On the net, do you believe that Communism was a good deal or a bad deal for Eastern Europe, excluding the former Soviet space?

[History Learner]

Autonomy does indicate a separate identity, though. Similar to how Southern whites in the US feel nowadays. As for Russian language publications far exceeding Ukrainian ones, I'm not sure that this is exactly relevant here since one could be a Scottish or an Irish or a Welsh nationalist and yet speak English to a much greater extent than one would speak Scottish Gaelic or Irish or Welsh. Yet this still wouldn't mean that one would classify oneself as an Englishmen instead of as a Scot/Irishman/Welshman.

Even nowadays, 41% of Ukrainians consider themselves and Russians to be one people, and yet they still hate Russia's guts:

41% of Ukrainians Agree They and Russians Are One People

These are the results of a recent poll from Rating Group. 41% agree with Putin's position, 55% disagree. Not bad, considering there's now been a generation's worth of state svidomy narratives. But possibly the most startling result (and certainly one that I didn't expect is there there's...

www.unz.com

Choosing to use the Russian language, instead of their own, is indicative of preference because Ukrainian is alive and well in a way Welsh and Scots hasn't been for quite sometime. It's also worth noting that usage of the Russian language correlated well with Ukrainian polling on their status vis-a-vis Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is remarkably tied into the events of the 2010s. Russian language publications became to decline after 2010-which marked the high point of desire in Ukraine to directly join Russia-and then precipitously after 2014. If it wasn't tied into identity, it should not have declined after 2014.

 

[Cherico]

At the end of the day, you look at Russia and America and you see two countries.

Both of them were born on the edges of the western world, America in the new world Russia on the steeps, both of them fought for their independence one from the mongols one from the british. Both of them christian nations that were influenced by Roman successor states. England for America and Byzantium for Russia. And both of them fought on their frountier until they hit the pacific ocean.

I honestly think Russia had every possibility of being the unifying power that took over christondom and the west. They had the resources, they had the location, they had the people but the first world war fucked them and communism was the poison that destroyed their possiiblity of greatness.

And now we are seeing Russia at its twilight.

Their demographics are shot, its break away regions growing stronger, its leadership cadre pretty much limited to Putin who purged everyone else who could replace him. Its an isolated and dying country and I think we may just see its end with in our lifetimes.

One could be sad for the fate of Russia but one could be sad for Carthrage too. But in the end of the day Rome and Carthrage could not coexist. One was going to be master of the mediterian world and the other consigned to the dust bin of history. For all of their posturing about being a 3rd rome Russia never considered the possibility that they were really a second carthrage.

 

[Aldarion]

Meanwhile, I came across several articles in the Balkan Insight site, where Croatia often protests against any symbols even remotely associated with socialist Yugoslavia, which is understandable, given that Bleiburg happened with the collaboration between the British Army and Yugoslav Partisans.

Red Star Monument in Rijeka Angers Croatian War Veterans

1990s War Veteran Urges Croatia to Cherish Anti-Fascist Legacy

It is not even so much about Bleiburg as it is because the so-called "anti-fascist legacy" led directly to Yugoslav Army war crimes against Croatia. In Yugoslavia, good fascist = dead fascist, Croat = fascist, good Croat = dead Croat... well, that was the rhetoric, and it was turned into practice in 1990s.

 

[Marduk]

Autonomy does indicate a separate identity, though. Similar to how Southern whites in the US feel nowadays.

Better yet, 13 Colonies vs British Empire. Actually the same people, yet they threw a damn revolution to not be ruled by London, and made a whole new identity out of that.
And London wasn't even that bad when compared to being ruled by Moscow.

As for why Ukrainians use Russian so much, this is part of artificial interventions by Russians and later Soviets (with a pause by Lenin in order for the Russian national position internally in the USSR to not be unmanageably strong), that were oriented specifically to do that, and to assimilate non-Russian subjects of Russian Empire\USSR into Russian people.

Russification of Ukraine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ukraine is not special in that regard, this was Russia's SOP even before communism.

Russification of Poles during the Partitions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification_of_Finland

Russification and the Lithuanians, 1863-1905 on JSTOR

Theodore R. Weeks, Russification and the Lithuanians, 1863-1905, Slavic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 96-114

www.jstor.org

>Forces use of Russian language in education, administration and even printed literature
>Oh my, guess people are using Russian language more totally out of their free will because they love Russia that much
If someone was doing something like that today, it would be considered cultural genocide, not unlike what China does in Tibet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

That's why so many people consider undoing of Russification in that region something rightful and justified and don't take Moscow's whining about it seriously.
"Nooooo stop undoing our cultural genocide we worked really hard to do it!"

