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I follow the referenced instagram account and I actually find it depressing. I've probably visited Beirut 20+ times over the last 7 years. Last visit was summ

I follow the referenced instagram account and I actually find it depressing. I've probably visited Beirut 20+ times over the last 7 years. Last visit was summer of 2019, so haven't been since COVID. My company has an office there. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. It's also one of the most heartbreaking situations in economic and humanitarian terms. The country has experienced one of the worst currency crises in history, did not wether COVID well, and then had one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history go off right in the city center. Two years later, nobody has been prosecuted. The country is in complete deadlock politically - all of the warlords from the civil war just became politicians and then systematically looted the country. There isn't much optimism that the situation will turn around, and almost everyone I know who lived there has left, accelerating an already problematic brain drain. Beirut and Lebanon has to be one of the largest missed opportunities or what-could-have-been situations of the last 100 years.

martincmartin 4y ago
The country is in complete deadlock politically - all of the warlords from the civil war just became politicians and then systematically looted the country. I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting the government, whereas others become successful and relatively less corrupt.
- kamaal 4y ago
  Because voting is just a small part of Democracy. Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Voting itself is an averaging process, and you get the average of what ordinary citizen wants. It is hard to make people want good things for themselves without proactive investments in education and developing a population with scientific temper.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    > Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Yes, absolutely, but they also depend on a strong civil society beyond government. You need a media that's interested in and capable of investigative reporting, a layer of trade unions and professional associations, and a social layer that integrates people. The units larger than extended family and smaller than the country. And they need to be somewhat independent, not all run by the Party, nor all aligned along ethnic or religious lines.
    - literallyWTF 4y ago
      You need people who believe their government is legitimate and that the mechanism of voting is valid. You don’t see that anymore in America anymore for example, republicans across the nation believe that if there candidate loses, it must be voter fraud by either by one scheme or another. Shit, Trump himself still claims that he won the previous election.
      - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
        2016 forgotten already.
        amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        Pretty sure everybody understood that trump won in 2016. There were questions about what happened during the campaign though .
        martincmartin 4y ago
        In January 2017, several Democrats objected to the certification of Trump's win. See for example https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-more-states-2016-republicans-2020-1561407 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-mor...
        trebbble 4y ago
        Seven house members. Vice President, entire Senate, and the rest of the House, told them to pound sand. About as comparable as a housefly is to an elephant.
      - loonster 4y ago
        There was obvious voter fraud in the 2020 election. The only question that should be disputed is if it was enough to sway the election.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government appears to be a good practice. However, the UK doesn't really have that: Parliament controls everything. And they seem to have a fairly stable and functional democracy.
    - pmyteh 4y ago
      In theory Parliament controls everything, but in practice the executive controls everything (because they control Parliament). The separation of powers that does exist is largely because of 'leakage' in Ministers' control of events. They can straightforwardly change the law, for example, but you need to change it before you do the otherwise-unlawful thing, not afterward. If you don't, the courts will nullify your actions. You can dismiss 'independent' quango heads quite straightforwardly, but it's politically expensive (and somewhat time consuming) to do so too frequently. You control the Parliamentary timetable, but there are a few gaps in it for opposition day debates and private members' bills. That sort of thing. We do have a stable and functional democracy, though it's rather brittle against a bad-faith executive. One prominent theory is the 'good chap' model of government, which holds basically that the system is set up such that 'reasonable chaps like us' can govern well and with few constraints, but the flipside is that Johnson's impact was limited by his government's lack of competence, not by institutional constraints. That might be liberating or terrifying, depending on your views about good government.
    - bradwood 4y ago
      The don't control monetary policy
  - martincmartin 4y ago
    So then the question becomes "why do many democracies not develop strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches, whereas others do?"
    - watwut 4y ago
