You can't impose democracy, but if democracy and associated ideas such as the free market spectacularly fails the people – as it did in the 90s – then that certainly doesn't help. We probably could have done a thing or two to make it fail less. Would that have made a meaningful difference? Hard to say for sure, but it would have been worth to try.

Not "ideas" failed the people, but the implementers - which turned out to be straight up robbers, dividing past empire's industrial base amongst them, like western idol Khodorkovsky or Berezovsky.

Where the politicians were less corrupt, the free market worked spectacularly well, like in Poland.

So it wasn't real capitalism?

Every economic system has capital, even socialist ones, it just means property. What distinguishes capitalism is that individual rights over capital are respected.

Capitalism is based on private property rights, and individual economic freedoms to buy and sell your labour or property. That means it’s fundamentally reliant on the robust rule of law to enforce those rights, the rights of those purchasing property and services, etc. It’s those rights that enable the trust required for a functioning market. Corporatist, oligarchic and cartel based systems are often described as capitalist, but they’re really not capitalist because they don’t respect individual rights over capital any more than communism does. Like communism they’re just stitch-ups.

The role played by the rule of law often gets down played or even criticised by libertarian free marketeers. They think it’s needless regulation and just government interfering in free markets. But without the rule of law you get bloody free for alls like in Russia in the 90s.

The idea that capital is ahistorical (or at least, traces its origin to the concept of human property itself by being 'just' property) is not a claim to be made as though it were uncontroversial. In fact, many people proposing non-capitalist systems disagree the idea that capital is 'just property' for good reasons, which may be worth considering.

You argue that the capitalist system presupposes these rights and the rule of law; I would say that historically speaking capital itself (more importantly its production process) presupposes these rights and capitalism presupposes capital.

It doesn’t matter what you call it, capital is the same thing regardless of its ownership structure. Let’s call it woogum and the woogumist system if you like, that doesn’t change anything.

Capitalism is commonly defined as a system of economics based on private ownership, and associated rights such as free exchange of labour, free markets, etc as against state ownership. Systems based on cartels, oligarchies and corporatist systems aren’t capitalist because the oligarchs, corporatist entities, etc become part of the state system. They assume powers normally the prerogative of the state. Obviously there are different degrees, no two systems are identical and all such systems have some level of private ownership and trade. It’s all a matter of degree. Even the Soviet Union had some level of markets and private exchange.

You're just restating your definition of what you define capital to be and my point is that some qualified people disagree on that definition. You can call your definition 'woogum', but the fact is that there's no book called Woogum, yet there is probably a book called 'Property' and I'm certain there's a famous one called 'Capital'.

'As against state ownership is an interesting bit to use as part of the definition, because it creates the whole rest of your argument for you (by which you must say that a term like 'state capitalism' is nonsensical, but I disagree). This is fundamentally an issue of definitions, and I'm more than happy to agree to disagree on that, or even to go with your definition, and I'll use capital-prime to denote what I'm talking about.

However, according to Wikpedia (quoting Samuelson) capital is "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services" - so while a subclass of property, certainly not 'just property'. This also raises an empirical question, that is, in a given society what are those 'durable produced goods...' as they exist in the macroeconomic sense? Yet others view capital as a social relation. I'm saying there are multiple perspectives on the definition, but that's the nature of multiple interested parties talking about a politically, ideologically, and socially charged subject.

I think it's an unfortunate historical accident that what we generally refer to as capitalism, the mainstream economic system in place in the western world and in fact most of the world, has that name without a distinguishing qualifier. That's why I don't object to the term state capitalism, which is a much more descriptive term.

Ideally what we call capitalism would be consistently referred to as something like free market capitalism, or private property capitalism. I know those terms exist and are used, but very often we refer to the mainstream western system as just capitalism without qualification. So people will blame 'capitalism' for things like poverty or exploitation in the west, as though such things are completely unknown in alternative economic systems.

It was not really a base for capitalism to take hold and effect. It needs a basic rule of law and democracy to work. All it got was brief window of chaos, before the kleptocracy returned.

Best description of the cultural background i found so far was this:

https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0?t=76

> It was not really a base for capitalism to take hold and effect. It needs a basic rule of law and democracy to work. All it got was brief window of chaos, before the kleptocracy returned.

This is my understanding as well, from everything I’ve read. The more interesting question is why Russia, both as a nation state and a culture, has no history or tradition of democracy. I’ve never received an answer to this question.

You might want to check out the history of Novgorod.

