51–60 of 210 posts
I read an article a while ago that showed a correlation between the violent crimes per capita and how close to the equator that country was. Basically, the hotter the climate, the more crime.
> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a de facto dictatorship then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy, or personal transfer of power, someday. people want him to be dictator for life and he seems to be loved enough to receive it. democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to ma…
> democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional What makes El Salvador a “country like this” that is incompatible with democracy as compared to other countries
In a monarchy, long term interests win out over short term interests because they're dynastic and stay within a family. There is a natural incentive for long term thinking that comes with a monarchy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is absolutely not my experience or the experience of many people I know that have traveled in the region. Latin America is great but the safety concerns are real.
I've lived in Guatemala for 4.5 years (I'm from the US) and traveled in every country in Central America, and have had only positive experiences. Guatemala is a great country, but difficult for local people because it's hard to make good money. The violence problems are real, but much safer than its reputation, in my opinion.
I wouldn't let fears of crime discourage anyone from visiting Latin America but compared to many other parts of the world you need to be much more aware of what's going on around you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral go…
This is not true. Japan and South Korea both experienced the majority of their growth as democracies. Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR. Chile experienced most of its growth after Pinochet. India is the largest Democracy on earth and it is growing at a very fast clip. That being said, there simply aren’t very many countries and even less ones that made the successful leap to rich world status re…
The dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for most of the post-war period has led to critiques regarding the vibrancy of political competition and the effective functioning of democracy.
The chaebols, those massive family-run conglomerates, have essentially been the architects behind South Korea's economic renaissance since the '60s. Think Samsung, Hyundai, LG - these giants spearheaded the transformation from a post-war economy to an industrial powerhouse, under the guidance of policies favoring heavy industrialization and export-led growth. It's fascinating to see how the government played matchmaker here, doling out financial support and monopolistic privileges like candy at a parade. This strategic play birthed the "Miracle on the Han River," flipping the script from poverty to prosperity.
But, as with all tales of meteoric rise, there's a darker subplot. The symbiosis between the chaebols and political elites isn't all roses. Issues of corruption, nepotism, and economic dominance cloud this success story, leading to a wave of calls for corporate governance reform and efforts to dilute their power.
On a different note, South Korea's journey to democracy is a saga of its own. Decades of authoritarian rule gave way in the late '80s, thanks to the collective might of students, intellectuals, and labor activists. The June Democratic Uprising in '87 was a game-changer, forcing the military regime's hand to pave the way for democratic reforms and the country's first free presidential election later that year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. The failures (USSR, Republic of China for example) where democracy doesn't take on a wide scale are probably also interesting studies. The key problem in setting up a democracy is…
Re: France and the United States, you have the timeline mixed up a bit. France & the French intellectuals of course played a large role in the American revolution, but it was America that became a democracy first. Lafayette, one of the key players in the French Revolution, served under Washington and lead troops in the US before coming back to France and playing a key role in the founding of the First Republic.
On the other hand, Britain itself was already fairly democratic by 1776, and the thirteen colonies had their own representative government institutions. The point of complaint was that the British were simply ignoring those institutions and flagrantly violating the traditional rights that Englishmen were entitled to. And a lot of the British were sympathetic to this viewpoint so there wasn’t the political capital to crack down on the rebellion as harshly as Britain would do in various other colonies at other points in time.
And aside from Lafayette, the French monarchy—the same absolute monarchy the Revolution sought to overthrow—was the regime that supported American independence, mostly out of “enemy of my enemy is my friend” considerations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral go…
This is not true. Japan and South Korea both experienced the majority of their growth as democracies. Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR. Chile experienced most of its growth after Pinochet. India is the largest Democracy on earth and it is growing at a very fast clip. That being said, there simply aren’t very many countries and even less ones that made the successful leap to rich world status re…
The Balkans maybe don't count as Eastern Europe, but before ww2 we were predominantly agrarian. 75% of the population worked on farms[1]. By the 1970's Yugoslavia was a modern industrial economy with all the accoutrements you would expect from a European nation (power, sanitation, roads, etc). Only 29% of the population worked on farms[2].
Then in early 1990's the country fell apart, democracies came out of the ashes, and by 2004 the first bits of former Yugoslavia started joining the EU and NATO[3]. Overall a great success.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia#Farming [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Feder... [3] https://www.gov.si/en/topics/slovenia-as-an-eu-member-state/
> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a de facto dictatorship then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy, or personal transfer of power, someday. people want him to be dictator for life and he seems to be loved enough to receive it. democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to ma…
As a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral go…
And then in the late phases you stagnate and get overthrown. Am I right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional What makes El Salvador a “country like this” that is incompatible with democracy as compared to other countries
In a democracy, over the long term, short term interests win out over long term interests. This is true of both the citizens and the politicians. In a monarchy, long term interests win out over short term interests because they're dynastic and stay within a family. There is a natural incentive for long term thinking that comes with a monarchy.