      It might be other way round - if there are no independent, judicial, law making and executive branches and all the blah from the start, democracy has much lower chance of success. There will always be attempts to take hold of it and if the start is wrong, chance that someone will succeed is much higher.
- csomar 4y ago
  All systems will have a tendency toward corruption. Democracy is really a facade and a political tool and not what runs a country. The bureaucrats in the government are what run a country; and they hold most of the cards. (and they are also very difficult to change or replace).
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Not the best or deepest account, but for the modern reader who can't spare time on Aristotle and a gamut of old beards [1] Acemoglu and Robinson's account is clear and interesting reading [2]. In the case of Lebanon, the story is that it's ethnic/religious diversity is too much for stability, it being constantly open to interference from its neighbours and super-powers playing proxy war games. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_philosophers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_philosophers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail
  - jeffreygoesto 4y ago
    Thank you for the links, especially the second! It made me shiver because I think we're increasingly tilting towards the extractive model...
  - suzzer99 4y ago
    Plenty of places with high ethnic/religious diversity have thrived: Singapore, Istanbul, New York City, (increasingly) the capitals of Western Europe. Teotihuacan, the largest pyramid complex outside of Egypt, was a multi-cultural city where different religions, languages and ethnicities lived side by side for 1000 years. It can be done.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Pretty much all of the Roman Empire.
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      > Plenty of places with high ethnic/religious diversity have thrived: What you say is true but besides the point. There's no argument to be made against ethnic/religious diversity. But there is a problem with foreign interference that stokes ethnic tension. My own London is perhaps the most successful multi-cultural population in the world. We don't have RPG attacks on schools because we don't have superpowers spending millions on manipulating and arming the Hoxton Crips against the Hounslow Massive. And there's the important difference.
- shagmin 4y ago
  This is a topic I find interesting. Out of any society in the world, in some form or another there always emerges some de facto leaders. And in some places in the modern world they will adopt democracy only so much as they know they can "win" elections and harness goodwill from other democracies. In some places being directly involved with the government is the only way to live with some luxury. Main thing is I think there has to be some sort of cultivation of democracy (and some associated values), or it's just a facade or mob rule. It seems easier if the citizens are already middle-upper class for instance. We underestimate how much people need to be "primed" for democracy for it to flourish, it's also a more active process ideally that requires engagement, which isn't always so viable.
  - narag 4y ago
    Main thing is I think there has to be some sort of cultivation of democracy (and some associated values) Indeed. Also that cultivation must be stronger than the forces that try to sabotage democracy and freedom. Now, most parties say they want democracy and freedom, but in many cases, it's a lie.
- guykdm 4y ago
  "Lebanese" is a modern invention. Lebanon is a contrived post colonial state with no historical foundations. Those most usually fail horribly.
  - flerchin 4y ago
    What would we call the city-state around Beirut then?
  - eldaisfish 4y ago
    One could make the same argument for a country like India. There is no "India" in the sense of an ethno-linguisic grouping. India is more akin to the European Union but even more diverse. The Indian state has survived for seventy five years now. Just as the French and British dismembered the Ottoman empire to create modern Lebanon, so too did the British dismember the Indian empire to create India and Pakistan.
    - bragr 4y ago
      I'm not sure India is the best example right now as it is being consumed by Hindu nationalism to the detriment of minorities.
      - cocoland2 4y ago
        Sadly it is pretty much the story of the world with a few rare exceptions. Far right movements ethnic/religion/political have engulfed almost every place , amplified by social media and re-amplified by media. Note that Hindus get shot in their homes in Indian state of Kashmir too , the latest being 1 day ago.This eye for an eye will take anyone anywhere.
    - kamaal 4y ago
      This argument can be made for any country on earth. Pick up a globe, close your eyes and randomly put your finger anywhere and you will see the point under question was under different (political)boundaries every 300 years or so. Boundaries of any country are just limits to which a certain political administration extends its powers to. They keep changing for various reasons, every few decades.
- geraneum 4y ago