Thank you! I briefly looked at the Wiki article to see what you were talking about. Apparently, some of the cultural history in regards to democracy is unknown, as the article mentions that the exact nature of the democratic experiment was lost to time.

There is no such thing as "real capitalism"; it's a broad and somewhat vague set of ideas with many possible implementations, none of which are more "real capitalism" than any other, although I'd argue that some implementations definitely better than others (and 90s Russia is a good example of that).

Capitalism is just an economic system with predominantly private ownership of the means of production. Whether a country's set of economically productive organizations are owned by shareholders via a stock exchange or by whomever was powerful enough to take control of them by corrupt means seems irrelevant, no?

If the people who own them aren’t willing to sell them for economically-rational prices, then you don’t have equilibrium capitalism; you have temporary capitalism as a reaction proceeding toward aristocracy / feudalism. When all the assets are illiquid, there’s no capitalism.

>Whether a country's set of economically productive organizations are owned by shareholders via a stock exchange or by whomever was powerful enough to take control of them by corrupt means seems irrelevant, no?

It is extremely relevant when you look at the outcomes.

For young democracies - like Russia in 1992 - it's possible to get captured by populists, who, instead of solving tough problems and laying out the groundwork for the subsequent development, promise some doubtful, in retrospect at least, things, point fingers towards convenient scapegoats etc. In this sense Russia was unlucky. Yes, people didn't know much, and were led to believe etc... so the guilt is spread of course, and many are involved. Everybody should have tried to do the best in their place, then the possibilities are larger - but in this case, it turned out to be not enough.

I'm not sure we now know a guaranteed way of how to deal with situations like that.

Not have direct democracy in the early stages? The evidence is pretty clear. The US itself did not start with direct democracy.

Certainly the west could have done more to prevent corruption and money laundering in western banks, but the opportunities were too lucrative and refusal too dangerous.

What could be done from the outside that would stop the corruption and etc?

I those elected choose to be corrupt, undemocratic, I'm not sure much could be done from the outside.

> I’m skeptical of the idea that you can impose Democracy.

We didn't need to impose democracy. Russia had democracy for a time. The Marshall Plan was about economic investment. The transition from communism to capitalism was a very rough one for the Soviet people, and that's a big part of why democracy failed.

> Marshall Plan was about economic investment. The transition from communism to capitalism was a very rough one for the Soviet people, and that's a big part of why democracy failed.

It was also about stabilising a war-torn continent’s economy. To keep them from going communist.

And it would've made a lot of sense to re-apply it here since Russia has clearly gone in a strongly authoritarian direction and is invading its neighbors. It's a pretty clear example of a destabilizing actor in the region.

How would you have applied it? Japan surrendered so they had a lot less say in how things where handled. No such thing happened with the USSR/Russia.

> it would've made a lot of sense to re-apply it here

Absolutely agree with you. Long-term, I think the stable state for Russia is a deconstruction of the old empire and a global commitment to Marshall Plan the resulting republics into modernity.

They had democracy of a Ryazan sugar flavor. Nothing compared to real one.

You couldn’t impose democracy on many parts of the USA if it were suddenly removed, let’s face it.

that's good, as the US is a constitutional republic

You're in the small, but vocal minority of people who incorrectly believe that direct democracy is the only form of democracy that exists, or that the term 'constitutional republic' says literally anything about how a country is governed.

The US is a respresentative democracy that is also a constitutional republic.

Denmark is a representative democracy that is also a constitutional monarchy.

Canada is a representative democracy that is also an unconstitutional monarchy.

Russia is a kind-of-if-you-squint-but-not-really-representative oligarchy-slash-autocracy that is also a constitutional republic.

Whether or not a country has a constitution, or is a republic has almost no bearing on how it is actually governed.

> who incorrectly believe that direct democracy is the only form of democracy that exists

I never claimed that. You are trying to address a non-existing point.

Aslo, being in minority has never been an indicator of wrong by default, so I don't see why you had to mention it. At least I know that the US embassy also finds it important to remind everyone about the difference [1].

> or that the term 'constitutional republic' says literally anything about how a country is governed. [...] Whether or not a country has a constitution, or is a republic has almost no bearing on how it is actually governed.

It does have a significant bearing on applicability of popular vote in a given federation.

[1] https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen...

Democratic republic, which is what everyone means when we say democracy.

Hardly everyone, but left zoomers who are unable to understand the key founding papers and who refuse descriptive comments of the founders on the matter most certainly do. [1]: "While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution not only provides the framework for how the federal and state governments are structured, but also places significant limits on their powers. “Federal” means that there is both a national government and governments of the 50 states. A “republic” is a form of government in which the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power."