 

[Agent23]

Prior to the world wars, most of eastern Europe was developing at a very decent pace.Wages were growing, industrialization was increasing at a decent rate.
Some aspects of development, like the Soviet fetish with very heavy and often unproductive and economically unsustainable industry would not be as rapid.
The rural population would still move into the cities, but at a slower rate, with better housing than the plattenbau, "temporary" apartment buildings.

Maybe, maybe not. Communism was evil, make no mistake, but it also delayed mass immigration and progressive wokeness claptrap that are plaguing the Western Europe right now.

So it may well have been a blessing in disguise, though I fear immunization it provided against leftism may not last sufficiently long.

I think we have a chicken and egg problem here.

Communism and its fight with Globalist American liberalism caused much of the problems in the third world as well as the declines in birth rates and destruction of traditional culture in the West.
Decolonization was pushed by both the USSR and the Americans, and both worked hard to stick their proxies in as replacements, and much of the guilt that drives out traditional values and encourages mass migration can be attributed directly to the universalist tendencies inherent in both those ideologies.

Without both we would have been more capitalist than under communism, but not as capitalist as modern America is IMHO.

We never had colonies, and we do not use French or English, so we will not be flooded with as many migrants, and decolonization would probably be a more gradual affair, with autonomy being dolled out the colonies by their respective metropolies in response to growing nationalism over there.
Much of the growing neoliberalism at the moment is IMHO not native to Europe but rather stuff that is inherent in the US system.

We would also keep a lot of our older institutions, like kings and other royalty.

 

[Agent23]

Better yet, 13 Colonies vs British Empire. Actually the same people, yet they threw a damn revolution to not be ruled by London, and made a whole new identity out of that.
And London wasn't even that bad when compared to being ruled by Moscow.

No, they were not, in fact it was a close vote when the American congress was choosing their official language, they almost chose German.
Many of the people who built those colonies were political and religious exiles and there were substantial Dutch and German minorities, as well as Scots and Irish people, not just British exiles.
By far and large, the places that were built up with the main commercial focus were in the South, where cash crops could be produced, whiles the religious lunatics settled father north, in fact some parts of the American South were secondary colonies, colonized from Barbados because they needed resources that were scarce there, namely wood for barrels and other necessities, because the caribean itself was settled as a source of sugar and tobacco, that along with some leftover French colonies on the continent proper is the reason for the Frenh cultural influence in the south.
A lot of the more pro-English southerners were actually former soldiers, second sons of the nobility, and brigands that wanted to recreate the British social system with its nobility in the American South, the reason why they sided with the rest of the 13 colonies was economic.The soon to be U.S.A. was less interventionalist and more willing to let them keep their slaves whileas in Britain there was a powerful abolitionist movement gaining strength.

Furthermore, the lack of representation and those taxes on tea the British regulated everything, from what goods the Americans could buy, which included mandatory quotas of purchases for stuff like combs and wigs, to what trees could be cut, to how much Pig Iron and how many ships could be built in the colonies.
What was even more annoying to the Americans were the limitations of expansion the British set upon them, mainly because the British did not want their colony to become bigger and more prosperous than the Metropoly.

And even then, with all the trade and growth restrictions and all the indignities foisted upon the Americans only about 5-10% were hard supporters of the revolution and about that many were hard enemies of it, and at its heart much of the cause of the revolution was that the Americans demanded "...our rights as Englishment" whileas the king demanded that he was safeguarding his rights as given to him by Parliament.
Oh, and as to the royalists, well they were just thrown out of what would become the U.S.A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Englishmen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Loyalists

 

[Marduk]

No, they were not, in fact it was a close vote when the American congress was choosing their official language, they almost chose German.
Many of the people who built those colonies were political and religious exiles and there were substantial Dutch and German minorities, as well as Scots and Irish people, not just British exiles.
By far and large, the places that were built up with the main commercial focus were in the South, where cash crops could be produced, whiles the religious lunatics settled father north, in fact some parts of the American South were secondary colonies, colonized from Barbados because they needed resources that were scarce there, namely wood for barrels and other necessities, because the caribean itself was settled as a source of sugar and tobacco, that along with some leftover French colonies on the continent proper is the reason for the Frenh cultural influence in the south.
A lot of the more pro-English southerners were actually former soldiers, second sons of the nobility, and brigands that wanted to recreate the British social system with its nobility in the American South, the reason why they sided with the rest of the 13 colonies was economic.The soon to be U.S.A. was less interventionalist and more willing to let them keep their slaves whileas in Britain there was a powerful abolitionist movement gaining strength.