  Million dollar question. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as just these two very distinct groups. It’s a spectrum and different countries sit somewhere within this spectrum. In addition, modern democracies are relatively young and we have yet to fully figure it out. For example in Germany, consider Weimer Repulic. It was a democracy and it failed and Nazis replaced it but now it’s Federal Republic and a relatively successful democracy. Such a wild ride. It’s hard to formulate. Now put it Next to Iran or China or US or Russia. Each have different conditions. Some of these democracies have been caught in proxy wars and super powers. Some fell to bigots and despots. Some have oil and are targets of bigger players. Some are falling and others rising. It’s too soon to draw a clear conclusion I believe.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting I am very concerned that US/UK appear to be decolving for the last 10 years. The standards of acceptable behaviour from politicians have definately gone down.
  - loonster 4y ago
    May just be more obvious. Some of the scammers look to have been doing it for decades.
    - daveslash 4y ago
      True. But the politicians who are scammers (not all are) seem to be much more brazen about it. And I can't help but feel that the public failing to hold them accountable is exacerbating and accelerating the situation.
      - thfuran 4y ago
        I think that once you get to the point that "all politicians lie/cheat/steal" is a widely accepted truism, the system is pretty much doomed.
        wizofaus 4y ago
        Perhaps but at least in Australia there's still a sense that politicians can't just get away with whatever they feel works for them. There's a big kerfuffle currently about the fact our previous prime minister secretly had himself sworn into multiple ministerial roles without consulting anyone else in his own party. The curious thing to me is that so far there's no evidence he did so for any personal gain or made improper use of ministerial privileges. But he's still rightfully being grilled over it and there's a decent chance he'll be forced to step down from his role as a member of the opposition. And the various YouTube videos mocking him have been hilarious (for anyone familiar with how he was in office the last 5 years).
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
- chadash 4y ago
  We talk a lot about separation of powers, the constitution, etc. in the US, but until pretty recently, we failed to appreciate the fact that democracy is largely a cultural thing. It works because we believe it works. Go and read the Soviet Constitution of 1936 (Stalin) [1]. It talks about freedom of speech, freedom of press, assembly, demonstrations. It actually goes much further than the US constitution. It talks about the right to rest and leisure. Old age care. Education. We all know that the reality of life under Stalin didn't quite live up to this. A constitution is just a piece of paper. It doesn't mean anything unless it is enforced. That's why I think we focus too much on things like originalism vs living constitution... the reality is that we should be focused on maintaining our democratic institutions which no longer look as secure as they used to. [1] http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.ht...
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I think this fact is more well recognized outside the west than inside it. Fareed Zakaria predicted the failure of the democracy experiments in iraq and afghanistan back in 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom. Those predictions were widely shared among the Muslim diaspora in the U.S. The british sent their criminals to Australia (a harsh island continent) and they turned it into a thriving liberal democracy. Meanwhile most democracies in the developing world struggle. Culture is destiny: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20045923 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20045923
    - petre 4y ago
      > turned it into a thriving liberal democracy Until Scott Morrison and the last three conservative governments undid some of that.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        Most developing countries would be lucky to have the order and competency even of the Trump administration. We aren’t even talking about the same planet here in terms of what’s a functioning democracy. In Bangladesh, the government is putting leaders of the opposition party BNP in jail (https://learngerman.dw.com/en/bangladesh-court-sentences-opposition-bnp-leader-rahman-to-jail/a-19415933 https://learngerman.dw.com/en/bangladesh-court-sentences-opp...), and even then it’s the most functional government the country has had in decades.
- munificent 4y ago
  I think about this all the time. I believe it arises from an interaction between individuals and the surrounding culture and institutions. Let's assume, a priori, that everyone is trying to maximize their "success". This doesn't necessarily mean purely selfish greed, but more an observation that there's a natural incentive to take care of ourselves and our own and that we will naturally try to figure out how to get there. The "get there" part means navigating the social environment and institutions that surround us. We aren't living alone on a desert island where our options for survival are purely physical. Most of our interactions and choices are around other people and social systems. So when we seek success, we are pathfinding through the rules, norms, and ethics of the culture we're embedded in. What kind of path do you take? In a culture with low corruption and high institutional trust, the most efficient way to acquire resources and stability is by playing the game honestly and cooperating in good faith with others. If we all do the right thing, we all win. Overall efficiency goes up and that benefits all of us. In institutions with low trust and high corruption, playing by the rules and attempting to cooperate leaves you open to exploitation because