Federalist No_14 also had a lot to say on the matter: “In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.”

[1] https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen...

> Hardly everyone, but left zoomers

I am not a zoomer and I agree with the commenter you are replying to. Most of the "west" has a form of government that is a representative democracy (most of them as republics, but quite a few as constitutional monarchies as well), including the US.

Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200215230538/https://ourworldi...

> Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term.

For some reason the US embassy still finds it important enough to broadcast the difference to the rest of the world: https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen... Could you explain that?

i think you are being a bit pedantic, it says:

  While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. 

notice the wording "more accurately" and not "mischaracterized" etc

--

btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a democracy?

are you trying to say that people shouldn't be able to decide their leaders?

> i think you are being a bit pedantic

This is the PolySci equivalent of software engineers arguing about the type system in Python. It is a great source of debate and endless clarification... and term papers for undergrads.

it's the US embassy being very pedantic about the matter to the extent they find it important to dedicate the starting paragraph of the entire section about the US government, even though the difference is just about being more accurate. in fact, accuracy in founding principles of governing is as important as accuracy of long-distance ballistic motion planning.

> btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a democracy?

because a typical follow-up discussion usually starts with "so where's the popular vote?" and this diminishes the principle of fair representation of smaller states of the federal republic.

> because a typical follow-up discussion usually starts with "so where's the popular vote?" and this diminishes the principle of fair representation of smaller states of the federal republic.

Oh wow, so that's why this is seen as a left/right thing?

I'm not from the US (and therefore way left for the US) and I think assuring representation of the less populous states is very important.

I think the first-past-the-post voting system used in the US is a much bigger problem than this.

  > because a typical follow-up discussion usually starts with "so where's the popular vote?" and this diminishes the principle of fair representation of smaller states of the federal republic.

thanks for clarifying.

just to be upfront, im not sure i agree, but in any case i think stating that upfront is better than debating words "democracy" vs "republic", people will miss the point (or not get what your trying to say)

You need to go back and read about Doerr’s Rebellion and the Guarantee Clause.

Dorr Rebellion my mistake.

My guess is some MAGA types in the Argentinan embassy.

The founders aren't very relevant anymore. Their system was bad, and the current one is better, though it keeps some of the old flaws they introduced as compromises for the time

Based on your quote, they didn't understand that representative democracy is still democracy? The internet lessons the need for representatives, since we don't need to travel to talk to each other anymore.

> The founders aren't very relevant anymore. Their system was bad, and the current one is better, though it keeps some of the old flaws they introduced as compromises for the time

The US embassy thinks otherwise: https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen...

I'll just post this once instead of on every place you are posting that same link:

> The United States is a representative democracy.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-pl...

The difference between "a democracy" and "a constitutional federal republic" seems to be a distinction without meaning.

There's a certain segment who seem very adamant that this is a very important argument to win against "the left". But I've never met any "leftist" who cares particularly - most seem to shrug, concede the label and move on.

I'm pretty much in agreement. The US is a democracy in the wide sense in that it uses a democratic process to choose government. It's also true that it's a representative democracy in that the process works by people choosing representatives. So sure - constitutional federal republic.

But why does anyone think this is particularly important, and why is this seen as something that there is any left/right distinction on is beyond me.

> As soon as enough don’t want it, it is over.

Which worries me about the USA, it's pretty hit or miss at the moment.

But there are also things that can affect who wants it, or what people think "it" is, or how they think you should get there. What people want is not an independent variable unaffected by anything else.

All political systems are imposed, pragmatically and theoretically.

Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. They made a convincing argument with their performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I doubt Russia would have been much different.

That was a very different situation, those were states that were militarily invaded and then occupied by American forces, who were involved in reconstructing countries devastated by war.

Yea, and most young democracies are very vulnerable. You can look at the Arab Spring for examples of failed democracies, and the early United States (it took us 20 years to get off the Articles of Confederation and work on the Constitution we use today).

Myanmar's another one. India's been restricting its people's rights lately.

Democracy takes a while to establish as a stable system and often fails.

Alexander the Great was granting (non-representative) democracies to cities in Asia Minor 2400 years ago, I wonder what he'd think of Erdogan.

The Thirteen Colonies had a long history of democratic self governance. The revolution was mostly an independence movement. The revolutionary part was the Republican federation.

This long history of democratic rule was not present in many modern attempts to establish democracies.

I'm not sure the average Russian would have seen the situation much differently.

Look at the people today who decry chinese investment in the US economy? I'm not even saying those people are wrong.

