currently many former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
My guess is Arendt may look at things differently today given the post WW II experience.
Does Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore fit in this model? What -- aside from his own character -- enabled him to create an authoritarian state which was not a tyranny?
I am not an expert on Singapore, but every so often, a country gets comparatively lucky. It’s extremely rare. Moreover there are aspects of Singapore that are unique (city state, strategic location, etc). But if I had to blindly choose whether to live my life in a democracy or an authoritarian state, it’s obvious what I would choose. For every Singapore, there are dozens of Turkmenistans, Eritreas, etc. I can’t speculate too much on LKY given that my knowledge of that period in Singapore is limited.
How are feudal monarchies and absolute monarchies classified on the tyranny scale? It seems to me that they can have as small a "selectorate" as dictatorships, be as awful in terms of economic development and the overall well-being of the average person, and have a similar undercurrent of extreme violence that bursts out any time the regime is threatened or actually falls, but nevertheless they can survive many generations, and even if the regime does fall to invasion or civil war, historically it was often replaced by the same sort of regime, just with different individuals in charge. Is there some factor that makes such regimes largely obsolete in the modern world, or could they become dominant again if we go into a long enough period of slower economic development?
A few senior US Democrats are unafraid to speak truth to Joe Biden. Cleary Donald Trump’s selectorate would be, if the roles were reversed. If Joe Biden, a decent man, accepts such truth and withdraws the US could still be a democracy (with all it’s flaws) for another 4 years – if not our future is grim.
This piece uses the metaphor of a treadmill - the requirement of perpetual motion to sustain a dictator. In the case of Putin, an apt metaphor would be the meat grinder - used to describe infantry tactics in Ukraine - to illustrate the mechanism that demands unlimited fresh sacrifice at home and abroad to sustain power.
This is an insight lost on so-called 'realist' academics and others who place the blame for the invasion of Ukraine at the door of the west. They cannot accept that it is the very modus operandi of Putin to seek out causes for war. He needed an excuse to do what he decided he had to do. Blaming it on NATO and the EU radically misunderstands the motive to invade - which suits Putin very well, of course. If he can go about needless slaughter while Washington, Brussels and London take the blame - well, dictator lives don't get better than that.
How timely given we may be facing this in the US. The difference here is the way we elect the President is not helpful in the popular vote and gives a minority more power. I am guessing we are in the second area for chipping away in that case. But the wild card in the US is where is the military. I would surmise that much of the professional NCO and Officer Corp would refuse to carry out unlawful orders. One can imagine, ironically, the military may be the last bulwark against a full blown dictatorship in the US. The wild card would be those who already have authoritarian leanings and whether purges would actually take place, or we would end up in a full blown civil war.
I would note that not a single Fortune 500 CEO has given money to Trump, but it is billionaire tech bros (Musk, Theil, etc) who also may benefit from the impact on Crypto holdings with Trump policies that would to inflation, devaluing the dollar or even forcing the Euro to become the stable reserve currency. Trump is bad for business. And the tech bros and private equity share one thing in common with Trump, they bankrupt companies while taking out all the equity for themselves. It is an oligarchic business model. We see the inner circle forming as we speak.
Paul, responding to both of your posts; I’m in agreement. It’s amazing that after decades of winning elections on being the anti-communist party, the present Trump inspired GOP is so supportive of authoritarians.
Your list of governments we’ve helped overthrow should wake up people. But I suspect that they refuse to believe that. Guatemala is a great example where the Dulles brothers (Secretary of Defense and CIA director) and United Fruit were instrumental in overthrowing an elected government. About a year or more ago, Kamala Harris visited Guatemala and said that we need to get to the root causes of emigration. No one asked her the obvious question, What are the root causes? Even Pogo knows the answer to that question; “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
What happened in Guatemala might, in the long run, be historically less consequential than what we did in Iran.
You also mentioned the French. After their experience in Vietnam and Algeria, they warned us not to go into Afghanistan and Iraq. Our response was to rename french fries in the US Senate cafeteria “American fries.”.
What you write is true, but all tyrants, all autocrats, are not created equal. I would be interested in hearing you compare Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” with Dirsus’ book. To Arendt in 1950, totalitarian regimes are different from what we previously knew as authoritarian regimes. She only listed two (remember, this was 1950), Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Who would she cite today? You mention the top three, Russia, China and North Korea. I don’t think they can be compared to Uganda, Libya, Iraq or any other 21st century autocracy. Those three countries have decades of autocratic rule backing them up and also the new technology of surveillance and mind control. Those three automatic regimes, I think, would satisfy Arendt’s definition of totalitarian. Their leaders also, compared to the lesser regimes, appear to be more stable.
John, you bring up a good point and I would look to the post war era when the US backed with enthusiasm authoritarian regimes as a “bulwark” against communist expansion. The US overthrew elected governments in Chile, Guatemala, Iran to name a few. The US turned a blind eye to the military dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil. South Korea under Rhee was hardly the paragon of democracy in the early years, nor was Taiwan under the nationalists. The US fought against popular movements in Vietnam which offered the US a sweetheart deal in 1945 only to reject it, supporting a losing French cause (see also Algeria with France) and pushing Vietnam into the Soviet orbit.
The Soviets/Russians weren’t backward either seeing Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela along with Belarus, and currently many former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
My guess is Arendt may look at things differently today given the post WW II experience.
Does Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore fit in this model? What -- aside from his own character -- enabled him to create an authoritarian state which was not a tyranny?
I am not an expert on Singapore, but every so often, a country gets comparatively lucky. It’s extremely rare. Moreover there are aspects of Singapore that are unique (city state, strategic location, etc). But if I had to blindly choose whether to live my life in a democracy or an authoritarian state, it’s obvious what I would choose. For every Singapore, there are dozens of Turkmenistans, Eritreas, etc. I can’t speculate too much on LKY given that my knowledge of that period in Singapore is limited.
fascinating book and equally, your expose. thanks, brian.
Thank you for helping me think about the future informed.
Let me count the ways this applies to the convention in Milwaukee.
Great piece! Thank you Brian!
How are feudal monarchies and absolute monarchies classified on the tyranny scale? It seems to me that they can have as small a "selectorate" as dictatorships, be as awful in terms of economic development and the overall well-being of the average person, and have a similar undercurrent of extreme violence that bursts out any time the regime is threatened or actually falls, but nevertheless they can survive many generations, and even if the regime does fall to invasion or civil war, historically it was often replaced by the same sort of regime, just with different individuals in charge. Is there some factor that makes such regimes largely obsolete in the modern world, or could they become dominant again if we go into a long enough period of slower economic development?
Thank you so much!
Timely, indeed…
A few senior US Democrats are unafraid to speak truth to Joe Biden. Cleary Donald Trump’s selectorate would be, if the roles were reversed. If Joe Biden, a decent man, accepts such truth and withdraws the US could still be a democracy (with all it’s flaws) for another 4 years – if not our future is grim.
This piece uses the metaphor of a treadmill - the requirement of perpetual motion to sustain a dictator. In the case of Putin, an apt metaphor would be the meat grinder - used to describe infantry tactics in Ukraine - to illustrate the mechanism that demands unlimited fresh sacrifice at home and abroad to sustain power.
This is an insight lost on so-called 'realist' academics and others who place the blame for the invasion of Ukraine at the door of the west. They cannot accept that it is the very modus operandi of Putin to seek out causes for war. He needed an excuse to do what he decided he had to do. Blaming it on NATO and the EU radically misunderstands the motive to invade - which suits Putin very well, of course. If he can go about needless slaughter while Washington, Brussels and London take the blame - well, dictator lives don't get better than that.