/lit/ - Literature

>>12658884
how you might account for a figure like this is up to you, given that the Code never really got a chance to get into full swing. it's possible that an Imperial France ruling the whole of Europe might have put an entirely different spin on things. it's kind of impossible to know.

the excesses of totalitarianism go back a long way. the ancient Greeks didn't react towards despotism and tyranny the same way we do today, they understood that tyrants and despots were at least good for standardizing weights and measures and other things. but the greatest political that has ever been, which has given people the highest degree of prosperity and freedom is not a totalitarian one, it's the American one, warts and all. it is capitalist af but i don't really see how it could be improved by totalitarianism. Singapore is as authoritarian as it gets but it was also a democratically elected authority, no secret police required. Rwanda appears to be doing considerably better today than it was a decade ago, and they want more capitalism also. Kagame is their absolute leader and he's there because he wants to curb excesses of a different kind.

the Aztecs had effectively totalitarian leaders for centuries, so did the Pharaohs. the Greeks tried some other things and they have a better report card to show for it. Rome grew as a republic and finished as an empire. their change of government was necessary, the system was just getting too large. had they developed something like a more sophisticated system of lending, who knows, maybe they wouldn't have depended on Just Use The Army so much.

we're probably better off not romanticizing the state *too* much, i guess is my feel. even when we feel depressed, and when the aesthetics are second to none.

(cont'd)