Furthermore, the lack of representation and those taxes on tea the British regulated everything, from what goods the Americans could buy, which included mandatory quotas of purchases for stuff like combs and wigs, to what trees could be cut, to how much Pig Iron and how many ships could be built in the colonies.
What was even more annoying to the Americans were the limitations of expansion the British set upon them, mainly because the British did not want their colony to become bigger and more prosperous than the Metropoly.

And even then, with all the trade and growth restrictions and all the indignities foisted upon the Americans only about 5-10% were hard supporters of the revolution and about that many were hard enemies of it, and at its heart much of the cause of the revolution was that the Americans demanded "...our rights as Englishment" whileas the king demanded that he was safeguarding his rights as given to him by Parliament.
Oh, and as to the royalists, well they were just thrown out of what would become the U.S.A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Englishmen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Loyalists

And yet they have chosen English, and the number of royalists was nowhere near significant even among the English speakers. So that's a lot of spinning to not make a good point in the end.

 

[Agent23]

And yet they have chosen English, and the number of royalists was nowhere near significant even among the English speakers. So that's a lot of spinning to not make a good point in the end.

The point is that the amount of grievances was far larger, and the people actually fighting for the revolutionary cause was far smaller that the whole romantic Ameriwhank you are buying into and pushing.
Oh, and German is a shit language, but non the less there were substantial minorities in the USA that kept using it, even the Amish iirc still use a dialect of it to this day and it is their first language.

Also, it will be nice if you don't try and turn every single thread dealing with Eastern Europe even tangentially into Muskov Evil.

I would like to have a thread discussing Eastern Europe without the commies/world wars that is not dragged into more bitching about Russia.
The Promethean Plan failed, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is long gone and will not reappear.

 

[Marduk]

The point is that the amount of grievances was far larger, and the people actually fighting for the revolutionary cause was far smaller that the whole romantic Ameriwhank you are buying into and pushing.

>people actually fighting
In how many wars, civil wars, revolutions etc more than a small fraction of the population did "actually fight"? It's a red herring, such situations are more of an exception than a rule, for pure logistical reasons if nothing else.

Also, it will be nice if you don't try and turn every single thread dealing with Eastern Europe even tangentially into Muskov Evil.

You think Muskov is not relevant to communism and Eastern Europe?

I would like to have a thread discussing Eastern Europe without the commies/world wars that is not dragged into more bitching about Russia.
The Promethean Plan failed, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is long gone and will not reappear.

This thread literally has a question about the effects of commies in its title, so take your whining somewhere else.

 

[Agent23]

You think Muskov is not relevant to communism and Eastern Europe?

I think that Communism undermined and brought down "Muskov" as much as it did everything else.
For your average Russian, things were actually going better under the Tzar, with the economy growing double digits prior to WWI.
Under the commies, bot the total land mass of Russia, its population and its GDP and industrial production shrank for decades, then picked up only prior to WWII.

So, yeah, it did fuck over the "Muskovites" just like it did everyone else.If anything their little empire in the west cost them dearly where upkeep was concerned.
Our communist dictator was exceedingly good at leaching resources from them, for example, and because of this whole thing called the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 we were rather fond of them and they didn't have to hit us as hard as they hit others.

However, even without the Bolsheviks we still would have had idiots spreading communism.
Tito is a fine example, and it is not like the "Ukrainians" didn't have loons like Nestor Makhno and we had Dimitrov and various other so-called social democrats that turned into communists.
Also, communism was rather popular in places like Germany and France.Even without "Muskov" we would have had that silly ideology gaining popularity among the shallow-minded, totalitarian so called inteligentzia, the type that is comprised of perpetual second raters.

 

[Marduk]

I think that Communism undermined and brought down "Muskov" as much as it did everything else.
For your average Russian, things were actually going better under the Tzar, with the economy growing double digits prior to WWI.

As expected from the arrival of the industrial age.

Under the commies, bot the total land mass of Russia, its population and its GDP and industrial production shrank for decades, then picked up only prior to WWII.

Perhaps they would have more credibility as victims of communism if they didn't stick with it, didn't push it on more lands, and didn't have a so much nostalgia for it afterwards.

