tyrants and bad leaders

[BH]

I was reading over the comments in the thread about Fidel Castro's death and it made me wonder about leaders in general. Why does it always seem today and in the past that leaders always end up being bad people and doing bad wicked things?

It seems it does not matter whether it is a capitalist system, a communist system, a fascist system, a mnoarchy or a democracy. We always end up with people in power who do some very bad things, even evil, and never seem to show any remorse.

You do not even have to look to government. Greg Palast made a comment on his website that everytime he investigated a corporation he always found evidence multiple felonies had been committed. You have bad people in leadership in the top posts of business. And I am not picking on the capitalist leaders. There are stories told of big communist factory managers fudging numbers too.

Do we, as regular people, have some sort of defect or blind spot in us where we keep letting shitty people rule over us.

Or, is the honest truth that you have to do shitty things and immoral things as a leader and that I guess you can say is just a rule of reality, just the way it is so to speak. Is there something inherent about leadership and "getting stuff done" and "holding it all together" that requires us to throw legality and morality out the door? Is there a point where common morality is good and useful for the man on the street interacting with other men on the street but once you reach a certain level of power it flips where being evil and bad is good?

Or, is is possible to be a leader and be good and moral and follow the law and the problem is with the public at large perhaps. Perhaps honest and good leaders would require a certain level of sacrifice at times by the public at large just isn't willing to give. For example economic changes makes your country's people poorer than they were before. You could go wage war and conquer another country that would get your country cheaper resources and stop the downward economic spiral somewhat. But this country has done nothing to your country to really justify being warred against. A good leader would just tell his/her people to they would just have to tough the economic times out and we'll have to find other ways to create wealth again. But if many in the public want you to go to war to get the cheap resources what does the leader do? How would a good leader control and neutralize a selfish segment of the public wanting to war just for their own material wealth? And in this case is the problem really the leaders but the public?

 

[skepticalbip]

I was reading over the comments in the thread about Fidel Castro's death and it made me wonder about leaders in general. Why does it always seem today and in the past that leaders always end up being bad people and doing bad wicked things?

It seems it does not matter whether it is a capitalist system, a communist system, a fascist system, a mnoarchy or a democracy. We always end up with people in power who do some very bad things, even evil, and never seem to show any remorse.

Power corrupts.

Also, corrupt people seek power.


ETA:
This was recognized by the founders of the US and the reason they created a system that severely limited the power of those holding governmental office and even included a system of checks and balances intended to insure that governmental power would remain severely limited. Unfortunately, corrupt people in power shortly began ignoring those limits.

 

[barbos]

Power corrupts.

Also, corrupt people seek power.

That's not all. Once they get power they make sure only corrupted ones have access to it. Because it's awfully "inconvenient" to have decent people around.

 

[BH]

I've long suspected that much of our deficit spending was due to not wanting to raise taxes on the voters but the money blown was also a form of legal bribery to various groups and subsections of the population in order to keep the big wopping hulk of a nation held together.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I was reading over the comments in the thread about Fidel Castro's death and it made me wonder about leaders in general. Why does it always seem today and in the past that leaders always end up being bad people and doing bad wicked things?

It seems it does not matter whether it is a capitalist system, a communist system, a fascist system, a mnoarchy or a democracy. We always end up with people in power who do some very bad things, even evil, and never seem to show any remorse.

You do not even have to look to government. Greg Palast made a comment on his website that everytime he investigated a corporation he always found evidence multiple felonies had been committed. You have bad people in leadership in the top posts of business. And I am not picking on the capitalist leaders. There are stories told of big communist factory managers fudging numbers too.

Do we, as regular people, have some sort of defect or blind spot in us where we keep letting shitty people rule over us.

Or, is the honest truth that you have to do shitty things and immoral things as a leader and that I guess you can say is just a rule of reality, just the way it is so to speak. Is there something inherent about leadership and "getting stuff done" and "holding it all together" that requires us to throw legality and morality out the door? Is there a point where common morality is good and useful for the man on the street interacting with other men on the street but once you reach a certain level of power it flips where being evil and bad is good?

Or, is is possible to be a leader and be good and moral and follow the law and the problem is with the public at large perhaps. Perhaps honest and good leaders would require a certain level of sacrifice at times by the public at large just isn't willing to give. For example economic changes makes your country's people poorer than they were before. You could go wage war and conquer another country that would get your country cheaper resources and stop the downward economic spiral somewhat. But this country has done nothing to your country to really justify being warred against. A good leader would just tell his/her people to they would just have to tough the economic times out and we'll have to find other ways to create wealth again. But if many in the public want you to go to war to get the cheap resources what does the leader do? How would a good leader control and neutralize a selfish segment of the public wanting to war just for their own material wealth? And in this case is the problem really the leaders but the public?

