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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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No problem!
The worst part is I really do understand the temptation of that kind of thinking - "If only I was in charge, if only the people who were on my side were in charge, we know exactly what's wrong and we know what to do to fix it!" - but societies operate according to the way their interests are structured, and no amount of ideological fervor can change that.
Vanguard parties pretty inevitably turn against worker's democracy, because people are fickle and will not keep them in total power indefinitely (and gods know leftists love infighting), but in doing so, they set up their own interests in opposition to the interests of the workers. At that point, it's just a matter of time, the clock ticking until despotic clientism of a very feudal sort reasserts itself.
I mean, it’s kind of like the concept of the benevolent dictator.
…benevolent to whom?
My favorite example of the flaw in this thinking is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
An incredibly brilliant, driven, and ruthless man. Wildly popular, unmatched power, friendless workaholic, insane charisma, genuine ideological dedication, incredibly well-read, deeply involved with coordinating with experts on every facet of society, cult of personality, the works. And though he could do great things for Turkiye, he still could not fundamentally change its power structures without undermining his own power - but if he undermined his own power, he could not guarantee that the power structures would change to his liking.
It's a fundamental flaw in the accumulation of power in a single institution (such as a strongman/dictator/vanguard party/etc). Accumulating power causes society to form around the actual locus of power, regardless of how that power tries to redirect society.
Is there any good ideas on a plausible way to manage power? The fundamental laws governing power, politics, wealth etc seem to always lead to negative outcomes.
Like state socialism led to the same complete concentration of economic power in the hands of the few as late stage capitalism is doing now. But I've never heard of any plan to address this.
One idea would be to randomly select representatives, bypassing filters that select for those who are best at accumulating power at the expense of anything else. Randocracy?
Or are we just out of good ideas?
Generally, the suggestion is either "Separation of powers" (ensuring that each power-hungry institution has a self-interest in keeping the other power hungry groups from getting too powerful) or decentralization of power (a la anarchists). Both have strengths and weaknesses. State socialism in most polities has only been attempted with very... authoritarian regimes with no real interest in separation of powers (and certainly not in decentralization), so there's some ambiguity as to whether it would work out better in a legitimately democratic polity.
Sortition, that's called. The ancient Athenians used it for some offices.
Oh thanks! It seems a lot of the arguments agree with what I was speculating. I find it suspicious that you hear so little about this idea.
Of course none of that would work with the abysmal current state of news media.