My present purpose is to disagree with Poul Anderson's character, Dan Brodersen, who says:
"'...Earth will explode pretty soon. The best result of that would be a kind of Caesar...'"
-Poul Anderson, The Avatar, V, p. 51.
Not the best possible result. When Kornilov tried to lead a military coup in Russia, 1917, railway workers would not move his troops. Any would-be dictator can be arrested or shot by his own men who can then elect recallable leaders from among their own ranks and join forces with similar democratic organizations being formed in other regiments, in industry and in local communities. Such movements have often arisen in response to crises and are potentially the basis of a new kind of society finally free from armed states with their perpetual threat of a revived Caesarism.
Brodersen and I would be on opposite sides during a civil conflict. I fear that he would deploy his considerable social and economic resources to support a new Caesar - who, however, can be disempowered if enough people disobey his orders.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's been a long time since I last read THE AVATAR, but I think you are missing the point Brodersen had in mind. His fear was that conditions on Earth were becoming so bad and unstable that a collapse into chaos and anarchy would occur. My view is that Brodersen believed that the best Earth could hope THEN was some kind of Caesarism. But not necessarily something he PREFERRED.
And compared to the tyranny of Lenin and Stalin, I seriously doubt a plain old non-ideological military dictatorship led by Kornilov (whom I will look up) would have been anywhere nearly as bad as the Soviet regime. If you are going to condemn Kornilov's coup attempt then Lenin's all too successful coup should also be condemned.
Nor do I think mere MECHANISMS like recall elections will ever be much, if any good. They have been tried in the US and failed. Largely because of them used largely to reverse elections lost by a political party. The bias and partisan motivations involved has discredited recall elections.
My view is that of Anderson in Chapter XXI of OPERATION CHAOS: "Freedom is a fine thing, until it becomes somebody else's freedom to enter your house, kill, rob, rape, and enslave the people you care about. Then you'll accept any man on horseback who promises to bring some predictability back into life and you yourself will give him his saber and knout." That is what Brodersen most likely thought would be the best REASONABLY LIKELY outcome for an Earth which had collapsed into chaos.
I'm sorry, Paul, but it seems to me you have a romantic view of politics and "people's power" which is simply not borne out in hard real history and real life. The solutions to our problems are never going to be as neat and tidy as we would like.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I looked up Lavr Kornilov, and, as usual, the real story gets complicated. The Kornilov Affair was actually an attempt by him to SUPPORT the Provisional Gov't at a time when Lenin and his Bolsheviks were maturing their own plans for seizing power. So it would have been better for Russia if Kornilov's efforts to support Kerensky's gov't had succeeded.
Sean
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