Re:Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
by corimaith on Saturday September 13, 2025 @06:51AM
(#45231042)
What you call influence is simply trust that others impart to an individual. There is very little a single individual can physically do by themselves. So if there is someone with the influence to challenge a militia then it's better to say a proportionate number of people are also challenging the militia with the person as their proxy.
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Re:Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
by lurk2 on Saturday September 13, 2025 @12:36PM
(#45233373)
This is the argument populists make regarding Caesar, and there might be some truth to it, but it falls apart when you look at a Venezuela or North Korea; it’s easy to say that a nation gets the government it deserves when you aren’t the one having your life threatened.
Then again, outsized influence is a problem in democracies as well; this is what creates the conditions for a Caesar figure to emerge in the first place.