= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Michaelos comments on Orwell and fictional evidence for dictatorship stability - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (79)
I am aware of a few potential differences, but the most significant one I can think of boils down to that there are a large number of well known ceremonial monarchies and not nearly as many ceremonial dictatorships.
This seems to go along with things like the concept of a Monarch having somewhat more limited powers seems well established ever since the Magna Carta, and that the original concept of Roman dictators seemed to be explicitly that they did not have to obey those kind of limits.
However, if you were to ask what is the difference between an Absolute Monarchy and a Dictatorship, I don't have much of an answer. Those seem much closer together.
For purposes of the original claim that monarchies are more stable, I think we can ignore constitutional monarchies, because those are just vestigial and are completely different from the other kinds.
Non-absolute monarchies (where nobles or a non-popularly-elected assembly share power) do count. It would help at this point to see a quantitative review of monarchies (absolute and non-absolute) and compare their stability trends with dictatorships.
People sometimes use the term despotism to refer to a system of government where there is no expectation that the ruling group (often of one) will obey a rule of law. I think that's a better way to demarcate the systems.
I've seen governments organized in a 2x2 categorization where the two factors are despotism (whether or not the ruling power is arbitrary) and penetration (how much capacity to interfere in the lives of its subjects does the ruling power have).
Possibly by accident of history (most monarchies are pre-modern and most dictatorships are modern) monarchies have generally been high despotism, low penetration, while dictatorships have been high despotism, high penetration.
(A functioning modern democracy would be an example of low despotism, high penetration -- it can interfere in many ways in the lives of the citizenry, but doesn't generally do so arbitrarily.)