1) People doing their jobs is not news. So we're not likely to learn anything about good leaders. They tend to disappear into the background noise of history. They ever only get any recognition when the guy who comes after them is an utter fuck-up.

2) Good leadership is about doing what is necessary. Different times require different measures. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes stability is good. If all individuals rights were respected we wouldn't have any railways today. No ports. No airports. No dams. No nuclear power stations. Also, no revolutions, no wars. Sometimes revolutions and wars are necessary. They're not always fought for resources. The Allies of WW2 fought for freedom (yes, really).

 

[BH]

2) Good leadership is about doing what is necessary. Different times require different measures. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes stability is good. If all individuals rights were respected we wouldn't have any railways today. No ports. No airports. No dams. No nuclear power stations.

The thing is that if you used a completely legal process to obtain the land to build the railroad or ports or dams like emminent domain and the original owners were given just compensation either through money, land in another place, or a combination of the two then I would say no rights were disrespected. The law gave the government the right to take the property with just compensation and the people owning it in the first place knew that their right to the property ended when the government felt it needed to be taken for the greater good. It may have been distasteful to have done it to all involved but no rights were violated nor no injustice committed if the owners were paid fairly.

Also, no revolutions, no wars. Sometimes revolutions and wars are necessary. They're not always fought for resources. The Allies of WW2 fought for freedom (yes, really).

I would agree sometimes good leaders would have to fight a war. The fact there are parasites willing to profit off such or even encourage the war to make money (for the wrong reasons imo) as long as the leader is doing it for the correct moral reasons then he/she are guilty of no moral wrong.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The thing is that if you used a completely legal process to obtain the land to build the railroad or ports or dams like emminent domain and the original owners were given just compensation either through money, land in another place, or a combination of the two then I would say no rights were disrespected.

The compensations are never good enough. Which they of course will never be, since it would be too expensive. The pay-off for society is way down the road which means they don't have the money now.

The law gave the government the right to take the property with just compensation and the people owning it in the first place knew that their right to the property ended when the government felt it needed to be taken for the greater good. It may have been distasteful to have done it to all involved but no rights were violated nor no injustice committed if the owners were paid fairly.

Lol. I'm pretty sure you're unique in holding this opinion. I'm pretty sure that everybody who is targeted for confiscation feels unfairly targeted. I don't think anybody thinks, "oh, well that's fair".

 

[iolo]

You get dictators when vicious enemies threaten the country with destruction, so Napoleon takes over from the Republic, Stalin introduces State Capitalism and the police state in Russia because constantly under attack, and Fidel Castro (at least we are told) turns nasty in old age under constant threat of murder and senseless spiteful blockade, with nasties attempting to turn Cuba back into the Yank brothel it had been under the quisling. Best not to get dictators, but I wish the world knew how.

 

[whichphilosophy]

You get dictators when vicious enemies threaten the country with destruction, so Napoleon takes over from the Republic, Stalin introduces State Capitalism and the police state in Russia because constantly under attack, and Fidel Castro (at least we are told) turns nasty in old age under constant threat of murder and senseless spiteful blockade, with nasties attempting to turn Cuba back into the Yank brothel it had been under the quisling. Best not to get dictators, but I wish the world knew how.

True:
Given the following who can blame Castro for getting a bit stroppy.

Batista was a dictator and Castro replaced him but the US turned a blind eye this.
The Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was brought down in October 1976 for which 3 CIA linked Cuban exiles were convicted.

Since there were hundreds of assassination attempts against him, one could expect him to be a bit stroppy now and again.
He annoyed the Americans by hosting Russian missiles in Cuba; never mind those in Turkey at the time which were however moved silently while Russia pulled its out of Cuba.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fidel-castro-dead-cuban-leader--9338372

A revolutionary the CIA couldn't kill: How Fidel Castro survived '638 assassination attempts' as Cuba's leader.

If the US returns, then perhaps some more brothels will open which would be good for some local traders. There again check ups for the local service industries are free since Castro-Care is free for all unlike Obama-Care which did help many but not all Americans at a high cost. Perhaps Castro-Care could be reviewed by the US government to see if any costs can be reduced without affecting the economy.