your peers aren't doing that. You'll get screwed. Now the fun part is the feedback loop between individuals and institutions. A culture is just the collective choices of all of the individuals in it, so every move we make in the game is also an act of defining the rules of that game. The greater trust we have in each other, the more efficient the system gets and the better it is for everyone. But by that exact same token, the easier the system becomes to exploit and the more attractive it becomes to bad actors. The optimally efficient society is also the perfect honeypot. So as we seek greater trust and efficiency, we also directly incentivize deceipt and corruption. Going in the other way, as a society gets more corrupt, it becomes less and less efficient. It's hard to get anything done when every single action requires several rounds of negotiation at gunpoint because everyone is presumed to be an adversary. So as a society becomes less trusting, it loses the ability to compete against other more efficient, trustworthy societies. What I think you see is that as a larger society's institutional trust falls, within that society new pockets of trusted cooperating subcultures arise. Since those are more efficient than the larger society, they tend to grow and outcompete. But people in those pockets don't trust outside of that subculture, so you end up with the inefficiencies of mistrust and adversarial interactions at the boundaries between these groups. Eventually a group might win and continue to grow, but the bigger it gets, the harder it is to maintain cohesion and trust across all of it. So eventually its overall trust fades but then new pockets of trust appear inside it. This sort of slow boiling foam of fading trust and growing bubbles of cohesion is, I think, fundamental to human sociology.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Free elections != democracy. Also respect for institutions and equality before the law. Any part of that weakened, it can go off the rails.
csomar 4y ago
> Beirut and Lebanon has to be one of the largest missed opportunities or what-could-have-been situations of the last 100 years. I think what makes the potential of the city is also what makes it get into severe conflict. Beirut is a cross-road of global interests. I think it still is. It also has huge and wealthy diaspora. Beirut will certainly come back, and most likely (unluckily) will come bursting again.
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
100 years? It was basically a first-world country 50 years ago. The decline in living standards in Lebanon is one of the largest ever (Argentina probably the biggest, Venezuela is the other big one, Lebanon is somewhere around Venezuela). Countries can come back (the country that was Austro-Hungary, Slovakia has a city with one of the highest GDP per capita in Europe after massive repeated collapses), but there is (at least in the West) a very concerted effort not to call this situation like it is. It is obvious what happened, and now people say it is unsolvable when it has clearly been engineered to happen this way (blaming colonialism, too much diversity, anything but what it is).
- nsajko 4y ago
  Vague insinuations such as this one always harm the discussion. Why not just communicate clearly? > the country that was Austro-Hungary, Slovakia No, Slovakia wasn't Austria-Hungary, rather it was just a small part of Austria-Hungary (of Hungary, to be more precise). Wasn't even a successor de jure of Austria-Hungary.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    I was referring to Bratislava...I said Slovakia. Pressburg was in Austro-Hungary I believe. Either way, it is irrelevant because that whole area did collapse economically multiple times, Austro-Hungary is one of the only stock markets that went literally to zero. The same story to the Middle East in many ways (war, repeatedly).
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    Yeah, I assume the city they're referring to is Vienna? Just guessing because of its well known high GDP. However, the point stands. Many cities were bombed to rubble in WWII and they came back. The same could happen in Beirut if a stable political situation were to emerge. Though there are numerous reasons that will be very difficult.
    - nsajko 4y ago
      Getting quite off-topic, but Vienna is the capital of Austria; while Bratislava and Košice are the only two Slovakian cities with a population greater than 100000, so presumably it's one of those.
_nedR 4y ago
It is also being ripped apart by external actors - Iran, Israel, France, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States and I am probably missing others.
- ROARosen 4y ago
  External actors, hmmm... I believe you mixed that up with internal actors like Hezbolla and others, who have a tight grip on the countries political system.
guelo 4y ago
Every country neighboring Israel is a mess since Israel tries to destabilize them to make them weak so that Israel can be the regional superpower.
- ROARosen 4y ago
  Last time I checked the leader of Hezbolla, which is part of the government of Lebanon said: "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel." Not the other way around.
  - napmo 4y ago
    Confronting the aggressor, Israel, is the best way to resolve the conflict of Palestine and the neighboring countries.
raincom 4y ago
This is what happens, when the goal of politicians is to acquire wealth for ten generations, and the welfare of people becomes secondary. This leads to "brain drain". The only people are left: the old, the weak, those who can't migrate to other countries.