So, yeah, it did fuck over the "Muskovites" just like it did everyone else.If anything their little empire in the west cost them dearly where upkeep was concerned.
Our communist dictator was exceedingly good at leaching resources from them, for example, and because of this whole thing called the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 we were rather fond of them and they didn't have to hit us as hard as they hit others.

However, even without the Bolsheviks we still would have had idiots spreading communism.
Tito is a fine example, and it is not like the "Ukrainians" didn't have loons like Nestor Makhno and we had Dimitrov and various other so-called social democrats that turned into communists.
Also, communism was rather popular in places like Germany and France.Even without "Muskov" we would have had that silly ideology gaining popularity among the shallow-minded, totalitarian so called inteligentzia, the type that is comprised of perpetual second raters.

It had fanclubs small, medium or big almost everywhere, yet these fanclubs didn't prevail in most of these places. Without all sorts of support from Soviet Union, they would have prevailed in even less, if any.

 

[Agent23]

As expected from the arrival of the industrial age.

Not a real counter-argument.As I said, things were better under the Tzar.The last one wasn't all that competent mind you, but still better than the commie regimes.

Perhaps they would have more credibility as victims of communism if they didn't stick with it, didn't push it on more lands, and didn't have a so much nostalgia for it afterwards.

And many of those that were against that got sent into Gulags or were forced to emigrate.

It had fanclubs small, medium or big almost everywhere, yet these fanclubs didn't prevail in most of these places. Without all sorts of support from Soviet Union, they would have prevailed in even less, if any.

Larger than you'd think.

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)

oduction
↑

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was, on the eve of World War I, the largest party in the German Reich, with about 1 million members, and also the largest party in the German parliament (the Reichstag), with 110 of 397 deputies. During World War I, it experienced its worst crisis, which resulted in the split of the party in 1917.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jaurès#Assassination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_French_legislative_election

Notice how various socialists were in power?

The rot was also spreading across the Atlantic, with lunatics like the people in the FDR administration.

 

[Marduk]

Not a real counter-argument.As I said, things were better under the Tzar.The last one wasn't all that competent mind you, but still better than the commie regimes.

Which is faint praise.

And many of those that were against that got sent into Gulags or were forced to emigrate.

Unnatural selection it is then.

Larger than you'd think.

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jaurès#Assassination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_French_legislative_election

Notice how various socialists were in power?

The rot was also spreading across the Atlantic, with lunatics like the people in the FDR administration.

That's a lot of idiots, but still, as long as they had to contend with not having absolute power, in most places they eventually fell out of style.

 

[Agent23]

Which is faint praise.

And the situation was better under the Polish magnate oligarchy and your various regimes after the Russian Empire fell apart?

Unnatural selection it is then.

Yup, you also have quite a few poor peasants that got factory jobs and saw some benefit of the whole deal.Be it getting some "free" land or their loans to the Kulak nullified or getting an industrial job, and electrification, and low quality social healthcare and low pensions.
Again, I tend to agree with you that a capitalist society would have done the same eventually, but places where you have an entrenched, land-owning oligarchy that runs the government you get developmental retardation.
Japan fucked over its land owners and broke up a bunch of oligopolies and became more industrialized and more competitive.

Argentina and the Philippines didn't, and they got pseudo-aristocracies that have a vested interest in retarding the country's development and in rent-seeking.

The problem is that the Commies created their own aristocracy and took that institutional power, then they became "Atlanticists" and "capitalists", so a clean sweep probably would have been very beneficial.

That's a lot of idiots, but still, as long as they had to contend with not having absolute power, in most places they eventually fell out of style.

Without competition the landed aristocracy in all but name will try and retard stuff so as to keep their power base and grifts alive, IMHO, which will at some point lead to more socialism.This is happening in the USA and Britain right now, with globo homo being run by exactly those types of power-base preserving idiots IMO.
One of the few taxes I am OK with is inheritance tax for the higher up brackets, and I am also firmly against NGOs and large exemptions for "charitable" donations.
Like those where the "NGO/NPO" is run by the sons and grandsons of the founders.
Stolipin's land reforms for instance were one of Tzarism's best ideas.
The upper class, no matter how meritocratic and capitalistic it is, will inevitably want "soft, plum posts" for their kids as well as the preservation of their wealth and its conversion into generational wealth, which will lead to the system being saddled with lots of unproductive corporate apparatchics, nimbyism and overpriced assets.
The business cycle should clean up some of that, but the vested interests will fight it and demand socialism for the rich IMHO.