If Cuba was not blockaded and talks were held even if over a period of years, then I am sure things.

Oppressing another country only brings out Nationalism as a defensive mechanism with sometimes hard repercussions on spies and dissidents in that country.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You get dictators when vicious enemies threaten the country with destruction, so Napoleon takes over from the Republic, Stalin introduces State Capitalism and the police state in Russia because constantly under attack, and Fidel Castro (at least we are told) turns nasty in old age under constant threat of murder and senseless spiteful blockade, with nasties attempting to turn Cuba back into the Yank brothel it had been under the quisling. Best not to get dictators, but I wish the world knew how.

I'd be even more general. You get dictators in times of great instability. Doesn't have to be vicious enemies that threaten it, even though that is the most common one. But Adolph Hitler and Pinochet came to power because communists were causing trouble and threatening to take over. Those was no external enemy at all. You just need fear to create dictators.

 

[untermensche]

Being a dictator just means having power with no democratic or constitutional means to remove that power.

It says nothing about what one does with that power.

When Castro took power he came to the US and asked for assistance and friendship.

But the US government only cared about private corporate interests in Cuba for some reason.

And the US started a quasi-war against Cuba that lasts to this day.

And many Americans are victims of the propaganda aspects of that quasi-war.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Being a dictator just means having power with no democratic or constitutional means to remove that power.

It says nothing about what one does with that power.

When Castro took power he came to the US and asked for assistance and friendship.

But the US government only cared about private corporate interests in Cuba for some reason.

And the US started a quasi-war against Cuba that lasts to this day.

And many Americans are victims of the propaganda aspects of that quasi-war.

The cold war is often slated in terms of democracy vs totalitarianism, or personal freedoms vs totalitarianism. But it wasn't. It was capitalism vs totalitarian socialism. Capitalism isn't freedom, doesn't necessarily lead to freedom nor democracy. It is often the enemy of personal freedoms. And which why all democratic countries today all have lots of laws curtailing capitalists power.

Neither side in the cold war promoted democracy or personal freedoms, which explains why that was never the result of any of their proxy wars. If USA and the cold war ever was a fight for freedom, we are a bit a light on the evidence. We should stop saying it was.

Castro chose communism because he had to pick one of the two versions of slavery. USA made it quite clear they would only accept continuing Batiasta's policies, which was exactly that which Castro had gone to war to fight against. That clearly wasn't happening. It only gave Castro one option no matter how bad it was. The rest is just Castro's spin. Politics is the art of the possible and Castro was only able to do one single thing, and then it happened. Nobody should have been surprised by that.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You get dictators when vicious enemies threaten the country with destruction, so Napoleon takes over from the Republic, Stalin introduces State Capitalism and the police state in Russia because constantly under attack, and Fidel Castro (at least we are told) turns nasty in old age under constant threat of murder and senseless spiteful blockade, with nasties attempting to turn Cuba back into the Yank brothel it had been under the quisling. Best not to get dictators, but I wish the world knew how.

The cold war is often slated in terms of democracy vs totalitarianism, or personal freedoms vs totalitarianism. But it wasn't. It was capitalism vs totalitarian socialism. Capitalism isn't freedom, doesn't necessarily lead to freedom nor democracy. It is often the enemy of personal freedoms. And which why all democratic countries today all have lots of laws curtailing capitalists power.

Stalin didn't introduce anything resembling capitalism, even hyphenated capitalism. He introduced state socialism.

What the United States represented was Corporatism but was called Capitalism by the woefully uninformed. It was Corporatism vs. Socialism, neither of which has the option of freedom. The leadership of the United States realized that if you tell people it is Capitalism, tell people they are free, and don't loot them quite as badly but let them keep some of their stuff, then they produce more.

 

[iolo]

The cold war is often slated in terms of democracy vs totalitarianism, or personal freedoms vs totalitarianism. But it wasn't. It was capitalism vs totalitarian socialism. Capitalism isn't freedom, doesn't necessarily lead to freedom nor democracy. It is often the enemy of personal freedoms. And which why all democratic countries today all have lots of laws curtailing capitalists power.

Stalin didn't introduce anything resembling capitalism, even hyphenated capitalism. He introduced state socialism.

What the United States represented was Corporatism but was called Capitalism by the woefully uninformed. It was Corporatism vs. Socialism, neither of which has the option of freedom. The leadership of the United States realized that if you tell people it is Capitalism, tell people they are free, and don't loot them quite as badly but let them keep some of their stuff, then they produce more.

