Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

ABSOLUTISM IS NONSENSE. ZERO TOLERANCE IS NOT. 1) We pursue what we can both undrestand and suits our interests. 2) Absolutism is easy to understand. It’s the children’s-blocks version of political problem solving. 3) Absolutism is easy to use when ‘backward’ or ‘at war’, but extremely error prone at competition and production. It is an extremely weak form of organization compared to markets. It depends on retaining the attention of the populace through constant manipulation. It is expensive. Hence absolute military, absolute law, market economy, limited charity is the optimum order. (India vs China. China has better demographics, is ethnically homogenous, and has the red army. India has none of the above.) 4) one can organize the vast network of productions in an polity by authority (fear), compensation (reward), or deceit (fear or promise). But we are no longer in a position where the information system can be monopolized and the population is ignorant. 5) The purpose of advancing markets (liberalism et all) is to provide those in power with the means of holding and expanding power cheaply and easily. In other words, one is naive to think he can capture attention and power without material incentives, and we are all victims of overestimating our deviation from the norm. 6) The optimum government is flexible (Roman) with Authoritarianism for War, Markets for growth, and Redistribution for Windfalls. 7) In other words: Money Scales Power. And the vast majority are always and everywhere motivated by (a) access to mates, (b) food and food prices (now energy as well), (c) change in economic condition (d) release from perceived oppression (taxation, competition, conquest). POWER REQUIRES WEALTH REQUIRES MARKET ORDER REQUIRES RULE OF LAW – which is what Putin has had to learn. OUR RULE OF LAW IS SIMPLY TOO TOLERANT. (Ergo – stop stroking your dicks, and masturbating to manga-fantasies of absolutism.)