Soviet education was more centralized and more focused on hard sciences because they needed engineers doctors and not
that many lawyers and other people in the "soft" sciences, and they did manage to get Sputnik out.

 

[Marduk]

And the situation was better under the Polish magnate oligarchy and your various regimes after the Russian Empire fell apart?

Absolutely. PLC was curbing the magnate problems in its last decades, but that was "too little, too late" to suddenly be able to resist the foreign imperial expansions.

Yup, you also have quite a few poor peasants that got factory jobs and saw some benefit of the whole deal.Be it getting some "free" land or their loans to the Kulak nullified or getting an industrial job, and electrification, and low quality social healthcare and low pensions.
Again, I tend to agree with you that a capitalist society would have done the same eventually, but places where you have an entrenched, land-owning oligarchy that runs the government you get developmental retardation.
Japan fucked over its land owners and broke up a bunch of oligopolies and became more industrialized and more competitive.

Argentina and the Philippines didn't, and they got pseudo-aristocracies that have a vested interest in retarding the country's development and in rent-seeking.

Sounds like light, prototype version of classic resource curse.

Without competition the landed aristocracy in all but name will try and retard stuff so as to keep their power base and grifts alive, IMHO, which will at some point lead to more socialism.This is happening in the USA and Britain right now, with globo homo being run by exactly those types of power-base preserving idiots IMO.
One of the few taxes I am OK with is inheritance tax for the higher up brackets, and I am also firmly against NGOs and large exemptions for "charitable" donations.
Like those where the "NGO/NPO" is run by the sons and grandsons of the founders.
Stolipin's land reforms for instance were one of Tzarism's best ideas.
The upper class, no matter how meritocratic and capitalistic it is, will inevitably want "soft, plum posts" for their kids as well as the preservation of their wealth and its conversion into generational wealth, which will lead to the system being saddled with lots of unproductive corporate apparatchics, nimbyism and overpriced assets.
The business cycle should clean up some of that, but the vested interests will fight it and demand socialism for the rich IMHO.

Ultimately the preservation of power is far more damaging than preservation of wealth. That's why NGOs and outright businesses acting like NGOs and playing politics are far worse than just inheritance billions or trust funds. If the heirs of upper class would just sit on their huge funds, accounts, stock portfolios etc and splurge them out on mansions, yachts, limousines and so on it wouldn't be a big deal. When they start throwing big money to be celebrities in virtue signalling contests or play politics, that's when they really start to fuck things up for everyone. Threatening to cut off their generational wealth in fact may be a bad strategy because it puts them into a "no retreat" position - if they want to keep their wealth, they are forced to throw money into politics.

Soviet education was more centralized and more focused on hard sciences because they needed engineers doctors and not
that many lawyers and other people in the "soft" sciences, and they did manage to get Sputnik out.

A centrally run system like that can be utterly focused on throwing resources into things that interest the central - like in their case, military, dual use and "propaganda milestone" efforts. It's typically inefficient and risky, but it can be fast.
Doesn't help much with getting practical and economically optimal benefits out of the end result though.
They did have plenty of people doing kinda equivalent things to what the "soft sciences" people do in the west, see: party officials.

 

[Agent23]

Absolutely. PLC was curbing the magnate problems in its last decades, but that was "too little, too late" to suddenly be able to resist the foreign imperial expansions.

Ahem, Deluge and Polish partition, anyone?
That stuff IMHO happened in great part because your hereditary voting oligarchy could not look beyond their narrow personal interests.
There was on every interesting historic document where some ambassador to Poland was visiting some noble and couldn't get him to agree to anything because of the whole slow cumbersome voting process.
And even the polish noble's secretary/head servant was some noble and couldn't be bothered to take messages or schedule meetings because he was out voting.
I mean, the Cossacks weren't Russian serfs only, lots of Polish serfs also joined them.

Sounds like light, prototype version of classic resource curse.

More like an entrenched, inbred oligarchy curse.periodically such groups IMHO need a culling since they become too big for their breeches.

Ultimately the preservation of power is far more damaging than preservation of wealth. That's why NGOs and outright businesses acting like NGOs and playing politics are far worse than just inheritance billions or trust funds. If the heirs of upper class would just sit on their huge funds, accounts, stock portfolios etc and splurge them out on mansions, yachts, limousines and so on it wouldn't be a big deal. When they start throwing big money to be celebrities in virtue signalling contests or play politics, that's when they really start to fuck things up for everyone. Threatening to cut off their generational wealth in fact may be a bad strategy because it puts them into a "no retreat" position - if they want to keep their wealth, they are forced to throw money into politics.

