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A comment on Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stampede. Parent comment

Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by montrose on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @05:54AM (#16866019)
What Venezuela has in common with the late Empire is that economic controls are pervasive, without the sort of punitive completeness you'd find in the USSR, or China under Mao. While few controls works, and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy), this middle strategy doesn't work well at all.
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by HenryBemis on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @06:27AM (#16866144)
> this middle strategy doesn't work well at all

I will translate your suggestion like this:

-Either be a full-on dictatorship OR

-Be a modern democratic state

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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by ben_w on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @07:12AM (#16866322)
Yup, that’s how it is. CGP Grey has a good video on that, “The Rules For Rulers”: https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by megaman22 on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @07:30AM (#16866409)
Yes, it's dangerous trying to cross between those poles of stability on the J Curve.

It's been a while, but I think Venezuela was one of Ian Bremmer's prime examples.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743274725/

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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by ekianjo on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @06:53AM (#16866238)
And thats basically what we have in the world in terms of relatively stable regimes. Nothing in between.
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by coldtea on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @07:30AM (#16866410)
If "stable" merely means "persisting over time", then all kinds of between regimes have been very stable...
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by ekianjo on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @08:12AM (#16866671)
Such as what kind of regimes?
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by coldtea on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @11:06AM (#16867944)
All of Latin America, Eastern Europe, etc has been having such regimes for ages...

China that infinite8s mentions in his comment could also be considered as such.

Heck, Franco's Spain lasted for 30+ years...

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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by infinite8s on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @08:53AM (#16866947)
China is in the middle.
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by ekianjo on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @07:01PM (#16872015)
China has only been in the middle for very, very short time. Let's see where they are 50 years from now.
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Re:Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stam... by coldtea on Wednesday April 18, 2018 @07:29AM (#16866405)
>and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy)

That's an ideological statement. One can be a "police state" and has advanced technology and products -- free market not required.

In fact most of the technical and product developments in 18th and 19th century took place in markets quite far from "free", and of course Nazi Germany (the de fact "police state") was quite competent technologically.

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