10-06-2016, 10:39 PM
(07-03-2016, 06:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(07-03-2016, 10:44 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's remarkable that the Stalin Constitution is heavily a plagiarism of the Constitution of the USA, even to the point of having a weak formal government. The Soviet Union is often understood as the epitome of big, bad government to the extreme -- but of course it was the Party and its boss that held all the power.
It's fashionable for the West to be smug in our victory over Communism, but when the party bosses and those who handle the means of production have their system of winks and nods, it is dismaying how little power can result from even a fine Constitution. I can pretty much agree with your portrayal of the Soviet experiment. I'm not sure, though, that we sufficiently value our own piece of paper.
The contradictions within Soviet Communism destroyed the Soviet system before those within capitalist orders could destroy capitalism.
I predict that this 4T will at best (in America, that is) result in Constitutional Amendments that close the seams. In the old days, people who knew where the seams were were scared to exploit them out of a legitimate fear that others would go further. Now that the politicians are ruthless enough to see only the benefits of political ruthlessness and not the dangers we see the consequences of powerful people exploiting those seams. Maybe our system of geographic representation that allows gerrymandering to select the electorate for whatever people are in power at the time may have been reasonable in 1787, but not now. People know how to play the game. Proportional representation might serve the people of some states far better.
In any event we are approaching the end of the era of necessary scarcity. If Americans are working harder and longer it is not for consumer goodies (which themselves are getting dirt-cheap) but instead for costly, mandatory add-ons like loan-shark interest and economic rent.
Should we have a thoroughly-nasty and destructive war, then the last things to be rebuilt will be the pointless costs (practically private taxes) that will get in the way of physical and institutional reconstruction.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.