Wealth and power are deeply intertwined.Hence there should be mechanisms to limit the amount of political power one can buy.
And high wealth inheritance taxes can be of great benefit, since the next generation will not turn into lazy troglodite cultural marxists with ...studies degrees and be forced to work for a living instead.
And I am not saying that all of the money needs to be confiscated.
50-60% should be sufficient to make sure that a family's wealth does not become a resource curse.

Also, I think that one's earnings and achievements and stake in society should dictate the weight of their voting power, not inheritance or just their money power size.

Tl;DR Service guarantees Citizenship.

A centrally run system like that can be utterly focused on throwing resources into things that interest the central - like in their case, military, dual use and "propaganda milestone" efforts. It's typically inefficient and risky, but it can be fast.
Doesn't help much with getting practical and economically optimal benefits out of the end result though.
They did have plenty of people doing kinda equivalent things to what the "soft sciences" people do in the west, see: party officials.

Japan and a few other asian countries have their own heavily centrally run educational systems.
Often the lower levels, e.g. teachers are more liberal, but the central bureaucracy is more conservative and performance oriented.

Contrast that with the USA, where you have lots of decentralization and "democracy" in the form of a PTA and local elected boards, and you have rampant social justice peddling and teachers trying to make out Math as racist, to inflate the grades of favored minorities and to turn the kids into activists and sexual deviants and hoes.

Parents do not want their Swan that is actually an ugly duckling to be "mistreated" so they will often push for shit like "every kid gets a trophy" and less rigorous instruction.
Teachers will also choose the path of least resistance, read, play favorites, slack off and push their pet propaganda, so frankly a more centralized, hard scenic-focused system with higher anonymization and less human stupidity is IMHO the best choice.
Also, I think that education should force the damned brats to understand that they are not special, and that they must put in work to achieve success.

 

[Marduk]

Ahem, Deluge and Polish partition, anyone?

Yes, and when Poland was trying to fix these problems, the partitioners only doubled down while they still could do so with little effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_May_Constitution_Day

More like an entrenched, inbred oligarchy curse.periodically such groups IMHO need a culling since they become too big for their breeches.

That means they need to have some competition, internal or external, all the time.

Wealth and power are deeply intertwined.

All wealth is power more or less, but there are also other things that translate into power.

Hence there should be mechanisms to limit the amount of political power one can buy.

That means making political power expensive to buy.

And high wealth inheritance taxes can be of great benefit, since the next generation will not turn into lazy troglodite cultural marxists with ...studies degrees and be forced to work for a living instead.

It also means talented businessmen are discouraged from building up even proper businesses, with taxes like this they are encouraged to either lobby, cheat, leave for greener pastures or say fuck it and not care about building more wealth.

Also, I think that one's earnings and achievements and stake in society should dictate the weight of their voting power, not inheritance or just their money power size.
Tl;DR Service guarantees Citizenship.

But who is to decide which service counts and which doesn't, and how is it measured? That just shifts a dangerous amount of power to whoever is going to get to decide that.
For example the progressive crowd would not mind such a system at all if that was them, it's just that they would make something similar to ESG scoring the measure of service.

Japan and a few other asian countries have their own centrally run educational systems.
Often the lower levels, e.g. teachers are more liberal, but the central bureaucracy is more conservative and performance oriented.

Due to not having the wildfire of massive culture war they can have somewhat well running central institutions, even then they have their downsides.

Contrast that with the USA, where you have lots of decentralization and "democracy" in the form of a PTA and local elected boards, and you have rampant social justice peddling and teachers trying to make out Math as racist, to inflate the grades of favored minorities and to turn the kids into activists and sexual deviants and hoes.

And the same teachers then complain about too much "democracy" when the local elected boards complain about their new woke inventions. The decentralization as of today is mostly used as an escape route from the more centralized teaching organizations and DoE, who in turn want to curb it to take their competencies.

Parents do not want their Swan that is actually an ugly duckling to be "mistreated" so they will often push for shit like "every kid gets a trophy" and less rigorous instruction.
Teachers will also choose the path of least resistance, read, play favorites, slack off and push their pet propaganda, so frankly a more centralized, hard scenic-focused system with higher anonymization and less human stupidity is IMHO the best choice.
Also, I think that education should force the damned brats to understand that they are not special, and that they must put in work to achieve success.