martincmartin 4y ago

The country is in complete deadlock politically - all of the warlords from the civil war just became politicians and then systematically looted the country. I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting the government, whereas others become successful and relatively less corrupt.

kamaal 4y ago
Because voting is just a small part of Democracy. Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Voting itself is an averaging process, and you get the average of what ordinary citizen wants. It is hard to make people want good things for themselves without proactive investments in education and developing a population with scientific temper.
- pjc50 4y ago
  > Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Yes, absolutely, but they also depend on a strong civil society beyond government. You need a media that's interested in and capable of investigative reporting, a layer of trade unions and professional associations, and a social layer that integrates people. The units larger than extended family and smaller than the country. And they need to be somewhat independent, not all run by the Party, nor all aligned along ethnic or religious lines.
  - literallyWTF 4y ago
    You need people who believe their government is legitimate and that the mechanism of voting is valid. You don’t see that anymore in America anymore for example, republicans across the nation believe that if there candidate loses, it must be voter fraud by either by one scheme or another. Shit, Trump himself still claims that he won the previous election.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      2016 forgotten already.
      - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        Pretty sure everybody understood that trump won in 2016. There were questions about what happened during the campaign though .
        martincmartin 4y ago
        In January 2017, several Democrats objected to the certification of Trump's win. See for example https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-more-states-2016-republicans-2020-1561407 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-mor...
        trebbble 4y ago
        Seven house members. Vice President, entire Senate, and the rest of the House, told them to pound sand. About as comparable as a housefly is to an elephant.
    - loonster 4y ago
      There was obvious voter fraud in the 2020 election. The only question that should be disputed is if it was enough to sway the election.
- nradov 4y ago
  Separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government appears to be a good practice. However, the UK doesn't really have that: Parliament controls everything. And they seem to have a fairly stable and functional democracy.
  - pmyteh 4y ago
    In theory Parliament controls everything, but in practice the executive controls everything (because they control Parliament). The separation of powers that does exist is largely because of 'leakage' in Ministers' control of events. They can straightforwardly change the law, for example, but you need to change it before you do the otherwise-unlawful thing, not afterward. If you don't, the courts will nullify your actions. You can dismiss 'independent' quango heads quite straightforwardly, but it's politically expensive (and somewhat time consuming) to do so too frequently. You control the Parliamentary timetable, but there are a few gaps in it for opposition day debates and private members' bills. That sort of thing. We do have a stable and functional democracy, though it's rather brittle against a bad-faith executive. One prominent theory is the 'good chap' model of government, which holds basically that the system is set up such that 'reasonable chaps like us' can govern well and with few constraints, but the flipside is that Johnson's impact was limited by his government's lack of competence, not by institutional constraints. That might be liberating or terrifying, depending on your views about good government.
  - bradwood 4y ago
    The don't control monetary policy
- martincmartin 4y ago
  So then the question becomes "why do many democracies not develop strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches, whereas others do?"
  - watwut 4y ago
    It might be other way round - if there are no independent, judicial, law making and executive branches and all the blah from the start, democracy has much lower chance of success. There will always be attempts to take hold of it and if the start is wrong, chance that someone will succeed is much higher.
csomar 4y ago
All systems will have a tendency toward corruption. Democracy is really a facade and a political tool and not what runs a country. The bureaucrats in the government are what run a country; and they hold most of the cards. (and they are also very difficult to change or replace).
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Not the best or deepest account, but for the modern reader who can't spare time on Aristotle and a gamut of old beards [1] Acemoglu and Robinson's account is clear and interesting reading [2]. In the case of Lebanon, the story is that it's ethnic/religious diversity is too much for stability, it being constantly open to interference from its neighbours and super-powers playing proxy war games. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_philosophers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_philosophers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail
- jeffreygoesto 4y ago
  Thank you for the links, especially the second! It made me shiver because I think we're increasingly tilting towards the extractive model...
- suzzer99 4y ago
