Why can’t we mandate anything? Global resurgence of patrimonial rule

The article doesn't claim that distrust is recent. It claims the opposite.

It claims that people historically have seen strongmen as the "legitimate" authority. As a corollary, authority from anything other than strongmen was illegitimate.

We've managed to get many people to believe in systems and organizations instead of strongmen. But for various reasons, we've recently regressed.

Yes but they claim that the rise of bureaucracy and legitimate authority corresponds to the rise of the modern state, so I might be mistaken but it seemed to me that the intent was to contrast to earlier times than the 20th century?

Is it the bureaucracy that we have a problem with? To me it seems to be more related to dichotomy between safety and freedom.

While an argument can be made from both a scientific and public health perspective that alcohol is bad, that doesn't necessarily mean a government should therefore force people to make the "right" decision about their health. People who are in favour of the legality of alcohol are not anti-science or against bureaucracy, they're just people who value freedom over public health in this specific instance.

We're living in a strange time at the moment where we claim to value democracy, yet we simultaneously don't believe the public are informed enough to have any opinion about much of anything. I saw this start around the time of Brexit when people were getting annoyed that the government decided to listen to the opinion of the public rather than just doing whatever economists advised them to do. Today with COVID we see this more than ever, but at least in the UK there has been a steady trend towards our elected officials just deferring to unelected and often untrusted experts instead of representing the views of their electorate. While I think it's important we have public experts offering their thoughts on complicated decisions, I also think in a democracy we should embrace our liberty to reject the opinions of those experts for whatever reason.

We have to acknowledge there is no expert arguing on the side of freedom despite the fact many of us quite strongly value being free.

> The devastation of a country.

Don't you think it's odd you have such a strong opinion on Brexit? Anyone who believes Brexit is an obvious disaster isn't paying attention or is extremely disconnected. It's not like it was a simple obvious decision so your confidence is fascinating to me. There are obvious pro and cons depending on largely on your class and immigration status.

My dad just got a pay rise thanks for shortages it HGV drivers, he isn't complaining. As someone who's moved up into the upper-middle class it means I don't have the liberty to work in other peoples' countries without their permission anymore, but I guess the fact that bothers me just exposes how privileged I am. Most people in my family can't even afford to go aboard on holiday.

Are there any political unions you would oppose out of interest? Could you envision a situation where the economic benefits of a political union may not be worth the risks/costs?