USA is hardly the only country with woke education. The rest of Anglosphere has similar problems and usually more central education, just makes the situation more uniformly bad.
Their system is already more central than it should be, sure, the teachers can push "their" pet propaganda, but we all know what happens to teachers whose pet propaganda would be the wrong kind of propaganda that unions, DoE and democrat activists would disagree with. So, teachers can't push *their* pet propaganda willy-nilly, they can only push their pet propaganda if it coincidentally happens to also be the pet propaganda of the people above them.

 

[Agent23]

Yes, and when Poland was trying to fix these problems, the partitioners only doubled down while they still could do so with little effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_May_Constitution_Day

That means they need to have some competition, internal or external, all the time.

Yeah, well entrenched oligrachies that fucked stuff up usually got yeeted, see Fall of Rome, French Revolution, Russian revolution.
Creative destruction in action.

All wealth is power more or less, but there are also other things that translate into power.


That means making political power expensive to buy.

The other side of the knife is that you'd only make it possible for the really big fish to buy in.

It also means talented businessmen are discouraged from building up even proper businesses, with taxes like this they are encouraged to either lobby, cheat, leave for greener pastures or say fuck it and not care about building more wealth.

No one is stopping them from building wealth and spending it, only from turning their offspring into an entrenched pack of troglodytes.
If income and corporate taxes are low and all other conditions are good a high inheritance tax should not impact existing publicly owned and new private businesses.

But who is to decide which service counts and which doesn't, and how is it measured? That just shifts a dangerous amount of power to whoever is going to get to decide that.

Like the dysfunctional Bolyars and Magnates?
Any system that fucks up severely will eventually see external or internal opposition.
I'd prefer to moderate some of the dumber aspects of the power process by having high barriers to entry, like doing some form of national service, see Starship Troopers, that ensures the future electorate has skin in the game.

For example the progressive crowd would not mind such a system at all if that was them, it's just that they would make something similar to ESG scoring the measure of service.

ESG is a prime example of No Skin in the game, lol, that is what I want to avoid.

Due to not having the wildfire of massive culture war they can have somewhat well running central institutions, even then they have their downsides.

No, I think it is more about having a non-egocentrical and more ethnocentrical asian culture with Confucian values as opposed to western "values" of harm avoidance.Higher average IQs don't hurt the situation, either.

And the same teachers then complain about too much "democracy" when the local elected boards complain about their new woke inventions. The decentralization as of today is mostly used as an escape route from the more centralized teaching organizations and DoE, who in turn want to curb it to take their competencies.

All the more reason to make exams standardized and school attendance less mandatory.And put in some concrete requirements in the legal system to ban political and religious gibberish aside from some basic civics and patriotism from the school curricula and emphasize useful skills and hard science that does not deal with whatever "hot topic" is making twitter go nuts.

 

[Marduk]

The other side of the knife is that you'd only make it possible for the really big fish to buy in.

And not get much bang for their buck while at it, so they will think twice if that's the best way to spend their big bucks.

No one is stopping them from building wealth and spending it, only from turning their offspring into an entrenched pack of troglodytes.
If income and corporate taxes are low and all other conditions are good a high inheritance tax should not impact existing publicly owned and new private businesses.

If you think the elites who want to hand down their wealth to their children are bad, you aren't going to like the neo-elites wed to stupid causes who don't mind because either they don't have children, or want to hand over most of that to silly causes and don't care about inheritance tax because they want to do that while still alive.

Like the dysfunctional Bolyars and Magnates?
Any system that fucks up severely will eventually see external or internal opposition.
I'd prefer to moderate some of the dumber aspects of the power process by having high barriers to entry, like doing some form of national service, see Starship Troopers, that ensures the future electorate has skin in the game.

Not really? A good chunk of US politicians, including Bushes, would do fine in that system. And a lot of the rest would adapt further. Plenty of opportunity to arrange and then even deal in cushy positions in "service" of government institutions.

ESG is a prime example of No Skin in the game, lol, that is what I want to avoid.

It's a great example of "whoever gets to decide what counts as skin in the game wins", their advertising of that is absolutely focused on "skin in the game" aka stakeholders, it's just that they focus on silly things of third rate importance as the important ones, stuff like muh equity and muh environment. Measuring "service" in money has its downsides, but measuring it in unspecific and malleable qualities is even more abusable.