All it takes is for one person or group in the country to poke us enough to the point where we feel the need to strengthen our security posture there (read: add more troops) and then some terrible situation like Abu Ghraib completely destroys any credibility we have with the local population and it just spirals into disaster.

I simply have no faith left in our government's ability to execute even a completely peaceful operation like the marshall plan (and similarly what we did in Japan).

What's your proposition then? How it's best to go forward from where we are, if you don't trust the current organization abilities?

I used to find that drinking a lot helped but then my insides started to hurt. I'm thinking about maybe growing psilocybin mushrooms now.

> Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country.

To be fair, things probably work better when you don’t put people with that ideology in charge of said government.

It’s like picking a flat-Earther as an astronaut.

Republicans? Man, some people just can't get past the "my party vs your party" mindset.

Federalism is one of the core principles of the Republican party. I don't believe that's a controversial statement of fact, but I also didn't think vaccines or the shape of the Earth were controversial subjects, so I never know these days.

None of the people I know who voted Republican would come close to identifying themselves as federalists. In fact, it's an occasional discussion between some of us. It's almost like two parties aren't enough to describe the positions of everyone who is forced to identify with one of them.

> We believe our constitutional system — limited government, separation of powers, federalism, and the rights of the people — must be preserved uncompromised for future generations.

That's from the preamble of the 2016 Republican platform (the most recent one since they declined to publish one in 2020 in lieu of just doing whatever Donald Trump said); literally their statement of values. But I've long believed that Republicans rely on voters who don't actually know what they're voting for, so your anecdote does strengthen that impression of mine.

The question here is - are Republicans actually those who they write in their documents they are? Or the Republicans are those who the majority of people considering themselves Republican and voting for them thinks?

Certain degrees of federalism are, I think, common across the political spectrum, not only describe Republicans.

federalism is an excuse to reduce regulation and continue stealing money from the lower classes

Pushing vaccines and forcing them onto people is (or they lose their jobs). Similarly, Democratic government forced many businesses to permanently close as they were deemed non-essential.

As a child I was compelled to take vaccinations in order to attend school. My buddy in the military tells me he was "voluntold" to give blood for his fellow soldiers, nevermind all the vaccines they were required to take. Back then, vaccine denial was a loony left fringe thing, and now it seems to be a mainstream conservative position. Times change I suppose, but I do remember the old days.

Reading about successes fighting polio with vaccines, or just remembering a standard practice in American health system to routinely vaccinate people - with rather few exceptions - shows a big difference with COVID-related vaccine controversy. What's that different?..

The biggest difference is Polio crippled kids and they were vaccinating kids, whereas COVID mostly kills grandparents and leaves most kids unscathed.

Also, now we have facebook.

One of the un-fun potential answers to the Fermi Paradox is “everyone invents something like Facebook eventually”.

Also Polio vaccines are much, much more effective and even amongst these groups (i.e. children for Polio and seniors for Covid) Covid is much less dangerous.

Republicans have long said any government is bad. They want Big Business to be unrestrained, unregulated, pure democracy, at the expense of individual civil rights. I can't tell the difference between Republicans and anarchists, other than the sad fact that nearly all Republicans vote adversely to their personal economic interests to stifle economic opportunity, in order to keep the very richest the very richest, for that one future day when they are the richest of the richest. It makes no sense, because that day will never come because they are voting to stifle their own personal economic advancement for the sake of issues skew to economics, such as abortion and 2nd Amendment issues. Really... if you earn less than $325K/year, as nearly all Republicans do, it is insane to keep voting that way. If everyone always ignored all other issues, and voted solely in their personal economic interests, we'd never see another Republican elected until nearly everyone was rich.

> Republicans have long said any government is bad.

Most republicans are not anarcho-libertarians. Asserting that any government is bad is fringe even among libertarians, and most republicans aren't even libertarians.

> “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'"

-Ronald Reagan

Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it, but it seems like many people believed him anyway.

> Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it

I think you surely know it too, Reagan was all too eager to use government power and his supporters were happy to see him do it.

Reagan was sufficiently before my time that I have very limited opinions on what he actually wanted, though I would certainly tend to agree with that. I have no idea what modern Republicans actually want or believe. Obviously their elite class wants power above all, but the rank and file never seem to get much other than grievance.

"I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." – Grover Norquist

It's really strange to me that there was a decade where every Republican had to pledge allegiance to this guy (which ended when he married a Muslim woman).

Doesn’t seem to have hurt Wolfowitz much (well, he didn’t marry but still).