  Plenty of places with high ethnic/religious diversity have thrived: Singapore, Istanbul, New York City, (increasingly) the capitals of Western Europe. Teotihuacan, the largest pyramid complex outside of Egypt, was a multi-cultural city where different religions, languages and ethnicities lived side by side for 1000 years. It can be done.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Pretty much all of the Roman Empire.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    > Plenty of places with high ethnic/religious diversity have thrived: What you say is true but besides the point. There's no argument to be made against ethnic/religious diversity. But there is a problem with foreign interference that stokes ethnic tension. My own London is perhaps the most successful multi-cultural population in the world. We don't have RPG attacks on schools because we don't have superpowers spending millions on manipulating and arming the Hoxton Crips against the Hounslow Massive. And there's the important difference.
shagmin 4y ago
This is a topic I find interesting. Out of any society in the world, in some form or another there always emerges some de facto leaders. And in some places in the modern world they will adopt democracy only so much as they know they can "win" elections and harness goodwill from other democracies. In some places being directly involved with the government is the only way to live with some luxury. Main thing is I think there has to be some sort of cultivation of democracy (and some associated values), or it's just a facade or mob rule. It seems easier if the citizens are already middle-upper class for instance. We underestimate how much people need to be "primed" for democracy for it to flourish, it's also a more active process ideally that requires engagement, which isn't always so viable.
- narag 4y ago
  Main thing is I think there has to be some sort of cultivation of democracy (and some associated values) Indeed. Also that cultivation must be stronger than the forces that try to sabotage democracy and freedom. Now, most parties say they want democracy and freedom, but in many cases, it's a lie.
guykdm 4y ago
"Lebanese" is a modern invention. Lebanon is a contrived post colonial state with no historical foundations. Those most usually fail horribly.
- flerchin 4y ago
  What would we call the city-state around Beirut then?
- eldaisfish 4y ago
  One could make the same argument for a country like India. There is no "India" in the sense of an ethno-linguisic grouping. India is more akin to the European Union but even more diverse. The Indian state has survived for seventy five years now. Just as the French and British dismembered the Ottoman empire to create modern Lebanon, so too did the British dismember the Indian empire to create India and Pakistan.
  - bragr 4y ago
    I'm not sure India is the best example right now as it is being consumed by Hindu nationalism to the detriment of minorities.
    - cocoland2 4y ago
      Sadly it is pretty much the story of the world with a few rare exceptions. Far right movements ethnic/religion/political have engulfed almost every place , amplified by social media and re-amplified by media. Note that Hindus get shot in their homes in Indian state of Kashmir too , the latest being 1 day ago.This eye for an eye will take anyone anywhere.
  - kamaal 4y ago
    This argument can be made for any country on earth. Pick up a globe, close your eyes and randomly put your finger anywhere and you will see the point under question was under different (political)boundaries every 300 years or so. Boundaries of any country are just limits to which a certain political administration extends its powers to. They keep changing for various reasons, every few decades.
geraneum 4y ago
Million dollar question. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as just these two very distinct groups. It’s a spectrum and different countries sit somewhere within this spectrum. In addition, modern democracies are relatively young and we have yet to fully figure it out. For example in Germany, consider Weimer Repulic. It was a democracy and it failed and Nazis replaced it but now it’s Federal Republic and a relatively successful democracy. Such a wild ride. It’s hard to formulate. Now put it Next to Iran or China or US or Russia. Each have different conditions. Some of these democracies have been caught in proxy wars and super powers. Some fell to bigots and despots. Some have oil and are targets of bigger players. Some are falling and others rising. It’s too soon to draw a clear conclusion I believe.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting I am very concerned that US/UK appear to be decolving for the last 10 years. The standards of acceptable behaviour from politicians have definately gone down.
- loonster 4y ago
  May just be more obvious. Some of the scammers look to have been doing it for decades.
  - daveslash 4y ago
    True. But the politicians who are scammers (not all are) seem to be much more brazen about it. And I can't help but feel that the public failing to hold them accountable is exacerbating and accelerating the situation.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      I think that once you get to the point that "all politicians lie/cheat/steal" is a widely accepted truism, the system is pretty much doomed.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Perhaps but at least in Australia there's still a sense that politicians can't just get away with whatever they feel works for them. There's a big kerfuffle currently about the fact our previous prime minister secretly had himself sworn into multiple ministerial roles without consulting anyone else in his own party. The curious thing to me is that so far there's no evidence he did so for any personal gain or made improper use of ministerial privileges. But he's still rightfully being grilled over it and there's a decent chance he'll be forced to step down from his role as a member of the opposition. And the various YouTube videos mocking him have been hilarious (for anyone familiar with how he was in office the last 5 years).