No, I think it is more about having a non-egocentrical and more ethnocentrical asian culture with Confucian values as opposed to western "values" of harm avoidance.Higher average IQs don't hurt the situation, either.

Harm avoidance obsession is not a western value, it's a half a century old or so progressive value.

All the more reason to make exams standardized and school attendance less mandatory.And put in some concrete requirements in the legal system to ban political and religious gibberish aside from some basic civics and patriotism from the school curricula and emphasize useful skills and hard science that does not deal with whatever "hot topic" is making twitter go nuts.

Again, as long as those who decide the standards are shit, centralization is no solution, it will just ensure that everything is shit uniformly. Imagine the current year democrats writing their definitions of basic civics and patriotism into law....
The real solution is finding a way for average person not crazed with woke bullshit to have decent say about the standards, or the people who will decide the standards (and not in the way of "pick a woke academic or more woke academic"). Locally, the decentralized system can deliver that at least in places that aren't too far gone.

 

[Agent23]

And not get much bang for their buck while at it, so they will think twice if that's the best way to spend their big bucks.

Got a concrete example of that working?

If you think the elites who want to hand down their wealth to their children are bad, you aren't going to like the neo-elites wed to stupid causes who don't mind because either they don't have children, or want to hand over most of that to silly causes and don't care about inheritance tax because they want to do that while still alive.

Elites are far more likely to do that if they become part of an entrenched, degenerate multi-generational oligarchy.
I would rather have darwinistic elites who want their brats to succeed the way they did, by their own bootstraps in an environment of severe darwinian selection.

Not really? A good chunk of US politicians, including Bushes, would do fine in that system. And a lot of the rest would adapt further. Plenty of opportunity to arrange and then even deal in cushy positions in "service" of government institutions.

It's a great example of "whoever gets to decide what counts as skin in the game wins", their advertising of that is absolutely focused on "skin in the game" aka stakeholders, it's just that they focus on silly things of third rate importance as the important ones, stuff like muh equity and muh environment. Measuring "service" in money has its downsides, but measuring it in unspecific and malleable qualities is even more abusable.

Yeah, I think that we have two different notions of what "elite" is.
In your case you are making it sound synonymous to an oligarchy, whileas it should be "whoever managed to get through the meatgrinder with the most finesse and grit."
Our global ruling oligarchy has grown fat and complacent and virtue signalling on the backs of their ancestors' work.In the case of Gates his relatives were literally IBM execs.That, and that turd Jobs was too lazy to finish writing some BASIC compiler and MS got a foothold and some lucrative work from Apple.
As to the Bushes, well, Bush Sr. wasn't actually all that bad a person.He suffered from the same problem all parents do, namely he was too lenient towards his children, something that should be socially ostracized IMHO.
Spare the rod, spoil the child isn't that bad of an idea figuratively.

In any case, the concept of "no skin in the game" electoral power should be constitutionally enshrined, and the requirements can be set in such a way as to make sure that no cushy jobs are created.
This along with proper schooling should create a class of Citizen that will defend to the death the limitations and prerequisites of the special election system, and fight against entrenchment.
Personally I'd rather have governance by custom/principal, by written law, or by a limited, selective group of worthies than by moronic nation-wide over-18 head counting, as long as my personal freedoms are also safeguarded by a legal code.
A pro-business dictator like Lee Kuan Yew is also preferable to U.S. style democracy.

Harm avoidance obsession is not a western value, it's a half a century old or so progressive value.

Not exactly, Dr. Edward Dutton thinks it is an individualist value.After all, it is no skin off my nose if you want to be referred to as a flying unicorn and I will avoid personal harm by being polite.

Again, as long as those who decide the standards are shit, centralization is no solution, it will just ensure that everything is shit uniformly. Imagine the current year democrats writing their definitions of basic civics and patriotism into law....
The real solution is finding a way for average person not crazed with woke bullshit to have decent say about the standards, or the people who will decide the standards (and not in the way of "pick a woke academic or more woke academic"). Locally, the decentralized system can deliver that at least in places that aren't too far gone.

The democrats are a problem because of U.S. universalism and because conservatives are not willing to step up and fight for some institutions, like education.
That tug of war has been going for a long while, and IMHO shit like creationism has as much place in chassrooms as Marx does, read, 0.
Check the PISA scores, most of the top 10 are in Asia.

As I said, centralized systems have worked quite well in places like Asia.