You must be an American - socialism means control by the working class: Americans believe, since McCarthy, that it means control by the capitlist state. Stalin turned the country into a big, not-very-efficient firm in the capitalist marked, and introduced a police state to exploit the workers hugely. What you call your profit system is up to you, but without exploiting us it would simply collapse, as you know.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Stalin didn't introduce anything resembling capitalism, even hyphenated capitalism. He introduced state socialism.

What the United States represented was Corporatism but was called Capitalism by the woefully uninformed. It was Corporatism vs. Socialism, neither of which has the option of freedom. The leadership of the United States realized that if you tell people it is Capitalism, tell people they are free, and don't loot them quite as badly but let them keep some of their stuff, then they produce more.

You must be an American - socialism means control by the working class: Americans believe, since McCarthy, that it means control by the capitlist state. Stalin turned the country into a big, not-very-efficient firm in the capitalist marked, and introduced a police state to exploit the workers hugely. What you call your profit system is up to you, but without exploiting us it would simply collapse, as you know.

That's a good point. The "dictatorship of the proletariate" means that those furthest down on the social ladder have the real power. As soon as a worker grabs power and installs himself as a dictator that person belongs to a ruling class and is no longer a proletariate, ie it isn't the "dictatorship of the proletariate". The reason why Marx didn't use the word "democracy" was because democracy back in 1849 usually meant that power rested in the hands of landed and wealthy men. What Marx called the "bourgeoisie". He didn't think that was especially fair.

But to Jason's defence, Marx was a bit hazy on the details. Even though Lenin's and Stalin's definition was idiotic, was perhaps maybe technically within the lines. And, for some bizarre reason, got a lot of traction among leftists all over the world. But I can't for a second believe Marx actually believed that. That would have gone against everything else he said.

 

[iolo]

You must be an American - socialism means control by the working class: Americans believe, since McCarthy, that it means control by the capitlist state. Stalin turned the country into a big, not-very-efficient firm in the capitalist marked, and introduced a police state to exploit the workers hugely. What you call your profit system is up to you, but without exploiting us it would simply collapse, as you know.

That's a good point. The "dictatorship of the proletariate" means that those furthest down on the social ladder have the real power. As soon as a worker grabs power and installs himself as a dictator that person belongs to a ruling class and is no longer a proletariate, ie it isn't the "dictatorship of the proletariate". The reason why Marx didn't use the word "democracy" was because democracy back in 1849 usually meant that power rested in the hands of landed and wealthy men. What Marx called the "bourgeoisie". He didn't think that was especially fair.

But to Jason's defence, Marx was a bit hazy on the details. Even though Lenin's and Stalin's definition was idiotic, was perhaps maybe technically within the lines. And, for some bizarre reason, got a lot of traction among leftists all over the world. But I can't for a second believe Marx actually believed that. That would have gone against everything else he said.

Yes. The reason they got support was, I think, that the social democratic parties in the west almost universally supported the war with its mass slaughter, and showed no signs whatever of taking power. It was 1945 before the Labour Party learned what to do, and they were soon taught to forget if they wanted political careers.

 

[bilby]

I was reading over the comments in the thread about Fidel Castro's death and it made me wonder about leaders in general. Why does it always seem today and in the past that leaders always end up being bad people and doing bad wicked things?

It seems it does not matter whether it is a capitalist system, a communist system, a fascist system, a mnoarchy or a democracy. We always end up with people in power who do some very bad things, even evil, and never seem to show any remorse.

You do not even have to look to government. Greg Palast made a comment on his website that everytime he investigated a corporation he always found evidence multiple felonies had been committed. You have bad people in leadership in the top posts of business. And I am not picking on the capitalist leaders. There are stories told of big communist factory managers fudging numbers too.

Do we, as regular people, have some sort of defect or blind spot in us where we keep letting shitty people rule over us.

Or, is the honest truth that you have to do shitty things and immoral things as a leader and that I guess you can say is just a rule of reality, just the way it is so to speak. Is there something inherent about leadership and "getting stuff done" and "holding it all together" that requires us to throw legality and morality out the door? Is there a point where common morality is good and useful for the man on the street interacting with other men on the street but once you reach a certain level of power it flips where being evil and bad is good?

