From: Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin (warrl@mail.blarg.net)
Date: Sat Apr 04 1998 - 06:30:19 MST
> From: "den Otter" <otter@globalxs.nl>
> > From: Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin <warrl@mail.blarg.net>
>
> > A perfect social or political system, in all systems I have examined,
> > requires perfect people in some quantity -- dictatorship being the
> > best in this regard because it requires the fewest perfect people,
> > and anarchy among the worst because it requires that the overwhelming
> > majority -- possibly everyone -- be perfect. In this part of the
> > world, perfect people are a rather scarce item, and what I read in
> > the newspapers doesn't tell me that this is a strictly local
> > shortage.
> >
> > Imperfect anarchy is unstable, and seems likely to quickly collapse
> > into tribal warlordism, and then later into dictatorship or
> > hereditary monarchy.
>
> Yes, exactly! I couldn't agree more. From a purely rational point of view
> a "dictatorship" or oligargy based on enlightened principles (as discussed
> earlier) would be the most preferable form of government. There is a
> reasonable possibility to pick the right people to rule a country (there
> have been benevolent emperors in the past, I belief for ex. the Romans had
> a few),
The first four or five Roman emperors were childless. They each took
the same approach to choosing a successor, which was:
(1) appoint apparently-good people to be provincial governors
(2) any who proved incompetent, fire and give somebody else a chance
(3) after a while, bring home the best provincial governor and adopt
him.
The first Emperor was apparently a good one, along with all who were
chosen by this method.
Eventually they got an Emperor who had kids. His eldest son was his
successor and was more than a bit of a jerk. This set the tradition:
almost every Emperor who inherited the throne from his biological
father was worse than his predecessor; almost every Emperor who did
*not* was *better* than his predecessor; almost every chosen-Emperor
who chosen by a chosen-Emperor was pretty decent.
The catch is that the dictator, by definition, has the right to
either change the rules of succession, or choose
anyone he likes; and, if he's at all a decent father, will want to
provide well for his kids. This means...
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