- Beltalowda 4y ago
chadash 4y ago
We talk a lot about separation of powers, the constitution, etc. in the US, but until pretty recently, we failed to appreciate the fact that democracy is largely a cultural thing. It works because we believe it works. Go and read the Soviet Constitution of 1936 (Stalin) [1]. It talks about freedom of speech, freedom of press, assembly, demonstrations. It actually goes much further than the US constitution. It talks about the right to rest and leisure. Old age care. Education. We all know that the reality of life under Stalin didn't quite live up to this. A constitution is just a piece of paper. It doesn't mean anything unless it is enforced. That's why I think we focus too much on things like originalism vs living constitution... the reality is that we should be focused on maintaining our democratic institutions which no longer look as secure as they used to. [1] http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.ht...
- rayiner 4y ago
  I think this fact is more well recognized outside the west than inside it. Fareed Zakaria predicted the failure of the democracy experiments in iraq and afghanistan back in 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom. Those predictions were widely shared among the Muslim diaspora in the U.S. The british sent their criminals to Australia (a harsh island continent) and they turned it into a thriving liberal democracy. Meanwhile most democracies in the developing world struggle. Culture is destiny: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20045923 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20045923
  - petre 4y ago
    > turned it into a thriving liberal democracy Until Scott Morrison and the last three conservative governments undid some of that.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Most developing countries would be lucky to have the order and competency even of the Trump administration. We aren’t even talking about the same planet here in terms of what’s a functioning democracy. In Bangladesh, the government is putting leaders of the opposition party BNP in jail (https://learngerman.dw.com/en/bangladesh-court-sentences-opposition-bnp-leader-rahman-to-jail/a-19415933 https://learngerman.dw.com/en/bangladesh-court-sentences-opp...), and even then it’s the most functional government the country has had in decades.
munificent 4y ago
I think about this all the time. I believe it arises from an interaction between individuals and the surrounding culture and institutions. Let's assume, a priori, that everyone is trying to maximize their "success". This doesn't necessarily mean purely selfish greed, but more an observation that there's a natural incentive to take care of ourselves and our own and that we will naturally try to figure out how to get there. The "get there" part means navigating the social environment and institutions that surround us. We aren't living alone on a desert island where our options for survival are purely physical. Most of our interactions and choices are around other people and social systems. So when we seek success, we are pathfinding through the rules, norms, and ethics of the culture we're embedded in. What kind of path do you take? In a culture with low corruption and high institutional trust, the most efficient way to acquire resources and stability is by playing the game honestly and cooperating in good faith with others. If we all do the right thing, we all win. Overall efficiency goes up and that benefits all of us. In institutions with low trust and high corruption, playing by the rules and attempting to cooperate leaves you open to exploitation because your peers aren't doing that. You'll get screwed. Now the fun part is the feedback loop between individuals and institutions. A culture is just the collective choices of all of the individuals in it, so every move we make in the game is also an act of defining the rules of that game. The greater trust we have in each other, the more efficient the system gets and the better it is for everyone. But by that exact same token, the easier the system becomes to exploit and the more attractive it becomes to bad actors. The optimally efficient society is also the perfect honeypot. So as we seek greater trust and efficiency, we also directly incentivize deceipt and corruption. Going in the other way, as a society gets more corrupt, it becomes less and less efficient. It's hard to get anything done when every single action requires several rounds of negotiation at gunpoint because everyone is presumed to be an adversary. So as a society becomes less trusting, it loses the ability to compete against other more efficient, trustworthy societies. What I think you see is that as a larger society's institutional trust falls, within that society new pockets of trusted cooperating subcultures arise. Since those are more efficient than the larger society, they tend to grow and outcompete. But people in those pockets don't trust outside of that subculture, so you end up with the inefficiencies of mistrust and adversarial interactions at the boundaries between these groups. Eventually a group might win and continue to grow, but the bigger it gets, the harder it is to maintain cohesion and trust across all of it. So eventually its overall trust fades but then new pockets of trust appear inside it. This sort of slow boiling foam of fading trust and growing bubbles of cohesion is, I think, fundamental to human sociology.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Free elections != democracy. Also respect for institutions and equality before the law. Any part of that weakened, it can go off the rails.