Or, is is possible to be a leader and be good and moral and follow the law and the problem is with the public at large perhaps. Perhaps honest and good leaders would require a certain level of sacrifice at times by the public at large just isn't willing to give. For example economic changes makes your country's people poorer than they were before. You could go wage war and conquer another country that would get your country cheaper resources and stop the downward economic spiral somewhat. But this country has done nothing to your country to really justify being warred against. A good leader would just tell his/her people to they would just have to tough the economic times out and we'll have to find other ways to create wealth again. But if many in the public want you to go to war to get the cheap resources what does the leader do? How would a good leader control and neutralize a selfish segment of the public wanting to war just for their own material wealth? And in this case is the problem really the leaders but the public?

1) People doing their jobs is not news. So we're not likely to learn anything about good leaders. They tend to disappear into the background noise of history. They ever only get any recognition when the guy who comes after them is an utter fuck-up.

2) Good leadership is about doing what is necessary. Different times require different measures. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes stability is good. If all individuals rights were respected we wouldn't have any railways today. No ports. No airports. No dams. No nuclear power stations. Also, no revolutions, no wars. Sometimes revolutions and wars are necessary. They're not always fought for resources. The Allies of WW2 fought for freedom (yes, really).

Stalin didn't. And the Soviets were by FAR the largest, most effective, and most committed of the allies in the European theatre. The Americans and British only invaded Hitler's Europe after it had become clear that the Reds were going to beat the Fascists. Their role in Hitler's downfall was to determine the rough position of the post-war Iron Curtain. They shortened the war a little, but likely not much.

Meanwhile, the big winners in the Eastern theatre were the Chinese Communists under Mao. They weren't exactly fighting for freedom either. Of course the heavy lifting in that theatre was done by the USA - but they didn't care enough about freedom to go to war with Imperial Japan until the conflict had been underway for almost four and a half years. They weren't fighting for freedom, they were fighting for revenge after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Socialism as an economic system divorced from the political aspect simply means collective ownership of the means of production. It its undefined dream form it means the workers themselves in some undefined manner. In practical application that collective ownership is exercised through the government.

Stalin didn't introduce any sort of capitalism, even hyphenated capitalism.

 

[BH]

I do not know what to say about the early Marxists except they did believe the workers would themselves have to take over and run the economy and means of production themselves. I have only read a paltry 60 books Marx and the early socialists aligned with him had written between say 1840 to 1910, pre-bolshevik Russian period, and need to read up much much more. I cannot say I have read a lot about how the early Marxian socialists believed the workers would run the economy or plan it out. A lot of the work of the early Socialists from what I can tell was trying to get a lot of the "intellectual baby steps" out of the way. They concentrated on teaching workers how to read and write and the basics of the economics in order to understand the situation they the workers found themselves in and why it was bad and how it could possibly be different. They also had to fight the oppression of women and get them where they were not willing to settle for their husbands coming home drunk and beating them. They had to teach and build a desire in women to want to go to school and be educated, to desire to vote, run for office ect. I will say I have read enough to say that Marx and his associates did do a lot of good for the world overall even if they didn't and havent quite pulled off their worker's dictatorship yet---they did provide an impetus and solid support for such things as women's rights, helping the Union during the US civil war and destroying slavery by putting pressure on European powers not to recognize the Confederacy, childhood pedalogical reform, medical clinic reforms, and so forth.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Socialism as an economic system divorced from the political aspect simply means collective ownership of the means of production. It its undefined dream form it means the workers themselves in some undefined manner. In practical application that collective ownership is exercised through the government.

Context! Also bullshit. Marx was an anarchist. This means that there is no government with which to exercise control. So that would be difficult. The "collective ownership of the means of production" is an incredibly vague statement. Besides saying a lot of clever things, Marx also said a lot of not-so-clever things. This belongs to the later category. He also vacillated when pressed on it. I doubt he himself really knew. It was pithy, and that's why he said it. The whole Communist Manifesto is pithy, rather than being a rigorous political theory. He had the insight that to communicate to uneducated workers one needed to appeal to emotion rather than reason. That's why the Manifesto is written the way it is. If you want to learn the full theory you've got to read other stuff. Das Kapital is usually a good starter.

Since Marx the terms socialism and communism have gotten a life of their own. They used to be synonyms, but even within Marx's own lifetime the words drifted apart, where socialists were the moderates and reformists. The people who labelled themselves socialists have most often treated the "collective ownership of the means of production" as a justification to tax capital and natural resource extraction. And that's all. Which is pretty innocuous IMHO. Also good for the economy since it incentivizes re-investment = everybody wins.