csomar 4y ago

> Beirut and Lebanon has to be one of the largest missed opportunities or what-could-have-been situations of the last 100 years. I think what makes the potential of the city is also what makes it get into severe conflict. Beirut is a cross-road of global interests. I think it still is. It also has huge and wealthy diaspora. Beirut will certainly come back, and most likely (unluckily) will come bursting again.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

100 years? It was basically a first-world country 50 years ago. The decline in living standards in Lebanon is one of the largest ever (Argentina probably the biggest, Venezuela is the other big one, Lebanon is somewhere around Venezuela). Countries can come back (the country that was Austro-Hungary, Slovakia has a city with one of the highest GDP per capita in Europe after massive repeated collapses), but there is (at least in the West) a very concerted effort not to call this situation like it is. It is obvious what happened, and now people say it is unsolvable when it has clearly been engineered to happen this way (blaming colonialism, too much diversity, anything but what it is).

nsajko 4y ago
Vague insinuations such as this one always harm the discussion. Why not just communicate clearly? > the country that was Austro-Hungary, Slovakia No, Slovakia wasn't Austria-Hungary, rather it was just a small part of Austria-Hungary (of Hungary, to be more precise). Wasn't even a successor de jure of Austria-Hungary.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  I was referring to Bratislava...I said Slovakia. Pressburg was in Austro-Hungary I believe. Either way, it is irrelevant because that whole area did collapse economically multiple times, Austro-Hungary is one of the only stock markets that went literally to zero. The same story to the Middle East in many ways (war, repeatedly).
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  Yeah, I assume the city they're referring to is Vienna? Just guessing because of its well known high GDP. However, the point stands. Many cities were bombed to rubble in WWII and they came back. The same could happen in Beirut if a stable political situation were to emerge. Though there are numerous reasons that will be very difficult.
  - nsajko 4y ago
    Getting quite off-topic, but Vienna is the capital of Austria; while Bratislava and Košice are the only two Slovakian cities with a population greater than 100000, so presumably it's one of those.

_nedR 4y ago

It is also being ripped apart by external actors - Iran, Israel, France, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States and I am probably missing others.

ROARosen 4y ago
External actors, hmmm... I believe you mixed that up with internal actors like Hezbolla and others, who have a tight grip on the countries political system.

guelo 4y ago

Every country neighboring Israel is a mess since Israel tries to destabilize them to make them weak so that Israel can be the regional superpower.

ROARosen 4y ago
Last time I checked the leader of Hezbolla, which is part of the government of Lebanon said: "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel." Not the other way around.
- napmo 4y ago
  Confronting the aggressor, Israel, is the best way to resolve the conflict of Palestine and the neighboring countries.

raincom 4y ago

This is what happens, when the goal of politicians is to acquire wealth for ten generations, and the welfare of people becomes secondary. This leads to "brain drain". The only people are left: the old, the weak, those who can't migrate to other countries.